nd Wilson's proposals never happened. Let us imagine that we are
examining a simple commercial proposition stripped of all sentiment
and moral ideas.

After a great war it is useless to invoke moral sentiments: men, while
they are blinded by hatred, recognize nothing save their passion. It
is the nature of war not only to kill or ruin a great number of men,
not only to cause considerable material damage, but also, necessarily,
to bring about states of mind full of hate which cannot be ended at
once and which are even refractory to the language of reason.

For a long time I myself have looked upon the Germans with the
profoundest hatred. When I think of all the persons of my race dead in
the War, when I look back upon the fifteen months of anguish when my
first-born son was a prisoner of war in Germany, I am quite able to
understand the state of mind of those who made the peace and the
mental condition in which it was made. What determined the atmosphere
of the peace treaties was the fact that there was a conference
presided over by Clemenceau, who remembered the Prussians in the
streets of Paris after the war of 1870, who desired but one thing: the
extermination of the Germans. What created this atmosphere, or helped
to create it, was the action of Marshal Foch, who had lost in the War
the two persons dearest to him in life, the persons who attached him
to existence.

But now we must examine the question not in the light of our
sentiments or even of our hatreds. We must see quite calmly if the
treaties are possible of application without causing the ruin of the
vanquished. Then we must ask ourselves if the ruin of the vanquished
does not bring in its train the ruin of the victors. Putting aside,
then, all moral considerations, let us examine and value the economic
facts.

There is no question that the reparation problem exists solely in
the case of Germany, who has still a powerful statal framework which
allows her to maintain great efforts, capable not only of providing
her with the means of subsistence, but also of paying a large
indemnity to the victors. The other vanquished States are more in need
of succour than anything else.

What are the reparations?

Let us follow the _precis_ of them which a representative of France
made at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. They are as follows:

1. Germany is responsible for the total of the losses and damages
sustained by her victors inasmuch as she caused the