economic basis to the Treaty with Germany, but set him at variance with
the President, and on the other hand with competing interests to those
of France and Belgium. The clearer it became that but little could be
expected from Germany, the more necessary it was to exercise patriotic
greed and "sacred egotism" and snatch the bone from the juster claims
and greater need of France or the well-founded expectations of Belgium.
Yet the financial problems which were about to exercise Europe could not
be solved by greed. The possibility of _their_ cure lay in magnanimity.

Europe, if she is to survive her troubles, will need so much magnanimity
from America, that she must herself practice it. It is useless for the
Allies, hot from stripping Germany and one another, to turn for help to
the United States to put the States of Europe, including Germany, on to
their feet again. If the General Election of December, 1918, had been
fought on lines of prudent generosity instead of imbecile greed, how
much better the financial prospect of Europe might now be. I still
believe that before the main Conference, or very early in its
proceedings, the representatives of Great Britain should have entered
deeply, with those of the United States, into the economic and financial
situation as a whole, and that the former should have been authorized to
make concrete proposals on the general lines (1) that all inter-allied
indebtedness be canceled outright; (2) that the sum to be paid by
Germany be fixed at $10,000,000,000; (3) that Great Britain renounce all
claim to participation in this sum and that any share to which she
proves entitled be placed at the disposal of the Conference for the
purpose of aiding the finances of the New States about to be
established; (4) that in order to make some basis of credit immediately
available an appropriate proportion of the German obligations
representing the sum to be paid by her should be guaranteed by all
parties to the Treaty; and (5) that the ex-enemy Powers should also be
allowed, with a view to their economic restoration, to issue a moderate
amount of bonds carrying a similar guarantee. Such proposals involved an
appeal to the generosity of the United States. But that was inevitable;
and, in view of her far less financial sacrifices, it was an appeal
which could fairly have been made to her. Such proposals would have been
practicable. There is nothing in them quixotic or Utopian. And they
would have opene