ed States. Why should
not some portion of this wealth be diverted for a sufficient period from
its present owners and assigned to the peoples whom Germany has
assailed, deported, and injured? The Allied Governments might justly
require Germany to surrender to them the use of such of her mines, and
mineral deposits as would yield, say, from $500,000,000 to
$1,000,000,000 annually for the next 30, 40, or 50 years. By this means
we could obtain sufficient compensation from Germany without unduly
stimulating her manufactures and export trade to our detriment." It is
not clear why, if Germany has wealth exceeding $1,250,000,000,000. Sir
Sidney Low is content with the trifling sum of $500,000,000 to
$1,000,000,000 annually. But his letter is an admirable _reductio ad
absurdum_ of a certain line of thought. While a mode of calculation,
which estimates the value of coal miles deep in the bowels of the earth
as high as in a coal scuttle, of an annual lease of $5000 for 999 years
at $4,995,000 and of a field (presumably) at the value of all the crops
it will grow to the end of recorded time, opens up great possibilities,
it is also double-edged. If Germany's total resources are worth
$1,250,000,000,000, those she will part with in the cession of
Alsace-Lorraine and Upper Silesia should be more than sufficient to pay
the entire costs of the war and reparation together. In point of fact,
the _present_ market value of all the mines in Germany of every kind has
been estimated at $1,500,000,000, or a little more than one-thousandth
part of Sir Sidney Low's expectations.

[132] The conversion at par of 5,000 million marks overstates,
by reason of the existing depreciation of the mark, the present money
burden of the actual pensions payments, but not, in all probability, the
real loss of national productivity as a result of the casualties
suffered in the war.

[133] It cannot be overlooked, in passing, that in its results
on a country's surplus productivity a lowering of the standard of life
acts both ways. Moreover, we are without experience of the psychology of
a white race under conditions little short of servitude. It is, however,
generally supposed that if the whole of a man's surplus production is
taken from him, his efficiency and his industry are diminished, The
entrepreneur and the inventor will not contrive, the trader and the
shopkeeper will not save, the laborer will not toil, if the fruits of
their industry are set aside,