22

A REVISION OF THE TREATY

CHAP.

time ? This view of the situation prevailed, and anultimatum was conveyed to Germany on the followinglines. 1

The Eeparation payments, proposed to Germany bythe Paris Conference, were made up of a determinatepart and an indeterminate part. The former con-sisted of £100,000,000 per annum for two years,£150,000,000 for the next three, then £200,000,000 forthree more, and £250,000,000 for three after that, and,finally, £300,000,000 annually for 31 years, all thesefigures being in terms of gold. The latter (the in-determinate part) consisted of an annual sum, addi-tional to the above, equal in value to 12 per cent ofthe German exports. The fixed payments under thisscheme added up to a gross total of £11,300,000,000,which was a little less than the gross total contem-plated at Boulogne, but, with the export proportionadded, a far greater sum.

The indeterminate element renders impossible anexact calculation of this burden, and it is no longerworth while to go into details. But I calculated atthe time, without contradiction, that these proposalsamounted for the normal period to a demand exceed-ing £400,000,000 per annum, which is double thehighest figure that any competent person here or inthe United States has ever attempted to justify.

The Paris Decisions, however, coming as they didafter the discussions of Boulogne and Brussels , were

1 The text of these Decisions is given in Appendix No. II.