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THE TREATY OF PEACE

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yet it would destroy our diplomatic authorityas a moderator between France and Germany .The Foreign Office would have sold its influencefor a mess of pottage which the Treasury wouldnever taste.

The Balfour Note, therefore, is bad in prin-ciple. There can be no working settlementexcept on the exactly opposite principle, namelythat the less Germany pays, the less France shallpay. The amount of France’ s payment mustvary in the same direction as Germany’ s, notin the opposite direction. This was the prin-ciple of the suggestion, which I offered recently,by which France’ s payment should be a pro-portion of her receipts from Germany. Accord-ing to current report, France herself has putforward just this principle through the mouthof M. Clementel. I suggested that the propor-tion be one-third. M. Clementel’s reportedoffer would amount, on the assumption that theUnited States got the same terms, to about halfmy figure. But it does not follow that he wouldnot offer more to obtain a settlement on theselines.

Such a settlement would increase, instead ofdiminishing, the interest of ourselves and theUnited States in the Dawes Scheme. Weshould have, between us, a bigger interest thanFrance. We might, in this way, obtain amoderate contribution towards our American debt, corresponding to that part of it which wecontracted, indirectly, on French account. Weshould certainly place ourselves in a strong

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