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ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

lent about twice as much as she has borrowed.France has borrowed about three times asmuch as she has lent. The other Allies havebeen borrowers only.

If all the above Inter-Ally indebtednesswere mutually forgiven, the net result onpaper ( i.e . assuming all the loans to be good)would be a surrender by the United States ofabout £2,000,000,000 and by the UnitedKingdom of about £900,000,000. France would gain about £700,000,000 and Italy about £800,000,000. But these figures over-state the loss to the United Kingdom andunderstate the gain to France ; for a largepart of the loans made by both these countrieshas been to Russia and cannot, by any stretchof imagination, be considered good. If theloans which the United Kingdom has made toher Allies are reckoned to be worth 50 percent of their full value (an arbitrary but con-venient assumption which the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer has adopted on more than oneoccasion as being as good as any other for thepurposes of an approximate national balancesheet), the operation would involve her neitherin loss nor in gain. But in whatever way thenet result is calculated on paper, the reliefin anxiety which such a liquidation of theposition would carry with it would be verygreat. It is from the United States , therefore,that the proposal asks generosity.

Speaking with a very intimate knowledge ofthe relations throughout the war between the