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The figure bore the appearance of great antiquity, but had evidently been often repaired and renovated since its first formation. The workmanship was clearly of different eras, and the reparations, either from ignorance or intention, had often been effected with little deference to the original design.
Our actions in the recent months have greatly strengthened the American policy of permanent peace with independence. The attitude which our Government took and maintained toward an adjustment of European reparations, by pointing out that it wits not a political but a business problem, has demonstrated its wisdom by its actual results.
In view of the promises of Clemenceau and Lloyd George that Germany should pay the cost of the war, the question of reparations was an exceedingly difficult one to adjust. President Wilson stoutly opposed the inclusion of war costs as contrary to the pre-Armistice agreement, and Lloyd George and Clemenceau finally had to give in.
This is certainly very true. By the time the Germans have made the reparations, which will involve so much rebuilding in Belgium and in the parts of France that they have overrun and swept clean of industrial plant, and have in other respects made good the damage which their ruthless and uncivilised methods of warfare have inflicted, not only on their enemies, but on neutrals, it does not seem likely that they will have much to spare for capital expansion in foreign countries, especially when we consider how many problems of reconstruction they will themselves have to face at home.
Directly we put the panic-massacres of Dinant and Louvain, the crime of the Lusitania and so on into the category of symptoms rather than essentials, outrages that call for special punishments and reparations, but that do not enter further into the ultimate settlement, we can begin to conceive a possible world treaty. Let me state the broad outlines of this pacification.
From the first the American delegates and experts were in favor of fixing definitely the amount that Germany was to pay in the way of reparations and settling this question once for all. They hoped to agree upon a sum which it was within Germany's power to pay.
Further to the east lay the great unsettled problem of Russia. But the most obvious flaws in the treaty are to be found in the economic clauses. It was a mistake to compel Germany to sign a blank check in the matter of reparations. Germany and the world needed to know the exact amount that was to be paid, in order that international commerce might be set upon a stable basis.
On returning to the inn, Dr. Hazeldean received a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did not shoot, lived in great seclusion, and, having no family, did not care about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made weather- proof, if the omission of more expensive reparations could render the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited.
There will be plaster to mend; so, before painting, he will get a plasterer. There will be a slater wanted; he has just to get a slater's estimate, and a wright's, and so forth, and when all is done, he will lay them before the session and the heritors, who, no doubt, will direct the reparations to go forward."
Germany was required to acknowledge full liability, and the total sum which she might theoretically have to pay was reckoned by a British expert as between thirty-two and forty-four billions. The Reparations Commission, however, was given the power to recommend abatements as well as increased payments; upon the wisdom of its members the practical application of the treaty would obviously depend.
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