m Morris Hughes, a
small-minded, insensitive, violent man, directed a furious campaign
in favour of a huge indemnity. Lord Northcliffe lent the aid of his
numerous papers to this campaign, which stirred up the electors.

Lloyd George, with his admirable intelligence, perceived the situation
clearly. He did not believe in the usefulness or even in the
possibility of trying the Kaiser and the German officers. He did not
believe in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or even a very
large one.

His first statements, like those of Bonar Law, a serious, honest,
well-balanced man, an idealist with the appearance of a practical
person, revealed nothing. On the eve of the dissolution of Parliament,
Lloyd George, speaking at Wolverhampton, November 24, 1918, did not
even hint at the question of the reparations or indemnity. He was
impelled along that track by the movement coming from France, by the
behaviour of the candidates, by Hughes's attitude, and by the Press
generally, especially that of Northcliffe.

A most vulgar spectacle was offered by many of the English candidates,
among whom were several members of the War Cabinet, who used language
worthy of raving dervishes before crowds hypnotized by promises of the
most impossible things.

To promise the electors that Germany should pay the cost of the War,
to announce to those who had lost their senses that the Kaiser was to
be hanged, to promise the arrest and punishment of the most guilty
German officers, to prophesy the reduction to slavery of a Germany
competing on sea and land, was certainly the easiest kind of
electoral programme. The numerous war-mutilated accepted it with much
enthusiasm, and the people listened, open-mouthed, to the endless
series of promises.

Hughes, who was at bottom in good faith, developed the thesis which he
afterwards upheld at Paris with logical precision. It was Germany's
duty to reimburse, without any limitation, the entire cost of the
War: damage to property, damage to persons, and war-cost. He who has
committed the wrong must make reparation for it to the extreme limits
of his resources, and this principle, recognized by the jurists,
requires that the total of the whole cost of the War fall upon the
enemy nations. Later on, Hughes, who was a sincere man, recognized
that it was not possible to go beyond asking for reparation of the
damages.

Lloyd George was dragged along by the necessity of not drawing away
the mass of the ele