overnment is
merely a flagrant example of the recent monetary history of all the
states of Europe northeast, southeast, east, of the Rhine and of the
Alps. There is only one real remedy, the reestablishment of complete
peace, disarmament, the abolition of conscription, the drastic
reduction of bloated bureaucracies, and a wholesale lowering of
tariffs, which will allow the miserable and half-starved populations to
renew the arts of peace and the exchange of their agricultural products
and manufactures.

APPENDIX

THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE[18]

If all countries were included, a general and proportionate reduction
of the military and naval establishments to one half of their present
cost would set free a fund of probably at least $3,000,000,000 to
$4,000,000,000 annually for the purchase of food and useful
commodities, for the stabilization and partial restoration of debased
paper currencies, for the payment of debt, the removal of public
deficits, the revival of credit, and the reduction of taxes. Thus the
road to recovery lies plain before us. Will it be taken by the
statesmen to whose hands the peoples have intrusted their lives and
fortunes?

[18] Taken by permission from an article by the author in the
_Saturday Evening Post_ of November 12, 1921.

DEFICITS THE RULE

In order to show that this view is in conformity with the conclusions
of experts, and even of officials delegated for the purpose of
examining world finance by the governments themselves, I turn to the
conclusions unanimously arrived at by the Brussels conference a year
ago, after eighty-six financial experts from thirty-nine countries had
presented the accounts and balance sheets of their respective
governments. In a general review of the situation they point out that
"the total external debt of the European belligerents, converted into
dollars at par, amounts to about 155 milliard dollars, compared with
about 17 milliard dollars in 1913." They say that the government
expenditures of the European belligerents amount to between 20 and 40
per cent of the total incomes of the peoples. They say emphatically
that the restoration of real peace, with disarmament, is "the first
condition for the world's recovery."

Four commissions were appointed. The first dealt with public finance,
and its resolutions were adopted unanimously by the conference. The
following extract from its resolutions deserves attention:

Thirty-nine nati