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Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 III. Germany s Capacity to pay The forms in which Germany can discharge the sum which she has engaged herself to pay are three in number— 1. Immediately transferable wealth in the form of gold, ships, and foreign securities; 2. The value of property in ceded territory, or surrendered under the Armistice; 3. Annual payments spread over a term of years, partly in cash and partly in materials such as coal products, potash, and dyes. There is excluded from the above the actual restitution of property removed from territory occupied by the enemy, as, for example, Russian gold, Belgian and French securities, cattle, machinery, and works of art. In so far as the actual goods taken can be identified and restored, they must clearly be returned to their rightful owners, and cannot be brought into the general reparation pool. This is expressly provided for in Article 238 of the Treaty. 1. Immediately Transferable Wealth (a) Gold.—After deduction of the gold to be returned to Russia, the official holding of gold as shown in the Reichsbank s return of the 30th November, 1918, amounted to $577,089,500. This was a very much larger amount than had appeared in the Reichsbank s return prior to the war,[117] and was the result of the vigorous campaign carried on in Germany during the war for the surrender to the Reichsbank not only of gold coin but of gold ornaments of every kind. Private hoards doubtless still exist, but, in view of the great efforts already made, it is unlikely that either the German Government or the Allies will be able to unearth them. The return can therefore be taken as probably representing the maximum amount which the German Government are able to extract from their people. In addition to gold there was in the Reichsbank a sum of about $5,000,000 in silver. There must be, however, a further substantial amount in circulation, for the holdings of the Reichsbank were as high as $45,500,000 on the 31st December, 1917, and stood at about $30,000,000 up to the latter part of October, 1918, when the internal run began on currency of every kind.[118] We may, therefore, take a total of (say) $625,000,000 for gold and silver together at the date of the Armistice. These reserves, however, are no longer intact. During the long period which elapsed between the Armistice and the Peace it became necessary for the Allies to facilitate the provisioning of Germany from abroad. The political condition of Germany at that time and the serious menace of Spartacism rendered this step necessary in the interests of the Allies themselves if they desired the continuance in Germany of a stable Government to treat with. The question of how such provisions were to be paid for presented, however, the gravest difficulties. A series of Conferences was held at Trèves, at Spa, at Brussels, and subsequently at Château Villette and Versailles, between representatives of the Allies and of Germany, with the object of finding some method of payment as little injurious as possible to the future prospects of Reparation payments. The German representatives maintained from the outset that the financial exhaustion of their country was for the time being so complete that a temporary loan from the Allies was the only possible expedient. This the Allies could hardly admit at a time when they were preparing demands for the immediate payment by Germany of immeasurably larger sums. But, apart from this, the German claim could not be accepted as strictly accurate so long as their gold was still untapped and their remaining foreign securities unmarketed. In any case, it was out of the question to suppose that in the spring of 1919 public opinion in the Allied countries or in America would have allowed the grant of a substantial loan to Germany. On the other hand, the Allies were naturally reluctant to exhaust on the provisioning of Germany the gold which seemed to afford one of the few obvious and certain sources for Reparation. Much time was expended in the exploration of all possible alternatives; but it was evident at last that, even if German exports and saleable foreign securities had been available to a sufficient value, they could not be liquidated in time, and that the financial exhaustion of Germany was so complete that nothing whatever was immediately available in substantial amounts except the gold in the Reichsbank. Accordingly a sum exceeding $250,000,000 in all out of the Reichsbank gold was transferred by Germany to the Allies (chiefly to the United States, Great Britain, however, also receiving a substantial sum) during the first six months of 1919 in payment for foodstuffs. But this was not all. Although Germany agreed, under the first extension of the Armistice, not to export gold without Allied permission, this permission could not be always withheld. There were liabilities of the Reichsbank accruing in the neighboring neutral countries, which could not be met otherwise than in gold. The failure of the Reichsbank to meet its liabilities would have caused a depreciation of the exchange so injurious to Germany s credit as to react on the future prospects of Reparation. In some cases, therefore, permission to export gold was accorded to the Reichsbank by the Supreme Economic Council of the Allies. The net result of these various measures was to reduce the gold reserve of the Reichsbank by more than half, the figures falling from $575,000,000 to $275,000,000 in September, 1919. It would be possible under the Treaty to take the whole of this latter sum for Reparation purposes. It amounts, however, as it is, to less than 4 per cent of the Reichsbank s Note Issue, and the psychological effect of its total confiscation might be expected (having regard to the very large volume of mark notes held abroad) to destroy the exchange value of the mark almost entirely. A sum of $25,000,000, $50,000,000, or even $100,000,000 might be taken for a special purpose. But we may assume that the Reparation Commission will judge it imprudent, having regard to the reaction on their future prospects of securing payment, to ruin the German currency system altogether, more particularly because the French and Belgian Governments, being holders of a very large volume of mark notes formerly circulating in the occupied or ceded territory, have a great interest in maintaining some exchange value for the mark, quite apart from Reparation prospects. It follows, therefore, that no sum worth speaking of can be expected in the form of gold or silver towards the initial payment of $5,000,000,000 due by 1921. (b) Shipping.—Germany has engaged, as we have seen above, to surrender to the Allies virtually the whole of her merchant shipping. A considerable part of it, indeed, was already in the hands of the Allies prior to the conclusion of Peace, either by detention in their ports or by the provisional transfer of tonnage under the Brussels Agreement in connection with the supply of foodstuffs.[119] Estimating the tonnage of German shipping to be taken over under the Treaty at 4,000,000 gross tons, and the average value per ton at $150 per ton, the total money value involved is $600,000,000.[120] (c) Foreign Securities.—Prior to the census of foreign securities carried out by the German Government in September, 1916,[121] of which the exact results have not been made public, no official return of such investments was ever called for in Germany, and the various unofficial estimates are confessedly based on insufficient data, such as the admission of foreign securities to the German Stock Exchanges, the receipts of the stamp duties, consular reports, etc. The principal German estimates current before the war are given in the appended footnote.[122] This shows a general consensus of opinion among German authorities that their net foreign investments were upwards of $6,250,000,000. I take this figure as the basis of my calculations, although I believe it to be an exaggeration; $5,000,000,000 would probably be a safer figure. Deductions from this aggregate total have to be made under four heads. (i.) Investments in Allied countries and in the United States, which between them constitute a considerable part of the world, have been sequestrated by Public Trustees, Custodians of Enemy Property, and similar officials, and are not available for Reparation except in so far as they show a surplus over various private claims. Under the scheme for dealing with enemy debts outlined in Chapter IV., the first charge on these assets is the private claims of Allied against German nationals. It is unlikely, except in the United States, that there will be any appreciable surplus for any other purpose. (ii.) Germany s most important fields of foreign investment before the war were not, like ours, oversea, but in Russia, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Roumania, and Bulgaria. A great part of these has now become almost valueless, at any rate for the time being; especially those in Russia and Austria-Hungary. If present market value is to be taken as the test, none of these investments are now saleable above a nominal figure. Unless the Allies are prepared to take over these securities much above their nominal market valuation, and hold them for future realization, there is no substantial source of funds for immediate payment in the form of investments in these countries. (iii.) While Germany was not in a position to realize her foreign investments during the war to the degree that we were, she did so nevertheless in the case of certain countries and to the extent that she was able. Before the United States came into the war, she is believed to have resold a large part of the pick of her investments in American securities, although some current estimates of these sales (a figure of $300,000,000 has been mentioned) are probably exaggerated. But throughout the war and particularly in its later stages, when her exchanges were weak and her credit in the neighboring neutral countries was becoming very low, she was disposing of such securities as Holland, Switzerland, and Scandinavia would buy or would accept as collateral. It is reasonably certain that by June, 1919, her investments in these countries had been reduced to a negligible figure and were far exceeded by her liabilities in them. Germany has also sold certain overseas securities, such as Argentine cedulas, for which a market could be found. (iv.) It is certain that since the Armistice there has been a great flight abroad of the foreign securities still remaining in private hands. This is exceedingly difficult to prevent. German foreign investments are as a rule in the form of bearer securities and are not registered. They are easily smuggled abroad across Germany s extensive land frontiers, and for some months before the conclusion of peace it was certain that their owners would not be allowed to retain them if the Allied Governments could discover any method of getting hold of them. These factors combined to stimulate human ingenuity, and the efforts both of the Allied and of the German Governments to interfere effectively with the outflow are believed to have been largely futile. In face of all these considerations, it will be a miracle if much remains for Reparation. The countries of the Allies and of the United States, the countries of Germany s own allies, and the neutral countries adjacent to Germany exhaust between them almost the whole of the civilized world; and, as we have seen, we cannot expect much to be available for Reparation from investments in any of these quarters. Indeed there remain no countries of importance for investments except those of South America. To convert the significance of these deductions into figures involves much guesswork. I give the reader the best personal estimate I can form after pondering the matter in the light of the available figures and other relevant data. I put the deduction under (i.) at $1,500,000,000, of which $500,000,000 may be ultimately available after meeting private debts, etc. As regards (ii.)—according to a census taken by the Austrian Ministry of Finance on the 31st December, 1912, the nominal value of the Austro-Hungarian securities held by Germans was $986,500,000. Germany s pre-war investments in Russia outside Government securities have been estimated at $475,000,000, which is much lower than would be expected, and in 1906 Sartorius v. Waltershausen estimated her investments in Russian Government securities at $750,000,000. This gives a total of $1,225,000,000, which is to some extent borne out by the figure of $1,000,000,000 given in 1911 by Dr. Ischchanian as a deliberately modest estimate. A Roumanian estimate, published at the time of that country s entry in the war, gave the value of Germany s investments in Roumania at $20,000,000 to $22,000,000, of which $14,000,000 to $16,000,000 were in Government securities. An association for the defense of French interests in Turkey, as reported in the Temps (Sept. 8, 1919), has estimated the total amount of German capital invested in Turkey at about $295,000,000, of which, according to the latest Report of the Council of Foreign Bondholders, $162,500,000 was held by German nationals in the Turkish External Debt. No estimates are available to me of Germany s investments in Bulgaria. Altogether I venture a deduction of $2,500,000,000 in respect of this group of countries as a whole. Resales and the pledging as collateral of securities during the war under (iii.) I put at $500,000,000 to $750,000,000, comprising practically all Germany s holding of Scandinavian, Dutch, and Swiss securities, a part of her South American securities, and a substantial proportion of her North American securities sold prior to the entry of the United States into the war. As to the proper deduction under (iv.) there are naturally no available figures. For months past the European press has been full of sensational stories of the expedients adopted. But if we put the value of securities which have already left Germany or have been safely secreted within Germany itself beyond discovery by the most inquisitorial and powerful methods at $500,000,000, we are not likely to overstate it. These various items lead, therefore, in all to a deduction of a round figure of about $5,000,000,000, and leave us with an amount of $1,250,000,000 theoretically still available.