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A REVISION OF THE TREATY

CH. VII

which would automatically absorb year by year what-ever surplus there was; should we be wise to demandit ? The project of extracting at the point of thebayonet—for that is what it would mean—a paymentso heavy that it would never be paid voluntarily,and to go on doing this until all the makers of the PeaceTreaty of Versailles have been long dead and buried intheir local Valhallas, is neither good nor sensible.

My own proposals, moderate though they may seemin comparison with others, throw on Germany a verygreat burden. They procure for France an enor-mous benefit. Frenchmen, having fed to satiety onimaginary figures, are nearly ready, I think, to finda surprising flavour and piquancy in real ones. Letthem consider what a tremendous financial strengthmy scheme would give them. Freed from externaldebt, they would receive in real values each year forthirty years a payment equivalent in gold to nearlyhalf the gold reserve now held by the Bank of France ;and at the end of the set period Germany wouldhave paid back ten times what she took after 1870.

Is it for Englishmen to complain ? Are theyreally losers ? One cannot cast up a balance-sheetbetween incommensurables. But peace and amitymight be won for Europe . And England is only asked(as I fancy she knows pretty well, by now, in herbones) to give up something which she will never getanyhow. The alternative is that we and the UnitedStates will be jockeyed out of our claims amidst ageneral international disgust.