auses. It is merely the usual phrase of the draftsman, who, about to
rehearse a list of certain claims, wishes to guard himself from the
implication that such list is exhaustive. In any case, this contention
is disposed of by the Allied reply to the German observations on the
first draft of the Treaty, where it is admitted that the terms of the
Reparation Chapter must be governed by the President's Note of November
5.

Assuming then that the terms of this Note are binding, we are left to
elucidate the precise force of the phrase--"all damage done to the
civilian population of the Allies and to their property by the
aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air." Few sentences
in history have given so much work to the sophists and the lawyers, as
we shall see in the next section of this chapter, as this apparently
simple and unambiguous statement. Some have not scrupled to argue that
it covers the entire cost of the war; for, they point out, the entire
cost of the war has to be met by taxation, and such taxation is
"damaging to the civilian population." They admit that the phrase is
cumbrous, and that it would have been simpler to have said "all loss and
expenditure of whatever description"; and they allow that the apparent
emphasis of damage to the persons and property of _civilians_ is
unfortunate; but errors of draftsmanship should not, in their opinion,
shut off the Allies from the rights inherent in victors.

But there are not only the limitations of the phrase in its natural
meaning and the emphasis on civilian damages as distinct from military
expenditure generally; it must also be remembered that the context of
the term is in elucidation of the meaning of the term "restoration" in
the President's Fourteen Points. The Fourteen Points provide for damage
in invaded territory--Belgium, France, Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro
(Italy being unaccountably omitted)--but they do not cover losses at sea
by submarine, bombardments from the sea (as at Scarborough), or damage
done by air raids. It was to repair these omissions, which involved
losses to the life and property of civilians not really distinguishable
in kind from those effected in occupied territory, that the Supreme
Council of the Allies in Paris proposed to President Wilson their
qualifications. At that time--the last days of October, 1918--I do not
believe that any responsible statesman had in mind the exaction from
Germany of an indemnity for the g