In these conditions she must not only nourish her vast population, not
only produce sufficient to prevent her from falling into misery,
but must also pay an indemnity which fertile fantasies have made a
deceived Europe believe should amount even to 350 milliards of gold
marks, and which even now is supposed by seemingly reasonable people
to be able to surpass easily the sum of a hundred milliards.
Could France or Italy, by any kind of sacrifice, have paid any
indemnities after ending the War? Germany has not only to live and
make reparation, but to maintain an inter-allied army of occupation
and the heavy machinery of the Reparations Commission, and must
prepare to pay an indemnity for thirty years. France and Italy have
preserved their colonies (Italy's do not amount to much), their
mercantile fleets (which have much increased), their foreign
organization. Germany, without any of these things, is to find herself
able to pay an indemnity which a brazen-faced and ignorant Press
deceived the public into believing could amount to twenty or
twenty-five milliards a year.
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