put forward, therefore, not to suggest that they provide any compelling
argument for Americans, but only to show that from his own selfish point
of view an Englishman is not seeking to avoid due sacrifice on his
country's part in making the present suggestion. (1) The sums which the
British Treasury borrowed from the American Treasury, after the latter
came into the war, were approximately offset by the sums which England
lent to her other Allies _during the same period_ (i.e. excluding sums
lent before the United States came into the war); so that almost the
whole of England's indebtedness to the United States was incurred, not
on her own account, but to enable her to assist the rest of her Allies,
who were for various reasons not in a position to draw their assistance
from the United States direct.[167] (2) The United Kingdom has disposed
of about $5,000,000,000 worth of her foreign securities, and in addition
has incurred foreign debt to the amount of about $6,000,000,000. The
United States, so far from selling, has bought back upwards of
$5,000,000,000, and has incurred practically no foreign debt. (3) The
population of the United Kingdom is about one-half that of the United
States, the income about one-third, and the accumulated wealth between
one-half and one-third. The financial capacity of the United Kingdom may
therefore be put at about two-fifths that of the United States. This
figure enables us to make the following comparison:--Excluding loans to
Allies in each case (as is right on the assumption that these loans are
to be repaid), the war expenditure of the United Kingdom has been about
three times that of the United Sates, or in proportion to capacity
between seven and eight times.

Having cleared this issue out of the way as briefly as possible, I turn
to the broader issues of the future relations between the parties to the
late war, by which the present proposal must primarily be judged.

Failing such a settlement as is now proposed, the war will have ended
with a network of heavy tribute payable from one Ally to another. The
total amount of this tribute is even likely to exceed the amount
obtainable from the enemy; and the war will have ended with the
intolerable result of the Allies paying indemnities to one another
instead of receiving them from the enemy.

For this reason the question of Inter-Allied indebtedness is closely
bound up with the intense popular feeling amongst the European Allies on
th