y being taken up again because there is
everywhere, if in a different degree, a lesser desire for work on
the part of the working classes joined with a need for higher
remuneration.

3. The difficulties of trade, instead of decreasing in many countries
of Europe are increasing, and international commerce is very slowly
recovering. Between the States of Europe there is not a real commerce
which can compare with that under normal conditions. Considering
actual values with values before the War, the products which now form
the substance of trade between European countries do not represent
even the half of that before the War.

As the desire for consumption, if not the capacity for consumption,
has greatly increased, and the production is greatly decreased, all
the States have increased their functions. So the discredit of the
paper money and the Treasury bills which permit these heavy expenses
is in all the countries of Europe, even if in different degrees, very
great.

The conquering countries, from the moment that they had obtained in
the treaties of peace the acknowledgment of the conquered that the War
was caused by them, held it to be legitimate that they should lose all
their disposable goods, their colonies, their ships, their credits and
their commercial organization abroad, but that the conquered should
also pay all the damages of the War. The War, therefore, should be
paid for by the conquered, who recognized (even if against their will)
that they were alone responsible. That forms henceforth a certain
canon of foreign politics, the less a thing appears true the more it
is repeated.

Although the treaties oblige Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey to
pay the damages of the War, it is, however, certain that they are not
able to pay anything and not even the expenses of the victors on their
territory. "_Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator_," said Juvenal
("Who has nothing can give nothing"), and Austria, for her part,
instead of giving is imploring food succour.

So the problem remains limited to Germany. Can she pay the indemnity
indicated in the treaty? Can she pay for the damages and indemnify the
victors? After having given up her colonies, her ships, her railway
material, all her disposable credits abroad, in what form can she pay?

The fundamental controversy reduces itself henceforth only to this
point, which we shall try if possible to make clear, since we desire
that this matter shall be present