16 A REVISION OF THE TREATY chap.

It was reported that on this occasion the Allies got sofar as definitely to agree on the principle of minimumannuities extensible in accordance with Germany 'seconomic revival. Definite figures even were men-tioned, namely, a period of thirty-five years andminimum annuities of three milliard gold marks.The Spa Conference was again put off into the nextmonth.

At last the Spa meeting was really due. Againthe Premiers met (Brussels, July 2-3, 1920) toconsider the course they would adopt. They dis-cussed many things, especially the proportions inwhich the still hypothetical Eeparation receipts were tobe divided amongst the claimants. 1 But no concretescheme was adopted for Eeparation itself. Mean-while a memorandum handed in by the German ex-perts made it plain that no plan politically possible inFrance was economically possible in Germany. " TheNote of the German economic experts," wrote TheTimes on July 3, 1920, " is tantamount to a demandfor a complete revision of the Peace Treaty. TheAllies have therefore to consider whether they will callthe Germans sharply to order under the menace ofdefinite sanctions, or whether they will risk creatingthe impression of feebleness by dallying with Germantergiversations." This was a good idea; if theAllies could not agree amongst themselves as to theprecise way of altering the Treaty, a " complete

1 See Excursus VI.