[123] To some readers this figure may seem low, but let them remember that it purports to represent the remnant of saleable securities upon which the German Government might be able to lay hands for public purposes. In my own opinion it is much too high, and considering the problem by a different method of attack I arrive at a lower figure. For leaving out of account sequestered Allied securities and investments in Austria, Russia, etc., what blocks of securities, specified by countries and enterprises, can Germany possibly still have which could amount to as much as $1,250,000,000? I cannot answer the question. She has some Chinese Government securities which have not been sequestered, a few Japanese perhaps, and a more substantial value of first-class South American properties. But there are very few enterprises of this class still in German hands, and even their value is measured by one or two tens of millions, not by fifties or hundreds. He would be a rash man, in my judgment, who joined a syndicate to pay $500,000,000 in cash for the unsequestered remnant of Germany s overseas investments. If the Reparation Commission is to realize even this lower figure, it is probable that they will have to nurse, for some years, the assets which they take over, not attempting their disposal at the present time. We have, therefore, a figure of from $500,000,000 to $1,250,000,000 as the maximum contribution from Germany s foreign securities. Her immediately transferable wealth is composed, then, of— (a) Gold and silver—say $300,000,000. (b) Ships—$600,000,000. (c) Foreign securities—$500,000,000 to $1,250,000,000. Of the gold and silver, it is not, in fact, practicable to take any substantial part without consequences to the German currency system injurious to the interests of the Allies themselves. The contribution from all these sources together which the Reparation Commission can hope to secure by May, 1921, may be put, therefore, at from $1,250,000,000 to $1,750,000,000 as a maximum.[124] 2. Property in ceded Territory or surrendered under the Armistice As the Treaty has been drafted Germany will not receive important credits available towards meeting reparation in respect of her property in ceded territory. Private property in most of the ceded territory is utilized towards discharging private German debts to Allied nationals, and only the surplus, if any, is available towards Reparation. The value of such property in Poland and the other new States is payable direct to the owners. Government property in Alsace-Lorraine, in territory ceded to Belgium, and in Germany s former colonies transferred to a Mandatory, is to be forfeited without credit given. Buildings, forests, and other State property which belonged to the former Kingdom of Poland are also to be surrendered without credit. There remain, therefore, Government properties, other than the above, surrendered to Poland, Government properties in Schleswig surrendered to Denmark,[125] the value of the Saar coalfields, the value of certain river craft, etc., to be surrendered under the Ports, Waterways, and Railways Chapter, and the value of the German submarine cables transferred under Annex VII. of the Reparation Chapter. Whatever the Treaty may say, the Reparation Commission will not secure any cash payments from Poland. I believe that the Saar coalfields have been valued at from $75,000,000 to $100,000,000. A round figure of $150,000,000 for all the above items, excluding any surplus available in respect of private property, is probably a liberal estimate. Then remains the value of material surrendered under the Armistice. Article 250 provides that a credit shall be assessed by the Reparation Commission for rolling-stock surrendered under the Armistice as well as for certain other specified items, and generally for any material so surrendered for which the Reparation Commission think that credit should be given, "as having non-military value." The rolling-stock (150,000 wagons and 5,000 locomotives) is the only very valuable item. A round figure of $250,000,000, for all the Armistice surrenders, is probably again a liberal estimate. We have, therefore, $400,000,000 to add in respect of this heading to our figure of $1,250,000,000 to $1,750,000,000 under the previous heading. This figure differs from the preceding in that it does not represent cash capable of benefiting the financial situation of the Allies, but is only a book credit between themselves or between them and Germany. The total of $1,650,000,000 to $2,150,000,000 now reached is not, however, available for Reparation. The first charge upon it, under Article 251 of the Treaty, is the cost of the Armies of Occupation both during the Armistice and after the conclusion of Peace. The aggregate of this figure up to May, 1921, cannot be calculated until the rate of withdrawal is known which is to reduce the monthly cost from the figure exceeding $100,000,000, which prevailed during the first part of 1919, to that of $5,000,000, which is to be the normal figure eventually. I estimate, however, that this aggregate may be about $1,000,000,000. This leaves us with from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 still in hand. Out of this, and out of exports of goods, and payments in kind under the Treaty prior to May, 1921 (for which I have not as yet made any allowance), the Allies have held out the hope that they will allow Germany to receive back such sums for the purchase of necessary food and raw materials as the former deem it essential for her to have. It is not possible at the present time to form an accurate judgment either as to the money-value of the goods which Germany will require to purchase from abroad in order to re-establish her economic life, or as to the degree of liberality with which the Allies will exercise their discretion. If her stocks of raw materials and food were to be restored to anything approaching their normal level by May, 1921, Germany would probably require foreign purchasing power of from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 at least, in addition to the value of her current exports. While this is not likely to be permitted, I venture to assert as a matter beyond reasonable dispute that the social and economic condition of Germany cannot possibly permit a surplus of exports over imports during the period prior to May, 1921, and that the value of any payments in kind with which she may be able to furnish the Allies under the Treaty in the form of coal, dyes, timber, or other materials will have to be returned to her to enable her to pay for imports essential to her existence.[126] The Reparation Commission can, therefore, expect no addition from other sources to the sum of from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 with which we have hypothetically credited it after the realization of Germany s immediately transferable wealth, the calculation of the credits due to Germany under the Treaty, and the discharge of the cost of the Armies of Occupation. As Belgium has secured a private agreement with France, the United States, and Great Britain, outside the Treaty, by which she is to receive, towards satisfaction of her claims, the first $500,000,000 available for Reparation, the upshot of the whole matter is that Belgium may possibly get her $500,000,000 by May, 1921, but none of the other Allies are likely to secure by that date any contribution worth speaking of. At any rate, it would be very imprudent for Finance Ministers to lay their plans on any other hypothesis. 3. Annual Payments spread over a Term of Years It is evident that Germany s pre-war capacity to pay an annual foreign tribute has not been unaffected by the almost total loss of her colonies, her overseas connections, her mercantile marine, and her foreign properties, by the cession of ten per cent of her territory and population, of one-third of her coal and of three-quarters of her iron ore, by two million casualties amongst men in the prime of life, by the starvation of her people for four years, by the burden of a vast war debt, by the depreciation of her currency to less than one-seventh its former value, by the disruption of her allies and their territories, by Revolution at home and Bolshevism on her borders, and by all the unmeasured ruin in strength and hope of four years of all-swallowing war and final defeat. All this, one would have supposed, is evident. Yet most estimates of a great indemnity from Germany depend on the assumption that she is in a position to conduct in the future a vastly greater trade than ever she has had in the past. For the purpose of arriving at a figure it is of no great consequence whether payment takes the form of cash (or rather of foreign exchange) or is partly effected in kind (coal, dyes, timber, etc.), as contemplated by the Treaty. In any event, it is only by the export of specific commodities that Germany can pay, and the method of turning the value of these exports to account for Reparation purposes is, comparatively, a matter of detail. We shall lose ourselves in mere hypothesis unless we return in some degree to first principles, and, whenever we can, to such statistics as there are. It is certain that an annual payment can only be made by Germany over a series of years by diminishing her imports and increasing her exports, thus enlarging the balance in her favor which is available for effecting payments abroad. Germany can pay in the long-run in goods, and in goods only, whether these goods are furnished direct to the Allies, or whether they are sold to neutrals and the neutral credits so arising are then made over to the Allies. The most solid basis for estimating the extent to which this process can be carried is to be found, therefore, in an analysis of her trade returns before the war. Only on the basis of such an analysis, supplemented by some general data as to the aggregate wealth-producing capacity of the country, can a rational guess be made as to the maximum degree to which the exports of Germany could be brought to exceed her imports. In the year 1913 Germany s imports amounted to $2,690,000,000, and her exports to $2,525,000,000, exclusive of transit trade and bullion. That is to say, imports exceeded exports by about $165,000,000. On the average of the five years ending 1913, however, her imports exceeded her exports by a substantially larger amount, namely, $370,000,000. It follows, therefore, that more than the whole of Germany s pre-war balance for new foreign investment was derived from the interest on her existing foreign securities, and from the profits of her shipping, foreign banking, etc. As her foreign properties and her mercantile marine are now to be taken from her, and as her foreign banking and other miscellaneous sources of revenue from abroad have been largely destroyed, it appears that, on the pre-war basis of exports and imports, Germany, so far from having a surplus wherewith to make a foreign payment, would be not nearly self-supporting. Her first task, therefore, must be to effect a readjustment of consumption and production to cover this deficit. Any further economy she can effect in the use of imported commodities, and any further stimulation of exports will then be available for Reparation. Two-thirds of Germany s import and export trade is enumerated under separate headings in the following tables. The considerations applying to the enumerated portions may be assumed to apply more or less to the remaining one-third, which is composed of commodities of minor importance individually. German Exports, 1913Amount Million DollarsPercentage of Total Exports Iron goods (including tin plates, etc.)330.6513.2 Machinery and parts (including motor-cars)187.757.5 Coal, coke, and briquettes176.707.0 Woolen goods (including raw and combed wool and clothing)147.005.9 Cotton goods (including raw cotton, yarn, and thread)140.755.6 982.8539.2 Cereals, etc. (including rye, oats, wheat, hops)105.904.1 Leather and leather goods77.353.0 Sugar66.002.6 Paper, etc.65.502.6 Furs58.752.2 Electrical goods (installations, ma- chinery, lamps, cables)54.402.2 Silk goods50.502.0 Dyes48.801.9 Copper goods32.501.3 Toys25.751.0 Rubber and rubber goods21.350.9 Books, maps, and music18.550.8 Potash15.900.6 Glass15.700.6 Potassium chloride14.550.6 Pianos, organs, and parts13.850.6 Raw zinc13.700.5 Porcelain12.650.5 711.7067.2 Other goods, unenumerated829.6932.8 Total2,524.15100.0 German Imports, 1913Amount Million DollarsPercentage of Total Exports I. Raw materials — Cotton151.755.6 Hides and skins124.304.6 Wool118.354.4 Copper83.753.1 Coal68.302.5 Timber58.002.2 Iron ore56.752.1 Furs46.751.7 Flax and flaxseed46.651.7 Saltpetre42.751.6 Silk39.501.5 Rubber36.501.4 Jute23.500.9 Petroleum17.450.7 Tin14.550.5 Phosphorus chalk11.600.4 Lubricating oil11.450.4 951.9035.3 II. Food, tobacco, etc. — Cereals, etc. (wheat, barley, bran, rice, maize, oats, rye, clover)327.5512.2 Oil seeds and cake, etc. (in- cluding palm kernels, copra, cocoa beans)102.653.8 Cattle, lamb fat, bladders73.102.8 Coffee54.752.0 Eggs48.501.8 Tobacco33.501.2 Butter29.651.1 Horses29.051.1 Fruit18.250.7 Fish14.950.6 Poultry14.000.6 Wine13.350.5 759.3028.3 III. Manufactures — Cotton yarn and thread and cotton goods 47.051.8 Woolen yarn and woolen goods 37.851.4 Machinery20.100.7 105.003.9 IV. Unenumerated876.4032.5 Total2,692.60100.0 These tables show that the most important exports consisted of — Iron Goods, including tin plates (13.2 per cent), Machinery, etc. (7.5 per cent), Coal, coke, and briquettes (7 per cent), Woolen goods, including raw and combed wool (5.9 per cent), and Cotton goods, including cotton yarn and thread and raw cotton (5.6 per cent), these five classes between them accounting for 39.2 per cent. of the total exports. It will be observed that all these goods are of a kind in which before the war competition between Germany and the United Kingdom was very severe. If, therefore, the volume of such exports to overseas or European destinations is very largely increased the effect upon British export trade must be correspondingly serious. As regards two of the categories, namely, cotton and woolen goods, the increase of an export trade is dependent upon an increase of the import of the raw material, since Germany produces no cotton and practically no wool. These trades are therefore incapable of expansion unless Germany is given facilities for securing these raw materials (which can only be at the expense of the Allies) in excess of the pre-war standard of consumption, and even then the effective increase is not the gross value of the exports, but only the difference between the value of the manufactured exports and of the imported raw material. As regards the other three categories, namely, machinery, iron goods, and coal, Germany s capacity to increase her exports will have been taken from her by the cessions of territory in Poland, Upper Silesia, and Alsace-Lorraine. As has been pointed out already, these districts accounted for nearly one-third of Germany s production of coal. But they also supplied no less than three-quarters of her iron-ore production, 38 per cent of her blast furnaces, and 9.5 per cent of her iron and steel foundries. Unless, therefore, Alsace-Lorraine and Upper Silesia send their iron ore to Germany proper, to be worked up, which will involve an increase in the imports for which she will have to find payment, so far from any increase in export trade being possible, a decrease is inevitable.