ii FROM THE TREATY TO CONFERENCE OF LONDON 25

opinion will never forget these figures. Now it isimpossible to return to the Seydoux plan put forwardat Brussels (i.e. a provisional settlement for fiveyears), for the German people would always seeenormous demands rising before them like a spectre.. . . We shall rather accept unjust dictation thansign undertakings we are not firmly persuaded theGerman people can keep."

On March 1, 1921, Dr. Simons presented hiscounter-proposal to the Allies assembled in London .Like the original counter - proposal of Brockdorff-Rantzau at Versailles, it was not clear-cut or entirelyintelligible ; and it was rumoured that the German experts were divided in opinion amongst themselves.Instead of stating in plain language what Germany thought she could perform, Dr. Simons started fromthe figures of the Paris Decisions and then proceededby transparent and futile juggling to reduce them toa quite different figure. The process was as follows.Take the gross total of the fixed annuities of theParis scheme (i.e. apart from the export proportion),namely £11,300,000,000, and calculate its presentvalue at 8 per cent interest, namely £2,500,000,000;deduct from this £1,000,000,000 as the alleged (butcertainly not the actual) value of Germany 's deliveriesup to date, which leaves £1,500,000,000. This wasthe utmost Germany could pay. If the Allies couldraise an international loan of £400,000,000, Germany would pay the interest and sinking fund on this, and