This commission must decide what Germany
can pay each year, and must see that her payments, added to the
budget, fall upon her taxpayers at least to the extent of the allied
country most heavily taxed. Its decisions shall be carried out
immediately and receive immediate application, without any other
formality. The commission can effect all the changes deemed necessary
in the German laws and regulations, as well as all the sanctions,
whether of a financial, economic or military nature arising from
established violations of the clauses put under its control. And
Germany is obliged not to consider these "sanctions" as hostile acts.
In order to guarantee the payments an inter-allied army--in reality
a Franco-Belgian army--occupies the left bank of the Rhine, and is
stationed at the bridgeheads. Germany is completely helpless, and has
lost all the features of a sovereign State inasmuch as she is subject
to "controls" in a way that Turkey never was. In modern history we can
find no parallel for this state of things. These are conditions
which alter the very bases of civilization and the relations between
peoples.
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