[127] Next on the list come cereals, leather goods, sugar, paper, furs, electrical goods, silk goods, and dyes. Cereals are not a net export and are far more than balanced by imports of the same commodities. As regards sugar, nearly 90 per cent of Germany s pre-war exports came to the United Kingdom.[128] An increase in this trade might be stimulated by a grant of a preference in this country to German sugar or by an arrangement by which sugar was taken in part payment for the indemnity on the same lines as has been proposed for coal, dyes, etc. Paper exports also might be capable of some increase. Leather goods, furs, and silks depend upon corresponding imports on the other side of the account. Silk goods are largely in competition with the trade of France and Italy. The remaining items are individually very small. I have heard it suggested that the indemnity might be paid to a great extent in potash and the like. But potash before the war represented 0.6 per cent of Germany s export trade, and about $15,000,000 in aggregate value. Besides, France, having secured a potash field in the territory which has been restored to her, will not welcome a great stimulation of the German exports of this material. An examination of the import list shows that 63.6 per cent are raw materials and food. The chief items of the former class, namely, cotton, wool, copper, hides, iron-ore, furs, silk, rubber, and tin, could not be much reduced without reacting on the export trade, and might have to be increased if the export trade was to be increased. Imports of food, namely, wheat, barley, coffee, eggs, rice, maize, and the like, present a different problem. It is unlikely that, apart from certain comforts, the consumption of food by the German laboring classes before the war was in excess of what was required for maximum efficiency; indeed, it probably fell short of that amount. Any substantial decrease in the imports of food would therefore react on the efficiency of the industrial population, and consequently on the volume of surplus exports which they could be forced to produce. It is hardly possible to insist on a greatly increased productivity of German industry if the workmen are to be underfed. But this may not be equally true of barley, coffee, eggs, and tobacco. If it were possible to enforce a régime in which for the future no German drank beer or coffee, or smoked any tobacco, a substantial saving could be effected. Otherwise there seems little room for any significant reduction. The following analysis of German exports and imports, according to destination and origin, is also relevant. From this it appears that of Germany s exports in 1913, 18 per cent went to the British Empire, 17 per cent to France, Italy, and Belgium, 10 per cent to Russia and Roumania, and 7 per cent to the United States; that is to say, more than half of the exports found their market in the countries of the Entente nations. Of the balance, 12 per cent went to Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and 35 per cent elsewhere. Unless, therefore, the present Allies are prepared to encourage the importation of German products, a substantial increase in total volume can only be effected by the wholesale swamping of neutral markets. German Trade (1913) According to Destination and Origin Destination of Germany s ExportsOrigin of Germany s Imports Million Dollars Per cent Million Dollars Per cent Great Britain 359.65 14.2 219.00 8.1 India 37.65 1.5 135.20 5.0 Egypt 10.85 0.4 29.60 1.1 Canada 15.10 0.6 16.00 0.6 Australia 22.10 0.9 74.00 2.8 South Africa 11.70 0.5 17.40 0.6 Total British Empire 456.95 18.1 491.20 18.2 France 197.45 7.8 146.65 5.4 Belgium 137.75 5.5 86.15 3.2 Italy 98.35 3.9 79.40 3.0 U. S. A. 178.30 7.1 427.80 15.9 Russia 220.00 8.7 356.15 13.2 Roumania 35.00 1.4 19.95 0.7 Austria-Hungary 276.20 10.9 206.80 7.7 Turkey 24.60 1.0 18.40 0.7 Bulgaria 7.55 0.3 2.00 ... Other countries 800.20 35.3 858.70 32.0 2,522.35 100.0 2,692.60 100.0 The above analysis affords some indication of the possible magnitude of the maximum modification of Germany s export balance under the conditions which will prevail after the Peace. On the assumptions (1) that we do not specially favor Germany over ourselves in supplies of such raw materials as cotton and wool (the world s supply of which is limited), (2) that France, having secured the iron-ore deposits, makes a serious attempt to secure the blast-furnaces and the steel trade also, (3) that Germany is not encouraged and assisted to undercut the iron and other trades of the Allies in overseas market, and (4) that a substantial preference is not given to German goods in the British Empire, it is evident by examination of the specific items that not much is practicable. Let us run over the chief items again (1) Iron goods. In view of Germany s loss of resources, an increased net export seems impossible and a large decrease probable. (2) Machinery. Some increase is possible. (3) Coal and coke. The value of Germany s net export before the war was $110,000,000; the Allies have agreed that for the time being 20,000,000 tons is the maximum possible export with a problematic (and in fact) impossible increase to 40,000,000 tons at some future time; even on the basis of 20,000,000 tons we have virtually no increase of value, measured in pre-war prices;[129] whilst, if this amount is exacted, there must be a decrease of far greater value in the export of manufactured articles requiring coal for their production. (4) Woolen goods. An increase is impossible without the raw wool, and, having regard to the other claims on supplies of raw wool, a decrease is likely. (5) Cotton goods. The same considerations apply as to wool. (6) Cereals. There never was and never can be a net export. (7) Leather goods. The same considerations apply as to wool. We have now covered nearly half of Germany s pre-war exports, and there is no other commodity which formerly represented as much as 3 per cent of her exports. In what commodity is she to pay? Dyes?—their total value in 1913 was $50,000,000. Toys? Potash?—1913 exports were worth $15,000,000. And even if the commodities could be specified, in what markets are they to be sold?—remembering that we have in mind goods to the value not of tens of millions annually, but of hundreds of millions. On the side of imports, rather more is possible. By lowering the standard of life, an appreciable reduction of expenditure on imported commodities may be possible. But, as we have already seen, many large items are incapable of reduction without reacting on the volume of exports. Let us put our guess as high as we can without being foolish, and suppose that after a time Germany will be able, in spite of the reduction of her resources, her facilities, her markets, and her productive power, to increase her exports and diminish her imports so as to improve her trade balance altogether by $500,000,000 annually, measured in pre-war prices. This adjustment is first required to liquidate the adverse trade balance, which in the five years before the war averaged $370,000,000; but we will assume that after allowing for this, she is left with a favorable trade balance of $250,000,000 a year. Doubling this to allow for the rise in pre-war prices, we have a figure of $500,000,000. Having regard to the political, social, and human factors, as well as to the purely economic, I doubt if Germany could be made to pay this sum annually over a period of 30 years; but it would not be foolish to assert or to hope that she could. Such a figure, allowing 5 per cent for interest, and 1 per cent for repayment of capital, represents a capital sum having a present value of about $8,500,000,000.[130] I reach, therefore, the final conclusion that, including all methods of payment—immediately transferable wealth, ceded property, and an annual tribute—$10,000,000,000 is a safe maximum figure of Germany s capacity to pay. In all the actual circumstances, I do not believe that she can pay as much. Let those who consider this a very low figure, bear in mind the following remarkable comparison. The wealth of France in 1871 was estimated at a little less than half that of Germany in 1913. Apart from changes in the value of money, an indemnity from Germany of $2,500,000,000 would, therefore, be about comparable to the sum paid by France in 1871; and as the real burden of an indemnity increases more than in proportion to its amount, the payment of $10,000,000,000 by Germany would have far severer consequences than the $1,000,000,000 paid by France in 1871. There is only one head under which I see a possibility of adding to the figure reached on the line of argument adopted above; that is, if German labor is actually transported to the devastated areas and there engaged in the work of reconstruction. I have heard that a limited scheme of this kind is actually in view. The additional contribution thus obtainable depends on the number of laborers which the German Government could contrive to maintain in this way and also on the number which, over a period of years, the Belgian and French inhabitants would tolerate in their midst. In any case, it would seem very difficult to employ on the actual work of reconstruction, even over a number of years, imported labor having a net present value exceeding (say) $1,250,000,000; and even this would not prove in practice a net addition to the annual contributions obtainable in other ways. A capacity of $40,000,000,000 or even of $25,000,000,000 is, therefore, not within the limits of reasonable possibility. It is for those who believe that Germany can make an annual payment amounting to hundreds of millions sterling to say in what specific commodities they intend this payment to be made and in what markets the goods are to be sold. Until they proceed to some degree of detail, and are able to produce some tangible argument in favor of their conclusions, they do not deserve to be believed.[131] I make three provisos only, none of which affect the force of my argument for immediate practical purposes. First if the Allies were to "nurse" the trade and industry of Germany for a period of five or ten years, supplying her with large loans, and with ample shipping, food, and raw materials during that period, building up markets for her, and deliberately applying all their resources and goodwill to making her the greatest industrial nation in Europe, if not in the world, a substantially larger sum could probably be extracted thereafter; for Germany is capable of very great productivity. Second whilst I estimate in terms of money, I assume that there is no revolutionary change in the purchasing power of our unit of value. If the value of gold were to sink to a half or a tenth of its present value, the real burden of a payment fixed in terms of gold would be reduced proportionately. If a sovereign comes to be worth what a shilling is worth now, then, of course, Germany can pay a larger sum than I have named, measured in gold sovereigns. Third I assume that there is no revolutionary change in the yield of Nature and material to man s labor. It is not impossible that the progress of science should bring within our reach methods and devices by which the whole standard of life would be raised immeasurably, and a given volume of products would represent but a portion of the human effort which it represents now. In this case all standards of "capacity" would be changed everywhere. But the fact that all things are possible is no excuse for talking foolishly. It is true that in 1870 no man could have predicted Germany s capacity in 1910. We cannot expect to legislate for a generation or more. The secular changes in man s economic condition and the liability of human forecast to error are as likely to lead to mistake in one direction as in another. We cannot as reasonable men do better than base our policy on the evidence we have and adapt it to the five or ten years over which we may suppose ourselves to have some measure of prevision; and we are not at fault if we leave on one side the extreme chances of human existence and of revolutionary changes in the order of Nature or of man s relations to her. The fact that we have no adequate knowledge of Germany s capacity to pay over a long period of years is no justification (as I have heard some people claim that, it is) for the statement that she can pay $50,000,000,000. Why has the world been so credulous of the unveracities of politicians? If an explanation is