n FROM THE TREATY TO CONFERENCE OF LONDON 39

understood in England or in America how deep awound has been inflicted on Germany 's self-respectby compelling her, not merely to perform acts, butto subscribe to beliefs which she did not in factaccept. It is not usual in civilised countries to useforce to compel wrongdoers to confess, even when weare convinced of their guilt; it is still more barbarousto use force, after the fashion of inquisitors, tocompel adherence to an article of belief because weourselves believe it. Yet towards Germany the Allies had appeared to adopt this base and injurious prac-tice, and had enforced on this people at the point ofthe bayonet the final humiliation of reciting, throughthe mouths of their representatives, what they believedto be untrue.

But in the Second Ultimatum of London the Allies were no longer in this fanatical mood, and no suchrequirement was intended. I hoped, therefore, atthe time that Germany would accept the notificationof the Allies and do her best to obey it, trusting thatthe whole world is not unreasonable and unjust,whatever the newspapers may say; that Time is ahealer and an illuminator; and that we had still towait a little before Europe and the United States could accomplish in wisdom and mercy the economicsettlement of the war.