y years hence the German population totals
eighty million or more, will not their attitude and their sentiment
toward their neighbors constitute an all-important element of European
tranquillity and will not the trend of these be to a large extent the
outcome of the Allies' policy of to-day? The present, therefore, is the
time for the delegates to deprive that sentiment of its venomous,
anti-Allied sting, not by renouncing any of their countries' rights, but
by respecting those of others.

That was the reasoning of those who believed that national striving
should be subordinated to the general good, and that the present time
and its aspirations should be considered in strict relation to the
future of the whole community of nations. They further contended that
while Germany deserved to suffer condignly for the heinous crimes of
unchaining the war and waging it ruthlessly, as many of her own people
confessed, she should not be wholly crippled or enthralled in the hope
that she would be rendered thereby impotent forever. Such hope was vain.
With her waxing strength her desire of vengeance would grow, and
together with it the means of wreaking it. She might yet knead Russia
into such a shape as would make that Slav people a serviceable
instrument of revenge, and her endeavors might conceivably extend
farther than Russia. The one-sided resettlement of Europe charged with
explosives of such incalculable force would frustrate the most elaborate
attempts to create not only a real league of nations, but even such a
rough approximation toward one as might in time and under favorable
circumstances develop into a trustworthy war preventive. They concluded
that a league of nations would be worse than useless if transformed into
a weapon to be wielded by one group of nations against another, or as an
artificial makeshift for dispensing peoples from the observance of
natural laws.

At the same time all the governments of the Allies were sincere and
unanimous in their desire to do everything possible to show their
appreciation of France's heroism, to recognize the vastness of her
sacrifices, and to pay their debt of gratitude for her services to
humanity. All were actuated by a resolve to contribute in the measure of
the possible to compensate her for such losses as were still reparable
and to safeguard her against the recurrence of the ordeal from which she
had escaped terribly scathed. The only limits they admitted to this
work of