needed, I attribute this particular credulity to the following influences in part. In the first place, the vast expenditures of the war, the inflation of prices, and the depreciation of currency, leading up to a complete instability of the unit of value, have made us lose all sense of number and magnitude in matters of finance. What we believed to be the limits of possibility have been so enormously exceeded, and those who founded their expectations on the past have been so often wrong, that the man in the street is now prepared to believe anything which is told him with some show of authority, and the larger the figure the more readily he swallows it. But those who look into the matter more deeply are sometimes misled by a fallacy, much more plausible to reasonableness. Such a one might base his conclusions on Germany s total surplus of annual productivity as distinct from her export surplus. Helfferich s estimate of Germany s annual increment of wealth in 1913 was $2,000,000,000 to $2,125,000,000 (exclusive of increased money value of existing land and property). Before the war, Germany spent between $250,000,000 and $500,000,000 on armaments, with which she can now dispense. Why, therefore, should she not pay over to the Allies an annual sum of $2,500,000,000? This puts the crude argument in its strongest and most plausible form. But there are two errors in it. First of all, Germany s annual savings, after what she has suffered in the war and by the Peace, will fall far short of what they were before, and, if they are taken from her year by year in future, they cannot again reach their previous level. The loss of Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, and Upper Silesia could not be assessed in terms of surplus productivity at less than $250,000,000 annually. Germany is supposed to have profited about $500,000,000 per annum from her ships, her foreign investments, and her foreign banking and connections, all of which have now been taken from her. Her saving on armaments is far more than balanced by her annual charge for pensions now estimated at $1,250,000,000,[132] which represents a real loss of productive capacity. And even if we put on one side the burden of the internal debt, which amounts to 24 milliards of marks, as being a question of internal distribution rather than of productivity, we must still allow for the foreign debt incurred by Germany during the war, the exhaustion of her stock of raw materials, the depletion of her live-stock, the impaired productivity of her soil from lack of manures and of labor, and the diminution in her wealth from the failure to keep up many repairs and renewals over a period of nearly five years. Germany is not as rich as she was before the war, and the diminution in her future savings for these reasons, quite apart from the factors previously allowed for, could hardly be put at less than ten per cent, that is $200,000,000 annually. These factors have already reduced Germany s annual surplus to less than the $500,000,000 at which we arrived on other grounds as the maximum of her annual payments. But even if the rejoinder be made, that we have not yet allowed for the lowering of the standard of life and comfort in Germany which may reasonably be imposed on a defeated enemy,[133] there is still a fundamental fallacy in the method of calculation. An annual surplus available for home investment can only be converted into a surplus available for export abroad by a radical change in the kind of work performed. Labor, while it may be available and efficient for domestic services in Germany, may yet be able to find no outlet in foreign trade. We are back on the same question which faced us in our examination of the export trade—in what export trade is German labor going to find a greatly increased outlet? Labor can only he diverted into new channels with loss of efficiency, and a large expenditure of capital. The annual surplus which German labor can produce for capital improvements at home is no measure, either theoretically or practically, of the annual tribute which she can pay abroad.
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Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 III There remain those Treaty provisions which relate to the transport and the tariff systems of Germany. These parts of the Treaty have not nearly the importance and the significance of those discussed hitherto. They are pin-pricks, interferences and vexations, not so much objectionable for their solid consequences, as dishonorable to the Allies in the light of their professions. Let the reader consider what follows in the light of the assurances already quoted, in reliance on which Germany laid down her arms. (i.) The miscellaneous Economic Clauses commence with a number of provisions which would be in accordance with the spirit of the third of the Fourteen Points,—if they were reciprocal. Both for imports and exports, and as regards tariffs, regulations, and prohibitions, Germany binds herself for five years to accord most-favored-nation treatment to the Allied and Associated States.[55] But she is not entitled herself to receive such treatment. For five years Alsace-Lorraine shall be free to export into Germany, without payment of customs duty, up to the average amount sent annually into Germany from 1911 to 1913.[56] But there is no similar provision for German exports into Alsace-Lorraine. For three years Polish exports to Germany, and for five years Luxemburg s exports to Germany, are to have a similar privilege,[57]— but not German exports to Poland or to Luxemburg. Luxemburg also, which for many years has enjoyed the benefits of inclusion within the German Customs Union, is permanently excluded from it henceforward.[58] For six months after the Treaty has come into force Germany may not impose duties on imports from the Allied and Associated States higher than the most favorable duties prevalent before the war and for a further two years and a half (making three years in all) this prohibition continues to apply to certain commodities, notably to some of those as to which special agreements existed before the war, and also to wine, to vegetable oils, to artificial silk, and to washed or scoured wool.[59] This is a ridiculous and injurious provision, by which Germany is prevented from taking those steps necessary to conserve her limited resources for the purchase of necessaries and the discharge of Reparation. As a result of the existing distribution of wealth in Germany, and of financial wantonness amongst individuals, the offspring of uncertainty, Germany is threatened with a deluge of luxuries and semi-luxuries from abroad, of which she has been starved for years, which would exhaust or diminish her small supplies of foreign exchange. These provisions strike at the authority of the German Government to ensure economy in such consumption, or to raise taxation during a critical period. What an example of senseless greed overreaching itself, to introduce, after taking from Germany what liquid wealth she has and demanding impossible payments for the future, a special and particularized injunction that she must allow as readily as in the days of her prosperity the import of champagne and of silk! One other Article affects the Customs Régime of Germany which, if it was applied, would be serious and extensive in its consequences. The Allies have reserved the right to apply a special customs régime to the occupied area on the bank of the Rhine, "in the event of such a measure being necessary in their opinion in order to safeguard the economic interests of the population of these territories."[60] This provision was probably introduced as a possibly useful adjunct to the French policy of somehow detaching the left bank provinces from Germany during the years of their occupation. The project of establishing an independent Republic under French clerical auspices, which would act as a buffer state and realize the French ambition of driving Germany proper beyond the Rhine, has not yet been abandoned. Some believe that much may be accomplished by a régime of threats, bribes, and cajolery extended over a period of fifteen years or longer.[61] If this Article is acted upon, and the economic system of the left bank of the Rhine is effectively severed from the rest of Germany, the effect would be far-reaching. But the dreams of designing diplomats do not always prosper, and we must trust the future. (ii.) The clauses relating to Railways, as originally presented to Germany, were substantially modified in the final Treaty, and are now limited to a provision by which goods, coming from Allied territory to Germany, or in transit through Germany, shall receive the most favored treatment as regards rail freight rates, etc., applied to goods of the same kind carried on any German lines "under similar conditions of transport, for example, as regards length of route."[62] As a non-reciprocal provision this is an act of interference in internal arrangements which it is difficult to justify, but the practical effect of this,[63] and of an analogous provision relating to passenger traffic,[64] will much depend on the interpretation of the phrase, "similar conditions of transport."[65] For the time being Germany s transport system will be much more seriously disordered by the provisions relating to the cession of rolling-stock. Under paragraph 7 of the Armistice conditions Germany was called on to surrender 5000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons, "in good working order, with all necessary spare parts and fittings." Under the Treaty Germany is required to confirm this surrender and to recognize the title of the Allies to the material.[66] She is further required, in the case of railway systems in ceded territory, to hand over these systems complete with their full complement of rolling-stock "in a normal state of upkeep" as shown in the last inventory before November 11, 1918.[67] That is to say, ceded railway systems are not to bear any share in the general depletion and deterioration of the German rolling-stock as a whole. This is a loss which in course of time can doubtless be made good. But lack of lubricating oils and the prodigious wear and tear of the war, not compensated by normal repairs, had already reduced the German railway system to a low state of efficiency. The further heavy losses under the Treaty will confirm this state of affairs for some time to come, and are a substantial aggravation of the difficulties of the coal problem and of export industry generally. (iii.) There remain the clauses relating to the river system of Germany. These are largely unnecessary and are so little related to the supposed aims of the Allies that their purport is generally unknown. Yet they constitute an unprecedented interference with a country s domestic arrangements and are capable of being so operated as to take from Germany all effective control over her own transport system. In their present form they are incapable of justification; but some simple changes might transform them into a reasonable instrument. Most of the principal rivers of Germany have their source or their outlet in non-German territory. The Rhine, rising in Switzerland, is now a frontier river for a part of its course, and finds the sea in Holland; the Danube rises in Germany but flows over its greater length elsewhere; the Elbe rises in the mountains of Bohemia, now called Czecho-Slovakia; the Oder traverses Lower Silesia; and the Niemen now bounds the frontier of East Prussia and has its source in Russia. Of these, the Rhine and the Niemen are frontier rivers, the Elbe is primarily German but in its upper reaches has much importance for Bohemia, the Danube in its German parts appears to have little concern for any country but Germany, and the Oder is an almost purely German river unless the result of the plebiscite is to detach all Upper Silesia. Rivers which, in the words of the Treaty, "naturally provide more than one State with access to the sea," properly require some measure of international regulation and adequate guarantees against discrimination. This principle has long been recognized in the International Commissions which regulate the Rhine and the Danube. But on such Commissions the States concerned should be represented more or less in proportion to their interests. The Treaty, however, has made the international character of these rivers a pretext for taking the river system of Germany out of German control. After certain Articles which provide suitably against discrimination and interference with freedom of transit,[68] the Treaty proceeds to hand over the administration of the Elbe, the Oder, the Danube, and the Rhine to International Commissions.[69] The ultimate powers of these Commissions are to be determined by "a General Convention drawn up by the Allied and Associated Powers, and approved by the League of Nations."[70] In the meantime the Commissions are to draw up their own constitutions and are apparently to enjoy powers of the most extensive description, "particularly in regard to the execution of works of maintenance, control, and improvement on the river system, the financial régime, the fixing and collection of charges, and regulations for navigation."