irrelevant regard for precedents and overheated
resentment, and provided that the makers of these peace terms have a
free hand and go to their work with an eye single to the establishment
of an enduring peace. The case of Germany would be typical of all the
rest; and the main items of the bill in this case would seem logically
to run somewhat as follows:

(1) The definitive elimination of the Imperial establishment, together
with the monarchical establishments of the several states of the Empire
and the privileged classes;

(2) Removal or destruction of all warlike equipment, military and naval,
defensive and offensive;

(3) Cancelment of the public debt, of the Empire and of its
members--creditors of the Empire being accounted accessory to the
culpable enterprise of the Imperial government;

(4) Confiscation of such industrial equipment and resources as have
contributed to the carrying on of the war, as being also accessory;

(5) Assumption by the league at large of all debts incurred, by the
Entente belligerents or by neutrals, for the prosecution or by reason of
the war, and distribution of the obligation so assumed, impartially
among the members of the league, including the peoples of the defeated
nations;

(6) Indemnification for all injury done to civilians in the invaded
territories; the means for such indemnification to be procured by
confiscation of all estates in the defeated countries exceeding a
certain very modest maximum, calculated on the average of property
owned, say, by the poorer three-fourths of the population,--the kept
classes being properly accounted accessory to the Empire's culpable
enterprise.

The proposition to let the war debt be shared by all members of the
league on a footing of impartial equality may seem novel, and perhaps
extravagant. But all projects put forth for safeguarding the world's
peace by a compact among the pacific nations run on the patent, though
often tacit, avowal that the Entente belligerents are spending their
substance and pledging their credit for the common cause. Among the
Americans, the chief of the neutral nations, this is coming to be
recognised more and more overtly. So that, in this instance at least, no
insurmountable reluctance to take over their due share of the common
burden should fairly be looked for, particularly when it appears that
the projected league, if it is organised on a footing of neutrality,
will relieve the republic of virtually all