ctors from the candidates of his party. Thus he was
obliged on December 11, in his final manifesto, to announce not only
the Kaiser's trial and that of all those responsible for atrocities,
but to promise the most extensive kind of indemnity from Germany and
the compensation of all who had suffered by the War. Speaking the
same evening at Bristol, he promised to uphold the principle of the
indemnity, and asserted the absolute right to demand from Germany
payment for the costs of the War.

In England, where the illusion soon passed away, in France, where it
has not yet been dissipated, the public has been allowed to believe
that Germany can pay the greater part, if not the entire cost, of the
War, or at least make compensation for the damage.

For many years I have studied the figures in relation to private
wealth and the wealth of nations, and I have written at length on
the subject. I know how difficult it is to obtain by means of even
approximate statistics results more or less near to the reality.
Nothing pained me more than to hear the facility with which
politicians of repute spoke of obtaining an indemnity of hundreds of
milliards. When Germany expressed her desire to pay an indemnity in
one agreed lump sum (_a forfait_) of one hundred milliards of gold
marks (an indemnity she could never pay, so enormous is it), I saw
statesmen, whom I imagined not deprived of intelligence, smile at
the paltriness of the offer. An indemnity of fifty milliards of
gold marks, such as that proposed by Keynes, appeared absurd in its
smallness.

When the Peace Conference reassembled in Paris the situation
concerning the indemnity was as follows. The Entente had never during
the War spoken of indemnity as a condition of peace. Wilson, in his
proposals, had spoken only of reconstruction of invaded territories.
The request for _reparation des dommages_ had been included in the
terms of the armistice merely to afford a moral satisfaction to
France. But the campaign waged in France and during the elections
in England had exaggerated the demands so as to include not only
reparation for damage but reimbursement of the cost of the War.

Only the United States maintained that the indemnity should be limited
to the reparation of the damages: a reparation which in later phases
included not only reconstruction of destroyed territories and damage
done to private property, but even pensions to the families of those
dead in the War and the sums