[71] So far there is much to be said for the Treaty. Freedom of through transit is a not unimportant part of good international practice and should be established everywhere. The objectionable feature of the Commissions lies in their membership. In each case the voting is so weighted as to place Germany in a clear minority. On the Elbe Commission Germany has four votes out of ten; on the Oder Commission three out of nine; on the Rhine Commission four out of nineteen; on the Danube Commission, which is not yet definitely constituted, she will be apparently in a small minority. On the government of all these rivers France and Great Britain are represented; and on the Elbe for some undiscoverable reason there are also representatives of Italy and Belgium. Thus the great waterways of Germany are handed over to foreign bodies with the widest powers; and much of the local and domestic business of Hamburg, Magdeburg, Dresden, Stettin, Frankfurt, Breslan, and Ulm will be subject to a foreign jurisdiction. It is almost as though the Powers of Continental Europe were to be placed in a majority on the Thames Conservancy or the Port of London. Certain minor provisions follow lines which in our survey of the Treaty are now familiar. Under Annex III. of the Reparation Chapter Germany is to cede up to 20 per cent of her inland navigation tonnage. Over and above this she must cede such proportion of her river craft upon the Elbe, the Oder, the Niemen, and the Danube as an American arbitrator may determine, "due regard being had to the legitimate needs of the parties concerned, and particularly to the shipping traffic during the five years preceding the war," the craft so ceded to be selected from those most recently built.[72] The same course is to be followed with German vessels and tugs on the Rhine and with German property in the port of Rotterdam.[73] Where the Rhine flows between France and Germany, France is to have all the rights of utilizing the water for irrigation or for power and Germany is to have none;[74] and all the bridges are to be French property as to their whole length.[75] Finally the administration of the purely German Rhine port of Kehl lying on the eastern bank of the river is to be united to that of Strassburg for seven years and managed by a Frenchman to be nominated by the new Rhine Commission. Thus the Economic Clauses of the Treaty are comprehensive, and little has been overlooked which might impoverish Germany now or obstruct her development in future. So situated, Germany is to make payments of money, on a scale and in a manner to be examined in the next chapter. FOOTNOTES [7] The precise force of this reservation is discussed in detail in Chapter V. [8] I also omit those which have no special relevance to the German Settlement. The second of the Fourteen Points, which relates to the Freedom of the Seas, is omitted because the Allies did not accept it. Any italics are mine. [9] Part VIII. Annex III. (1). [10] Part VIII. Annex III. (3). [11] In the years before the war the average shipbuilding output of Germany was about 350,000 tons annually, exclusive of warships. [12] Part VIII. Annex III. (5). [13] Art. 119. [14] Arts. 120 and 257. [15] Art. 122. [16] Arts. 121 and 297(b). The exercise or non-exercise of this option of expropriation appears to lie, not with the Reparation Commission, but with the particular Power in whose territory the property has become situated by cession or mandation. [17] Art. 297 (h) and para. 4 of Annex to Part X. Section IV. [18] Arts. 53 and 74. [19] In 1871 Germany granted France credit for the railways of Alsace-Lorraine but not for State property. At that time, however, the railways were private property. As they afterwards became the property of the German Government, the French Government have held, in spite of the large additional capital which Germany has sunk in them, that their treatment must follow the precedent of State property generally. [20] Arts. 55 and 255. This follows the precedent of 1871. [21] Art. 297 (b). [22] Part X. Sections III. and IV. and Art. 243. [23] The interpretation of the words between inverted commas is a little dubious. The phrase is so wide as to seem to include private debts. But in the final draft of the Treaty private debts are not explicitly referred to. [24] This provision is mitigated in the case of German property in Poland and the other new States, the proceeds of liquidation in these areas being payable direct to the owner (Art. 92.) [25] Part X. Section IV. Annex, para. 10 "Germany will, within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, deliver to each Allied or Associated Power all securities, certificates, deeds, or other documents of title held by its nationals and relating to property, rights, or interests situated in the territory of that Allied or Associated Power.... Germany will at any time on demand of any Allied or Associated Power furnish such information as may be required with regard to the territory, rights, and interests of German nationals within the territory of such Allied or Associated Power, or with regard to any transactions concerning such property, rights, or interests effected since July 1, 1914." [26] "Any public utility undertaking or concession" is a vague phrase, the precise interpretation of which is not provided for. [27] Art. 260. [28] Art. 235. [29] Art. 118. [30] Arts. 129 and 132. [31] Arts. 135-137. [32] Arts. 135-140. [33] Art. 141 "Germany renounces all rights, titles and privileges conferred on her by the General Act of Algeciras of April 7, 1906, and by the Franco-German Agreements, of Feb. 9, 1909, and Nov. 4, 1911...." [34] Art. 148 "All treaties, agreements, arrangements and contracts concluded by Germany with Egypt are regarded as abrogated from Aug. 4, 1914." Art. 153 "All property and possessions in Egypt of the German Empire and the German States pass to the Egyptian Government without payment." [35] Art. 289. [36] Art. 45. [37] Part IV. Section IV. Annex, Chap. III. [38] "We take over the ownership of the Sarre mines, and in order not to be inconvenienced in the exploitation of these coal deposits, we constitute a distinct little estate for the 600,000 Germans who inhabit this coal basin, and in fifteen years we shall endeavor by a plebiscite to bring them to declare that they want to be French. We know what that means. During fifteen years we are going to work on them, to attack them from every point, till we obtain from them a declaration of love. It is evidently a less brutal proceeding than the coup de force which detached from us our Alsatians and Lorrainers. But if less brutal, it is more hypocritical. We know quite well between ourselves that it is an attempt to annex these 600,000 Germans. One can understand very well the reasons of an economic nature which have led Clemenceau to wish to give us these Sarre coal deposits, but in order to acquire them must we give ourselves the appearance of wanting to juggle with 600,000 Germans in order to make Frenchmen of them in fifteen years?" (M. Hervé in La Victorie, May 31, 1919). [39] This plebiscite is the most important of the concessions accorded to Germany in the Allies Final Note, and one for which Mr. Lloyd George, who never approved the Allies policy on the Eastern frontiers of Germany, can claim the chief credit. The vote cannot take place before the spring of 1920, and may be postponed until 1921. In the meantime the province will be governed by an Allied Commission. The vote will be taken by communes, and the final frontiers will be determined by the Allies, who shall have regard, partly to the results of the vote in each commune, and partly "to the geographical and economic conditions of the locality." It would require great local knowledge to predict the result. By voting Polish, a locality can escape liability for the indemnity, and for the crushing taxation consequent on voting German, a factor not to be neglected. On the other hand, the bankruptcy and incompetence of the new Polish State might deter those who were disposed to vote on economic rather than on racial grounds. It has also been stated that the conditions of life in such matters as sanitation and social legislation are incomparably better in Upper Silesia than in the adjacent districts of Poland, where similar legislation is in its infancy. The argument in the text assumes that Upper Silesia will cease to be German. But much may happen in a year, and the assumption is not certain. To the extent that it proves erroneous the conclusions must be modified. [40] German authorities claim, not without contradiction, that to judge from the votes cast at elections, one-third of the population would elect in the Polish interest, and two-thirds in the German. [41] It must not be overlooked, however, that, amongst the other concessions relating to Silesia accorded in the Allies Final Note, there has been included Article 90, by which "Poland undertakes to permit for a period of fifteen years the exportation to Germany of the products of the mines in any part of Upper Silesia transferred to Poland in accordance with the present Treaty. Such products shall be free from all export duties or other charges or restrictions on exportation. Poland agrees to take such steps as may be necessary to secure that any such products shall be available for sale to purchasers in Germany on terms as favorable as are applicable to like products sold under similar conditions to purchasers in Poland or in any other country." This does not apparently amount to a right of preemption, and it is not easy to estimate its effective practical consequences. It is evident, however, that in so far as the mines are maintained at their former efficiency, and in so far as Germany is in a position to purchase substantially her former supplies from that source, the loss is limited to the effect on her balance of trade, and is without the more serious repercussions on her economic life which are contemplated in the text. Here is an opportunity for the Allies to render more tolerable the actual operation of the settlement. The Germans, it should be added, have pointed out that the same economic argument which adds the Saar fields to France allots Upper Silesia to Germany. For whereas the Silesian mines are essential to the economic life of Germany, Poland does not need them. Of Poland s pre-war annual demand of 10,500,000 tons, 6,800,000 tons were supplied by the indisputably Polish districts adjacent to Upper Silesia. 1,500,000 tons from Upper Silesia (out of a total Upper Silesian output of 43,500,000 tons), and the balance from what is now Czecho-Slovakia. Even without any supply from Upper Silesia and Czecho-Slovakia, Poland could probably meet her requirements by the fuller exploitation of her own coalfields which are not yet scientifically developed, or from the deposits of Western Galicia which are now to be annexed to her. [42] France is also to receive annually for three years 35,000 tons of benzol, 60,000 tons of coal tar, and 30,000 tons of sulphate of ammonia. [43] The Reparation Commission is authorized under the Treaty (Part VIII Annex V. para. 10) "to postpone or to cancel deliveries" if they consider "that the full exercise of the foregoing options would interfere unduly with the industrial requirements of Germany." In the event of such postponements or cancellations "the coal to replace coal from destroyed mines shall receive priority over other deliveries." This concluding clause is of the greatest importance, if, as will be seen, it is physically impossible for Germany to furnish the full 45,000,000; for it means that France will receive 20,000,000 tons before Italy receives anything. The Reparation Commission has no discretion to modify this. The Italian Press has not failed to notice the significance of the provision, and alleges that this clause was inserted during the absence of the Italian representatives from Paris (Corriere della Sera, July 19, 1919). [44] It follows that the current rate of production in Germany has sunk to about 60 per cent of that of 1913. The effect on reserves has naturally been disastrous, and the prospects for the coming winter are dangerous. [45] This assumes a loss of output of 15 per cent as compared with the estimate of 30 per cent quoted above. [46] This supposes a loss of 23 per cent of Germany s industrial undertaking and a diminution of 13 per cent in her other requirements. [47] The reader must he reminded in particular that the above calculations take no account of the German production of lignite, which yielded in 1913 13,000,000 tons of rough lignite in addition to an amount converted into 21,000,000 tons of briquette. This amount of lignite, however, was required in Germany before the war in addition to the quantities of coal assumed above. I am not competent to speak on the extent to which the loss of coal can be made good by the extended use of lignite or by economies in its present employment; but some authorities believe that Germany may obtain substantial compensation for her loss of coal by paying more attention to her deposits of lignite. [48] Mr. Hoover, in July, 1919, estimated that the coal output of Europe, excluding Russia and the Balkans, had dropped from 679,500,000 tons to 443,000,000 tons,—as a result in a minor degree of loss of material and labor, but owing chiefly to a relaxation of physical effort after the privations and sufferings of the war, a lack of rolling-stock and transport, and the unsettled political fate of some of the mining districts. [49] Numerous commercial agreements during the war ware arranged on these lines. But in the month of June, 1919, alone, minor agreements providing for payment in coal were made by Germany with Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland. The amounts involved were not large, but without them Germany could not have obtained butter from Denmark, fats and herrings from Norway, or milk and cattle from Switzerland. [50] "Some 60,000 Ruhr miners have agreed to work extra shifts—so-called butter-shifts—for the purpose of furnishing coal for export to Denmark hence butter will be exported in return. The butter will benefit the miners in the first place, as they have worked specially to obtain it" (Kölnische Zeitung, June 11, 1919). [51] What of the prospects of whisky-shifts in England? [52] As early as September, 1919, the Coal Commission had to face the physical impracticability of enforcing the demands of the Treaty, and agreed to modify them as follows —"Germany shall in the next six months make deliveries corresponding to an annual delivery of 20 million tons as compared with 43 millions as provided in the Peace Treaty. If Germany s total production exceeds the present level of about 108 millions a year, 60 per cent of extra production, up to 128 millions, shall be delivered to the Entente and 50 per cent of any extra beyond that, until the figure provided in the Peace Treaty is reached. If the total production falls below 108 