reparation were furnished by the aim itself and by the means of
attaining it. Thus Messrs. Wilson and Lloyd George held that to
incorporate in renovated France millions or even hundreds of thousands
of Germans would be to introduce into the political organism the germs
of fell disease, and on this ground they firmly refused to sanction the
Rhine frontier, which the French were thus obliged to relinquish. The
French delegates themselves admitted that if granted it could not be
held without a powerful body of international troops ever at the beck
and call of the Republic, vigilantly keeping watch and ward on the banks
of the Rhine and with no reasonable prospect of a term to this
servitude. For the real ground of this dependence upon foreign forces is
the disproportion between the populations of Germany and France and
between the resources of the two nations. The ratio of the former is at
present about six to four and it is growing perceptibly toward seven to
four. The organizing capacity in commerce and industry is said to be
even greater. If, therefore, France cannot stand alone to-day, still
less could she stand alone in ten or fifteen years, and the necessity of
protecting her against aggression, assuming that the German people does
not become reconciled to its status of forced inferiority, would be more
urgent and less practicable with the lapse of time. For, as we saw, it
is largely a question of the birth-rate. And as neither the British nor
the American people, deeply though they are attached to their gallant
comrades in arms, would consent to this arrangement, which to them would
be a burden and to the Germans a standing provocation, their
representatives were forced to the conclusion that it would be the
height of folly to do aught that would give the Teutons a convenient
handle for a war of revenge. Let there be no annexation of territory,
they said, no incorporation of unwilling German citizens. The Americans
further argued that an indefinite occupation of German territory by a
large body of international troops would be a direct encouragement to
militarism.

The indemnities for which the French yearned, and on which their
responsible financiers counted, were large. The figures employed were
astronomical. Hundreds of milliards of francs were operated with by
eminent publicists in an offhand manner that astonished the survivor of
the expiring budgetary epoch and rejoiced the hearts of the Western
taxpayers. For