Ill THE BURDEN OE THE LONDON SETTLEMENT 79

on a different aspect when, instead of being expressedin terms of milliards and as a liability of the transitoryabstraction, it is translated into a demand for a definitesum from a specific individual. This stage is not yetreached, and until it is reached the full intrinsic diffi-culty will not be felt. For at this stage the struggleceases to be primarily one between the Allies and theGerman Government and becomes a struggle betweendifferent sections and classes of Germans . The strugglewill be bitter and violent, for it will present itself to eachof the contesting interests as an affair of life and death.The most powerful influences and motives of self-interest and self-preservation will be engaged. Con-flicting conceptions of the end and nature of Societywill be ranged in conflict. A Government which makesa serious attempt to cover its liabilities will inevitablyfall from power.

(3) What relation do the demands bear to the thirdtest of capacity, the present income of the German people ? A burden of 70 milliard paper marks (if wemay, provisionally, adopt that figure as the basisof our calculations) amounts, since the population isnow about 60 millions, to 1170 marks per head forevery man, woman, and child.

The great changes in money values have made itdifficult, in all countries, to obtain estimates of thenational income in terms of money under the newconditions. The Brussels Conference of 1920, on thebasis of inquiries made in 1919 and at the beginning