millions the Entente will examine the situation, after hearing Germany, and take account of it." [53] 21,136,265 tons out of a total of 28,607,903 tons. The loss of iron-ore in respect of Upper Silesia is insignificant. The exclusion of the iron and steel of Luxemburg from the German Customs Union is, however, important, especially when this loss is added to that of Alsace-Lorraine. It may be added in passing that Upper Silesia includes 75 per cent of the zinc production of Germany. [54] In April, 1919, the British Ministry of Munitions despatched an expert Commission to examine the conditions of the iron and steel works in Lorraine and the occupied areas of Germany. The Report states that the iron and steel works in Lorraine, and to a lesser extent in the Saar Valley, are dependent on supplies of coal and coke from Westphalia. It is necessary to mix Westphalian coal with Saar coal to obtain a good furnace coke. The entire dependence of all the Lorraine iron and steel works upon Germany for fuel supplies "places them," says the Report, "in a very unenviable position." [55] Arts. 264, 265, 266, and 267. These provisions can only be extended beyond five years by the Council of the League of Nations. [56] Art. 268 (a). [57] Art. 268 (b) and (c). [58] The Grand Duchy is also deneutralized and Germany binds herself to "accept in advance all international arrangements which may be concluded by the Allied and Associated Powers relating to the Grand Duchy" (Art. 40). At the end of September, 1919, a plebiscite was held to determine whether Luxemburg should join the French or the Belgian Customs Union, which decided by a substantial majority in favour of the former. The third alternative of the maintenance of the union with Germany was not left open to the electorate. [59] Art. 269. [60] Art. 270. [61] The occupation provisions may be conveniently summarized at this point. German territory situated west of the Rhine, together with the bridge-heads, is subject to occupation for a period of fifteen years (Art. 428). If, however, "the conditions of the present Treaty are faithfully carried out by Germany," the Cologne district will be evacuated after five years, and the Coblenz district after ten years (Art. 429). It is, however, further provided that if at the expiration of fifteen years "the guarantees against unprovoked aggression by Germany are not considered sufficient by the Allied and Associated Governments, the evacuation of the occupying troops may be delayed to the extent regarded as necessary for the purpose of obtaining the required guarantees" (Art. 429); and also that "in case either during the occupation or after the expiration of the fifteen years, the Reparation Commission finds that Germany refuses to observe the whole or part of her obligations under the present Treaty with regard to Reparation, the whole or part of the areas specified in Article 429 will be re-occupied immediately by the Allied and Associated Powers" (Art. 430). Since it will be impossible for Germany to fulfil the whole of her Reparation obligations, the effect of the above provisions will be in practice that the Allies will occupy the left bank of the Rhine just so long as they choose. They will also govern it in such manner as they may determine (e.g. not only as regards customs, but such matters as the respective authority of the local German representatives and the Allied Governing Commission), since "all matters relating to the occupation and not provided for by the present Treaty shall be regulated by subsequent agreements, which Germany hereby undertakes to observe" (Art. 432). The actual Agreement under which the occupied areas are to be administered for the present has been published as a White Paper [Cd. 222]. The supreme authority is to be in the hands of an Inter-Allied Rhineland Commission, consisting of a Belgian, a French, a British, and an American member. The articles of this Agreement are very fairly and reasonably drawn. [62] Art. 365. After five years this Article is subject to revision by the Council of the League of Nations. [63] The German Government withdrew, as from September 1, 1919, all preferential railway tariffs for the export of iron and steel goods, on the ground that these privileges would have been more than counterbalanced by the corresponding privileges which, under this Article of the Treaty, they would have been forced to give to Allied traders. [64] Art. 367. [65] Questions of interpretation and application are to be referred to the League of Nations (Art. 376). [66] Art. 250. [67] Art 371. This provision is even applied "to the lines of former Russian Poland converted by Germany to the German gage, such lines being regarded as detached from the Prussian State System." [68] Arts. 332-337. Exception may be taken, however, to the second paragraph of Art. 332, which allows the vessels of other nations to trade between German towns but forbids German vessels to trade between non-German towns except with special permission; and Art. 333, which prohibits Germany from making use of her river system as a source of revenue, may be injudicious. [69] The Niemen and the Moselle are to be similarly treated at a later date if required. [70] Art. 338. [71] Art. 344. This is with particular reference to the Elbe and the Oder; the Danube and the Rhine are dealt with in relation to the existing Commissions. [72] Art. 339. [73] Art. 357. [74] Art. 358. Germany is, however, to be allowed some payment or credit in respect of power so taken by France. [75] Art. 66.
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Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 The thoughts which I have expressed in the second chapter were not present to the mind of Paris. The future life of Europe was not their concern; its means of livelihood was not their anxiety. Their preoccupations, good and bad alike, related to frontiers and nationalities, to the balance of power, to imperial aggrandizements, to the future enfeeblement of a strong and dangerous enemy, to revenge, and to the shifting by the victors of their unbearable financial burdens on to the shoulders of the defeated. Two rival schemes for the future polity of the world took the field,—the Fourteen Points of the President, and the Carthaginian Peace of M. Clemenceau. Yet only one of these was entitled to take the field; for the enemy had not surrendered unconditionally, but on agreed terms as to the general character of the Peace. This aspect of what happened cannot, unfortunately, be passed over with a word, for in the minds of many Englishmen at least it has been a subject of very great misapprehension. Many persons believe that the Armistice Terms constituted the first Contract concluded between the Allied and Associated Powers and the German Government, and that we entered the Conference with our hands, free, except so far as these Armistice Terms might bind us. This was not the case. To make the position plain, it is necessary briefly to review the history, of the negotiations which began with the German Note of October 5, 1918, and concluded with President Wilson s Note of November 5, 1918. On October 5, 1918, the German Government addressed a brief Note to the President accepting the Fourteen Points and asking for Peace negotiations. The President s reply of October 8 asked if he was to understand definitely that the German Government accepted "the terms laid down" in Fourteen Points and in his subsequent Addresses and "that its object in entering into discussion would be only to agree upon the practical details of their application." He added that the evacuation of invaded territory must be a prior condition of an Armistice. On October 12 the German Government returned an unconditional affirmative to these questions;-"its object in entering into discussions would be only to agree upon practical details of the application of these terms." On October 14, having received this affirmative answer, the President made a further communication to make clear the points (1) that the details of the Armistice would have to be left to the military advisers of the United States and the Allies, and must provide absolutely against the possibility of Germany s resuming hostilities; (2) that submarine warfare must cease if these conversations were to continue; and (3) that he required further guarantees of the representative character of the Government with which he was dealing. On October 20 Germany accepted points (1) and (2), and pointed out, as regards (3), that she now had a Constitution and a Government dependent for its authority on the Reichstag. On October 23 the President announced that, "having received the solemn and explicit assurance of the German Government that it unreservedly accepts the terms of peace laid down in his Address to the Congress of the United States on January 8, 1918 (the Fourteen Points), and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent Addresses, particularly the Address of September 27, and that it is ready to discuss the details of their application," he has communicated the above correspondence to the Governments of the Allied Powers "with the suggestion that, if these Governments are disposed to effect peace upon the terms and principles indicated," they will ask their military advisers to draw up Armistice Terms of such a character as to "ensure to the Associated Governments the unrestricted power to safeguard and enforce the details of the peace to which the German Government has agreed." At the end of this Note the President hinted more openly than in that of October 14 at the abdication of the Kaiser. This completes the preliminary negotiations to which the President alone was a party, adding without the Governments of the Allied Powers. On November 5, 1918, the President transmitted to Germany the reply he had received from the Governments associated with him, and added that Marshal Foch had been authorized to communicate the terms of an armistice to properly accredited representatives. In this reply the Allied Governments, "subject to the qualifications which follow, declare their willingness to make peace with the Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the President s Address to Congress of January 8, 1918, and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent Addresses." The qualifications in question were two in number. The first related to the Freedom of the Seas, as to which they "reserved to themselves complete freedom." The second related to Reparation and ran as follows —"Further, in the conditions of peace laid down in his Address to Congress on the 8th January, 1918 the President declared that invaded territories must be restored as well as evacuated and made free. The Allied Governments feel that no doubt ought to be allowed to exist as to what this provision implies. By it they understand that compensation will be made by Germany for 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."[7] The nature of the Contract between Germany and the Allies resulting from this exchange of documents is plain and unequivocal. The terms of the peace are to be in accordance with the Addresses of the President, and the purpose of the Peace Conference is "to discuss the details of their application." The circumstances of the Contract were of an unusually solemn and binding character; for one of the conditions of it was that Germany should agree to Armistice Terms which were to be such as would leave her helpless. Germany having rendered herself helpless in reliance on the Contract, the honor of the Allies was peculiarly involved in fulfilling their part and, if there were ambiguities, in not using their position to take advantage of them. What, then, was the substance of this Contract to which the Allies had bound themselves? An examination of the documents shows that, although a large part of the Addresses is concerned with spirit, purpose, and intention, and not with concrete solutions, and that many questions requiring a settlement in the Peace Treaty are not touched on, nevertheless, there are certain questions which they settle definitely. It is true that within somewhat wide limits the Allies still had a free hand. Further, it is difficult to apply on a contractual basis those passages which deal with spirit, purpose, and intention;—every man must judge for himself whether, in view of them, deception or hypocrisy has been practised. But there remain, as will be seen below, certain important issues on which the Contract is unequivocal. In addition to the Fourteen Points of January 18, 1918, the Addresses of the President which form part of the material of the Contract are four in number,—before the Congress on February 11; at Baltimore on April 6; at Mount Vernon on July 4; and at New York on September 27, the last of these being specially referred to in the Contract. I venture to select from these Addresses those engagements of substance, avoiding repetitions, which are most relevant to the German Treaty. The parts I omit add to, rather than detract from, those I quote; but they chiefly relate to intention, and are perhaps too vague and general to be interpreted contractually.[8] The Fourteen Points.—(3). "The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the Peace and associating themselves for its maintenance." (4). "Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety." (5). "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims," regard being had to the interests of the populations concerned. (6), (7), (8), and (11). The evacuation and "restoration" of all invaded territory, especially of Belgium. To this must be added the rider of the Allies, claiming compensation for all damage done to civilians and their property by land, by sea, and from the air (quoted in full above). (8). The righting of "the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine." (13). An independent Poland, including "the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations" and "assured a free and secure access to the sea." (14). The League of Nations. Before the Congress, February 11.—"There shall be no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages.... Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of action which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril.... Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival States." New York, September 27.—(1) "The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to be just." (2) "No special or separate interest of any single nation or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the settlement which is not consistent with the common interest of all." (3) "There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations." (4) "There can be no special selfish economic combinations within the League and no employment of any form of economic boycott or exclusion, except as the power of economic penalty by exclusion from the markets of the world may be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of discipline and control." (5) "All international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world." This wise and magnanimous program for the world had passed on November 5, 1918 beyond the region of idealism and aspiration, and had become part of a solemn contract to which all the Great Powers of the world had put their signature. But it was lost, nevertheless, in the morass of Paris;—the spirit of it altogether, the letter in parts ignored and in other parts distorted. The German observations on the draft Treaty of Peace were largely a comparison between the terms of this understanding, on the basis of which the German nation had agreed to lay down its arms, and the actual provisions of the document offered them for signature thereafter. The German commentators had little difficulty in showing that the draft Treaty constituted a breach of engagements and of international morality comparable with their own offense in the invasion of Belgium. Nevertheless, the German reply was not in all its parts a document fully worthy of the occasion, because in spite of the justice and importance of much of its contents, a truly broad treatment and high dignify of outlook were a little wanting, and the general effect lacks the simple treatment, with the dispassionate objectivity of despair which the deep passions of the occasion might have evoked. The Allied governments gave it, in any case, no serious consideration, and I doubt if anything which the German delegation could have said at that stage of the proceedings would have much influenced the result. The commonest virtues of the individual are often lacking in the spokesmen of nations; a statesman representing not himself but his country may prove, without incurring excessive blame—as history often records—vindictive, perfidious, and egotistic. These qualities are familiar in treaties imposed by victors. But the German delegation did not succeed in exposing in burning and prophetic words the quality which chiefly distinguishes this transaction from all its historical predecessors—its insincerity. This theme, however, must be for another pen than mine. I am mainly concerned in what follows, not with the justice of the Treaty,—neither with the demand for penal justice against the enemy, nor with the obligation of contractual justice on the victor,—but with its wisdom and with its consequences. I propose, therefore, in this chapter to set forth baldly the principal economic provisions of the Treaty, reserving, however, for the next my comments on the Reparation Chapter and on Germany s capacity to meet the payments there demanded from her. The German economic system as it existed before the war depended on three main factors I. Overseas commerce as represented by her mercantile marine, her colonies, her foreign investments, her exports, and the overseas connections of her merchants; II. The exploitation of her coal and iron and the industries built upon them; III. Her transport and tariff system. Of these the first, while not the least important, was certainly the most vulnerable. The Treaty aims at the systematic destruction of all three, but principally of the first two. I (1) Germany has ceded to the Allies all the vessels of her mercantile marine exceeding 1600 tons gross, half the vessels between 1000 tons and 1600 tons, and one quarter of her trawlers and other fishing boats.[9] The cession is comprehensive, including not only vessels flying the German flag, but also all vessels owned by Germans but flying other flags, and all vessels under construction as well as those afloat.[10] Further, Germany undertakes, if required, to build for the Allies such types of ships as they may specify up to 200,000 tons[11] annually for five years, the value of these ships being credited to Germany against what is due from her for Reparation.[12] Thus the German mercantile marine is swept from the seas and cannot be restored for many years to come on a scale adequate to meet the requirements of her own commerce. For the present, no lines will run from Hamburg, except such as foreign nations may find it worth while to establish out of their surplus tonnage. Germany will have to pay to foreigners for the carriage of her trade such charges as they may be able to exact, and will receive only such conveniences as it may suit them to give her. The prosperity of German ports and commerce can only revive, it would seem, in proportion as she succeeds in bringing under her effective influence the merchant marines of Scandinavia and of Holland. (2) Germany has ceded to the Allies "all her rights and titles over her oversea possessions."[13] This cession not only applies to sovereignty but extends on unfavorable terms to Government property, all of which, including railways, must be surrendered without payment, while, on the other hand, the German Government remains liable for any debt which may have been incurred for the purchase or construction of this property, or for the development of the colonies generally.[14] In distinction from the practice ruling in the case of most similar cessions in recent history, the property and persons of private German nationals, as distinct from their Government, are also injuriously affected. The Allied Government exercising authority in any former German colony "may make such provisions as it thinks fit with reference to the repatriation from them of German nationals and to the conditions upon which German subjects of European origin shall, or shall not, be allowed to reside, hold property, trade or exercise a profession in them."[15] All contracts and agreements in favor of German nationals for the construction or exploitation of public works lapse to the Allied Governments as part of the payment due for Reparation. But these terms are unimportant compared with the more comprehensive provision by which "the Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to retain and liquidate all property, rights, and interests belonging at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty to German nationals, or companies controlled by them," within the former German colonies.[16] This wholesale expropriation of private property is to take place without the Allies affording any compensation to the individuals expropriated, and the proceeds will be employed, first, to meet private debts due to Allied nationals from any German nationals, and second, to meet claims due from Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, or Turkish nationals. Any balance may either be returned by the liquidating Power direct to Germany, or retained by them. If retained, the proceeds must be transferred to the Reparation Commission for Germany s credit in the Reparation account.[17] In short, not only are German sovereignty and German influence extirpated from the whole of her former oversea possessions, but the persons and property of her nationals resident or owning property in those parts are deprived of legal status and legal security. (3) The provisions just outlined in regard to the private property of Germans in the ex-German colonies apply equally to private German property in Alsace-Lorraine, except in so far as the French Government may choose to grant exceptions.[18] This is of much greater practical importance than the similar expropriation overseas because of the far higher value of the property involved and the closer interconnection, resulting from the great development of the mineral wealth of these provinces since 1871, of German economic interests there with those in Germany itself. Alsace-Lorraine has been part of the German Empire for nearly fifty years—a considerable majority of its population is German speaking—and it has been the scene of some of Germany s most important economic enterprises. Nevertheless, the property of those Germans who reside there, or who have invested in its industries, is now entirely at the disposal of the French Government without compensation, except in so far as the German Government itself may choose to afford it. The French Government is entitled to expropriate without compensation the personal property of private German citizens and German companies resident or situated within Alsace-Lorraine, the proceeds being credited in part satisfaction of various French claims. The severity of this provision is only mitigated to the extent that the French Government may expressly permit German nationals to continue to reside, in which case the above provision is not applicable. Government, State, and Municipal property, on the other hand, is to be ceded to France without any credit being given for it. This includes the railway system of the two provinces, together with its rolling-stock.[19] But while the property is taken over, liabilities contracted in respect of it in the form of public debts of any kind remain the liability of Germany.[20] The provinces also return to French sovereignty free and quit of their share of German war or pre-war dead-weight debt; nor does Germany receive a credit on this account in respect of Reparation. (4) The expropriation of German private property is not limited, however, to the ex-German colonies and Alsace-Lorraine. The treatment of such property forms, indeed, a very significant and material section of the Treaty, which has not received as much attention as it merits, although it was the subject of exceptionally violent objection on the part of the German delegates at Versailles. So far as I know, there is no precedent in any peace treaty of recent history for the treatment of private property set forth below, and the German representatives urged that the precedent now established strikes a dangerous and immoral blow at the security of private property everywhere. This is an exaggeration, and the sharp distinction, approved by custom and convention during the past two centuries, between the property and rights of a State and the property and rights of its nationals is an artificial one, which is being rapidly put out of date by many other influences than the Peace Treaty, and is inappropriate to modern socialistic conceptions of the relations between the State and its citizens. It is true, however, that the Treaty strikes a destructive blow at a conception which lies at the root of much of so-called international law, as this has been expounded hitherto. The principal provisions relating to the expropriation of German private property situated outside the frontiers of Germany, as these are now determined, are overlapping in their incidence, and the more drastic would seem in some cases to render the others unnecessary. Generally speaking, however, the more drastic and extensive provisions are not so precisely framed as those of more particular and limited application. They are as follows — (a) The Allies "reserve the right to retain and liquidate all property, rights and interests belonging at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty to German nationals, or companies controlled by them, within their territories, colonies, possessions and protectorates, including territories ceded to them by the present Treaty."[21] This is the extended version of the provision which has been discussed already in the case of the colonies and of Alsace-Lorraine. The value of the property so expropriated will be applied, in the first instance, to the satisfaction of private debts due from Germany to the nationals of the Allied Government within whose jurisdiction the liquidation takes place, and, second, to the satisfaction of claims arising out of the acts of Germany s former allies. Any balance, if the liquidating Government elects to retain it, must be credited in the Reparation account.[22] It is, however, a point of considerable importance that the liquidating Government is not compelled to transfer the balance to the Reparation Commission, but can, if it so decides, return the proceeds direct to Germany. For this will enable the United States, if they so wish, to utilize the very large balances, in the hands of their enemy-property custodian, to pay for the provisioning of Germany, without regard to the views of the Reparation Commission. These provisions had their origin in the scheme for the mutual settlement of enemy debts by means of a Clearing House. Under this proposal it was hoped to avoid much trouble and litigation by making each of the Governments lately at war responsible for the collection of private debts due from its nationals to the nationals of any of the other Governments (the normal process of collection having been suspended by reason of the war), and for the distribution of the funds so collected to those of its nationals who had claims against the nationals of the other Governments, any final balance either way being settled in cash. Such a scheme could have been completely bilateral and reciprocal And so in part it is, the scheme being mainly reciprocal as regards the collection of commercial debts. But the completeness of their victory permitted the Allied Governments to introduce in their own favor many divergencies from reciprocity, of which the following are the chief Whereas the property of Allied nationals within German jurisdiction reverts under the Treaty to Allied ownership on the conclusion of Peace, the property of Germans within Allied jurisdiction is to be retained and liquidated as described above, with the result that the whole of German property over a large part of the world can be expropriated, and the large properties now within the custody of Public Trustees and similar officials in the Allied countries may be retained permanently. In the second place, such German assets are chargeable, not only with the liabilities of Germans, but also, if they run to it, with "payment of the amounts due in respect of claims by the nationals of such Allied or Associated Power with regard to their property, rights, and interests in the territory of other Enemy Powers," as, for example, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria.