be dependent on her Treaty rights to purchase in Upper Silesia), if she is to continue as an industrial nation.  Every million tons she is forced to export must be at the expense of closing down an industry.  With results to be considered later this within certain limits is possible.  But it is evident that Germany cannot and will not furnish the Allies with a contribution of 40,000,000 tons annually.  Those Allied Ministers, who have told their peoples that she can, have certainly deceived them for the sake of allaying for the moment the misgivings of the European peoples as to the path along which they are being led.

The presence of these illusory provisions (amongst others) in the clauses of the Treaty of Peace is especially charged with danger for the future.  The more extravagant expectations as to Reparation receipts, by which Finance Ministers have deceived their publics, will be heard of no more when they have served their immediate purpose of postponing the hour of taxation and retrenchment.  But the coal clauses will not be lost sight of so easily,—­for the reason that it will be absolutely vital in the interests of France and Italy that these countries should do everything in their power to exact their bond.  As a result of the diminished output due to German destruction in France, of the diminished output of mines in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and of many secondary causes, such as the breakdown of transport and of organization and the inefficiency of new governments, the coal position of all Europe is nearly desperate;[48] and France and Italy, entering the scramble with certain Treaty rights, will not lightly surrender them.

As is generally the case in real dilemmas, the French and Italian case will possess great force, indeed unanswerable force from a certain point of view.  The position will be truly represented as a question between German industry on the one hand and French and Italian industry on the other.  It may be admitted that the surrender of the coal will destroy German industry, but it may be equally true that its non-surrender will jeopardize French and Italian industry.  In such a case must not the victors with their Treaty rights prevail, especially when much of the damage has been ultimately due to the wicked acts of those who are now defeated?  Yet if these feelings and these rights are allowed to prevail beyond what wisdom would recommend, the reactions on the social and economic life of Central Europe will be far too strong to be confined within their original limits.

But this is not yet the whole problem.  If France and Italy are to make good their own deficiencies in coal from the output of Germany, then Northern Europe, Switzerland, and Austria, which previously drew their coal in large part from Germany’s exportable surplus, must be starved of their supplies.  Before the war 13,600,000 tons of Germany’s coal exports went to Austria-Hungary.  Inasmuch as nearly all the coalfields of the former Empire lie