VII

REMEDIES

259

make the following comparison :—Excluding loansto Allies in each case (as is right on the assumptionthat these loans are to be repaid), the war expendi-ture of the United Kingdom has been about threetimes that of the United States , or in proportion tocapacity between seven and eight times.

Having cleared this issue out of the way asbriefly as possible, I turn to the broader issues ofthe future relations between the parties to the latewar, by which the present proposal must primarilybe judged.

Failing such a settlement as is now proposed, thewar will have ended with a network of heavy tributepayable from one Ally to another. The total amountof this tribute is even likely to exceed the amountobtainable from the enemy; and the war will haveended with the intolerable result of the Allies payingindemnities to one another instead of receiving themfrom the enemy.

For this reason the question of Inter-Allied in-debtedness is closely bound up with the intensepopular feeling amongst the European Allies on thequestion of indemnities,—a feeling which is based, noton any reasonable calculation of what Germany can,in fact, pay, but on a well-founded appreciation ofthe unbearable financial situation in which thesecountries will find themselves unless she pays. TakeItaly as an extreme example. If Italy can reason-ably be expected to pay £800,000,000, surely