in THE BURDEN OF THE LONDON SETTLEMENT 65

the annual value of Germany 's exports would have torise to the improbable figure of 24 milliard gold marksbefore she would be liable for so much as this. Aswe shall see below, the probable burden of the newsettlement in the near future is probably not muchmore than half that of the Treaty .

There is another important respect in which thedemands of the Treaty are much abated. The Treaty included a crushing provision by which the part ofGermany 's nominal liability on which she was notable to pay interest in the early years was to accumu-late at compound interest. 1 There is no such pro-vision in the new scheme; the C Bonds are not tocarry interest until the receipts from Germany areadequate to meet their service ; and the only pro-vision relating to back interest is for the payment ofsimple interest in the event of there being a surplusout of the receipts.

In order to understand how great an advance thissettlement represented it is necessary to carry ourminds back to the ideas which were prevalent notvery long ago. The' following table is interesting,in which, in order to reduce capital sums and annualpayments to a common basis of comparison, estimatesin terms of capital sums are replaced by annuities of6 per cent of their amount:

1 The effect of this provision is discussed in The Economic Consequencesof the Peace, pp. 152-154.

V