What constituted the great productive force of the German people was not only its capacity to work, but the industrial organization which she had created with fifty years of effort at home and abroad with many sacrifices.  Now Germany has not only lost 8 per cent. of her population, but 25 per cent. of her territory, from which cereals and potatoes were produced, and 10 to 12 per cent. of her live stock, etc.  We have already seen the enormous losses sustained by Germany in coal, iron and potash.

The most intelligent and able working classes, created by the most patient efforts, have been reduced to the state of becoming revolutionary elements.  By taking away from Germany at a stroke her mercantile marine, about 60,000 sailors have been thrown on the streets and their skill made useless.

Germany, therefore, impoverished in her agricultural territory, deprived of a good part of her raw materials, with a population weakened in its productive qualities, has lost a good part of her productive capacity because all her organization abroad has been broken, and everything which served as a means of exchange of products, such as her mercantile fleet, has been destroyed.  Moreover, Germany encounters everywhere obstacles and diffidence.  Impeded from developing herself on the seas, held up to ridicule by the absurd corridor of Danzig, whereby there is a Polish State in German territory, she cannot help seeking life and raw materials in Russia.

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.

Taking by chance Helferich’s book, which valued the annual capitalization at ten milliards, the difference between an annual production of forty-three milliards and a consumption of thirty-three milliards, inexpert persons have said that Germany can pay without difficulty ten milliards, plus a premium on her exports, plus a sufficient quantity of goods and products.

One becomes humiliated when one sees newspapers of serious reputation and politicians deemed not to be unimportant reasoning in language so false.