PART I
THE TREATY OF PEACE
53
not so much by selling more as by buying less.The farmers of the United States would suffermore than the manufacturers; if only becauseincreased imports can be kept out by a tariff,whilst there is no such easy way of stimulatingdiminished exports. It is, however, a curiousfact that whilst Wall Street and the manufac-turing East are prepared to consider a modifica-tion of the debts, the Middle West and Southis reported (I write ignorantly) to be deadagainst it. For two years Germany was notrequired to pay cash to the Allies , and duringthat period the manufacturers of Great Britain were quite blind to what the consequenceswould be to themselves when the paymentsactually began. The Allies have not yet beenrequired to begin to pay cash to the UnitedStates , and the farmers of the latter are still asblind as were the British manufacturers to theinjuries they will suffer if the Allies ever tryseriously to pay in full.
The decisive argument, however, for theUnited States, as for Great Britain , is not thedamage to particular interests (which woulddiminish with time), but the unlikelihood ofpermanence in the exaction of the debts, evenif they were paid for a short period. I say this,not only because I doubt the ability of theEuropean Allies to pay, but because of the greatdifficulty of the problem which the UnitedStates has before her in any case in balancingher commercial account with the Old World.