34

ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

the war will have ended with a network of heavytribute payable from one Ally to another. Thetotal amount of this tribute is even likely toexceed the amount obtainable from the enemy,and the war will have ended with the intoler-able result of the Allies paying indemnities toone another instead of receiving them from theenemy.

For this reason the question of Inter-Alliedindebtedness is closely bound up with theintense popular feeling amongst the EuropeanAllies on the question of indemnities,—a feel-ing which is based, not on any reasonablecalculation of what Germany can, in fact, pay,but on a well-founded appreciation of the un-bearable financial situation in which thesecountries will find themselves unless she pays.Take Italy as an extreme example. If Italy canreasonably be expected to pay ^800,000,000,surely Germany can and ought to pay an im-measurably higher figure. Or if it is decided(as it must be) that Austria can pay next tonothing, is it not an intolerable conclusion thatItaly should be loaded with a crushing tribute,while Austria escapes? Or, to put it slightlydifferently, how can Italy be expected to submitto payment of this great sum and see Czecho-slovakia pay little or nothing? At the otherend of the scale there is the United Kingdom .Here the financial position is different, since toask us to pay ^800,000,000 is a very differentproposition from asking Italy to pay it. Butthe sentiment is much the same. If we have