What can she give now?
Germany can pay in three ways only:
1. Merchandise and food products on account of the indemnity: coal,
machines, chemical products, etc.
2. Credits abroad coming from the sale of merchandise. If Germany
exports, that is sells eight milliard marks' worth of goods abroad,
she pays two milliards to the Reparations Commission.
3. Property of private citizens. Germany can enslave herself, ceding
the property of her private citizens to foreign States or citizens to
be disposed of as they wish.
Excluding this last form, which would constitute slavery pure and
simple, as useless, as impossible, and calculated to parallel the
methods in use among barbarous peoples, there only remain the first
two methods of payment which we will examine briefly.
It must be remembered that Germany, even before the War, was in
difficulties for insufficient avenues of development, given the
restricted nature of her territory and the exuberance of her
population. Her territory, smaller than that of France and much less
fertile, must now nourish a population which stands to that of France
as three to two.
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