A REVISION OF THE TREATY
CHAP.
a wound, the effects of which persist after he hasleft the Army, is damage done to a civilian. 1 Thisis the argument by which " damage done to thecivilian population " came to include damage doneto soldiers. This is the argument on which, in theend, our case was based! For at this straw thePresident's conscience clutched, and the matter wassettled.
It had been settled in the privacy of the Four.I will give the final scene in the words of Mr. Lamont,one of the American delegates : 2
" I well remember the day upon which Presi-dent Wilson determined to support the inclusionof pensions in the Eeparation Bill. Some of uswere gathered in his library in the Place desEtats-Unis, having been summoned by him todiscuss this particular question of pensions.We explained to him that we couldn't finda single lawyer in the American Delegation
1 The following is the salient passage of the Memorandum : " Afterthe soldier's discharge as unfit he rejoins the civilian population, and as forthe future he cannot (in whole or in part) earn his own livelihood, he issuffering damage as a member of the civilian population, for which theGerman Government are again liable to make compensation. In otherwords, the pension for disablement which he draws from the French Govern-ment is really a liability of the German Government, which they must underthe above reservation make good to the French Government. It could notbe argued that as he was disabled while a soldier he does not suffer damageas a civilian after his discharge if he is unfit to do his ordinary work. Hedoes literally suffer as civilian after his discharge, and his pension is intendedto make good this damage, and is therefore a liability of the German Government."