[23] This is a remarkable provision, which is naturally non-reciprocal. In the third place, any final balance due to Germany on private account need not be paid over, but can be held against the various liabilities of the German Government.[24] The effective operation of these Articles is guaranteed by the delivery of deeds, titles, and information.[25] In the fourth place, pre-war contracts between Allied and German nationals may be canceled or revived at the option of the former, so that all such contracts which are in Germany s favor will be canceled, while, on the other hand, she will be compelled to fulfil those which are to her disadvantage. (b) So far we have been concerned with German property within Allied jurisdiction. The next provision is aimed at the elimination of German interests in the territory of her neighbors and former allies, and of certain other countries. Under Article 260 of the Financial Clauses it is provided that the Reparation Commission may, within one year of the coming into force of the Treaty, demand that the German Government expropriate its nationals and deliver to the Reparation Commission "any rights and interests of German nationals in any public utility undertaking or in any concession[26] operating in Russia, China, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, or in the possessions or dependencies of these States, or in any territory formerly belonging to Germany or her allies, to be ceded by Germany or her allies to any Power or to be administered by a Mandatory under the present Treaty." This is a comprehensive description, overlapping in part the provisions dealt with under (a) above, but including, it should be noted, the new States and territories carved out of the former Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish Empires. Thus Germany s influence is eliminated and her capital confiscated in all those neighboring countries to which she might naturally look for her future livelihood, and for an outlet for her energy, enterprise, and technical skill. The execution of this program in detail will throw on the Reparation Commission a peculiar task, as it will become possessor of a great number of rights and interests over a vast territory owing dubious obedience, disordered by war, disruption, and Bolshevism. The division of the spoils between the victors will also provide employment for a powerful office, whose doorsteps the greedy adventurers and jealous concession-hunters of twenty or thirty nations will crowd and defile. Lest the Reparation Commission fail by ignorance to exercise its rights to the full, it is further provided that the German Government shall communicate to it within six months of the Treaty s coming into force a list of all the rights and interests in question, "whether already granted, contingent or not yet exercised," and any which are not so communicated within this period will automatically lapse in favor of the Allied Governments.[27] How far an edict of this character can be made binding on a German national, whose person and property lie outside the jurisdiction of his own Government, is an unsettled question; but all the countries specified in the above list are open to pressure by the Allied authorities, whether by the imposition of an appropriate Treaty clause or otherwise. (c) There remains a third provision more sweeping than either of the above, neither of which affects German interests in neutral countries. The Reparation Commission is empowered up to May 1, 1921, to demand payment up to $5,000,000,000 in such manner as they may fix, "whether in gold, commodities, ships, securities or otherwise."[28] This provision has the effect of intrusting to the Reparation Commission for the period in question dictatorial powers over all German property of every description whatever. They can, under this Article, point to any specific business, enterprise, or property, whether within or outside Germany, and demand its surrender; and their authority would appear to extend not only to property existing at the date of the Peace, but also to any which may be created or acquired at any time in the course of the next eighteen months. For example, they could pick out—as presumably they will as soon as they are established—the fine and powerful German enterprise in South America known as the Deutsche Ueberseeische Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (the D.U.E.G.), and dispose of it to Allied interests. The clause is unequivocal and all-embracing. It is worth while to note in passing that it introduces a quite novel principle in the collection of indemnities. Hitherto, a sum has been fixed, and the nation mulcted has been left free to devise and select for itself the means of payment. But in this case the payees can (for a certain period) not only demand a certain sum but specify the particular kind of property in which payment is to be effected. Thus the powers of the Reparation Commission, with which I deal more particularly in the next chapter, can be employed to destroy Germany s commercial and economic organization as well as to exact payment. The cumulative effect of (a), (b), and (c) (as well as of certain other minor provisions on which I have not thought it necessary to enlarge) is to deprive Germany (or rather to empower the Allies so to deprive her at their will—it is not yet accomplished) of everything she possesses outside her own frontiers as laid down in the Treaty. Not only are her oversea investments taken and her connections destroyed, but the same process of extirpation is applied in the territories of her former allies and of her immediate neighbors by land. (5) Lest by some oversight the above provisions should overlook any possible contingencies, certain other Articles appear in the Treaty, which probably do not add very much in practical effect to those already described, but which deserve brief mention as showing the spirit of completeness in which the victorious Powers entered upon the economic subjection of their defeated enemy. First of all there is a general clause of barrer and renunciation "In territory outside her European frontiers as fixed by the present Treaty, Germany renounces all rights, titles and privileges whatever in or over territory which belonged to her or to her allies, and all rights, titles and privileges whatever their origin which she held as against the Allied and Associated Powers...."[29] There follow certain more particular provisions. Germany renounces all rights and privileges she may have acquired in China.[30] There are similar provisions for Siam,[31] for Liberia,[32] for Morocco,[33] and for Egypt.[34] In the case of Egypt not only are special privileges renounced, but by Article 150 ordinary liberties are withdrawn, the Egyptian Government being accorded "complete liberty of action in regulating the status of German nationals and the conditions under which they may establish themselves in Egypt." By Article 258 Germany renounces her right to any participation in any financial or economic organizations of an international character "operating in any of the Allied or Associated States, or in Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria or Turkey, or in the dependencies of these States, or in the former Russian Empire." Generally speaking, only those pre-war treaties and conventions are revived which it suits the Allied Governments to revive, and those in Germany s favor may be allowed to lapse.[35] It is evident, however, that none of these provisions are of any real importance, as compared with those described previously. They represent the logical completion of Germany s outlawry and economic subjection to the convenience of the Allies; but they do not add substantially to her effective disabilities.
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Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 IV. The Reparation Commission. This body is so remarkable a construction and may, if it functions at all, exert so wide an influence on the life of Europe, that its attributes deserve a separate examination. There are no precedents for the indemnity imposed on Germany under the present Treaty; for the money exactions which formed part of the settlement after previous wars have differed in two fundamental respects from this one. The sum demanded has been determinate and has been measured in a lump sum of money; and so long as the defeated party was meeting the annual instalments of cash no consequential interference was necessary. But for reasons already elucidated, the exactions in this case are not yet determinate, and the sum when fixed will prove in excess of what can be paid in cash and in excess also of what can be paid at all. It was necessary, therefore, to set up a body to establish the bill of claim, to fix the mode of payment, and to approve necessary abatements and delays. It was only possible to place this body in a position to exact the utmost year by year by giving it wide powers over the internal economic life of the enemy countries, who are to be treated henceforward as bankrupt estates to be administered by and for the benefit of the creditors. In fact, however, its powers and functions have been enlarged even beyond what was required for this purpose, and the Reparation Commission has been established as the final arbiter on numerous economic and financial issues which it was convenient to leave unsettled in the Treaty itself.[134] The powers and constitution of the Reparation Commission are mainly laid down in Articles 233-241 and Annex II. of the Reparation Chapter of the Treaty with Germany. But the same Commission is to exercise authority over Austria and Bulgaria, and possibly over Hungary and Turkey, when Peace is made with these countries. There are, therefore, analogous articles mutatis mudandis in the Austrian Treaty[135] and in the Bulgarian Treaty.[136] The principal Allies are each represented by one chief delegate. The delegates of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy take part in all proceedings; the delegate of Belgium in all proceedings except those attended by the delegates of Japan or the Serb-Croat- Slovene State; the delegate of Japan in all proceedings affecting maritime or specifically Japanese questions; and the delegate of the Serb-Croat-Slovene State when questions relating to Austria, Hungary, or Bulgaria are under consideration. Other allies are to be represented by delegates, without the power to vote, whenever their respective claims and interests are under examination. In general the Commission decides by a majority vote, except in certain specific cases where unanimity is required, of which the most important are the cancellation of German indebtedness, long postponement of the instalments, and the sale of German bonds of indebtedness. The Commission is endowed with full executive authority to carry out its decisions. It may set up an executive staff and delegate authority to its officers. The Commission and its staff are to enjoy diplomatic privileges, and its salaries are to be paid by Germany, who will, however, have no voice in fixing them, If the Commission is to discharge adequately its numerous functions, it will be necessary for it to establish a vast polyglot bureaucratic organization, with a staff of hundreds. To this organization, the headquarters of which will be in Paris, the economic destiny of Central Europe is to be entrusted. Its main functions are as follows — 1. The Commission will determine the precise figure of the claim against the enemy Powers by an examination in detail of the claims of each of the Allies under Annex I. of the Reparation Chapter. This task must be completed by May, 1921. It shall give to the German Government and to Germany s allies "a just opportunity to be heard, but not to take any part whatever in the decisions of the Commission." That is to say, the Commission will act as a party and a judge at the same time. 2. Having determined the claim, it will draw up a schedule of payments providing for the discharge of the whole sum with interest within thirty years. From time to time it shall, with a view to modifying the schedule within the limits of possibility, "consider the resources and capacity of Germany . . . giving her representatives a just opportunity to be heard." "In periodically estimating Germany s capacity to pay, the Commission shall examine the German system of taxation, first, to the end that the sums for reparation which Germany is required to pay shall become a charge upon all her revenues prior to that for the service or discharge of any domestic loan, and secondly, so as to satisfy itself that, in general, the German scheme of taxation is fully as heavy proportionately as that of any of the Powers represented on the Commission." 3. Up to May, 1921, the Commission has power, with a view to securing the payment of $5,000,000,000, to demand the surrender of any piece of German property whatever, wherever situated that is to say, "Germany shall pay in such installments and in such manner, whether in gold, commodities, ships, securities, or otherwise, as the Reparation Commission may fix." 4. The Commission will decide which of the rights and interests of German nationals in public utility undertakings operating in Russia, China, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, or in any territory formerly belonging to Germany or her allies, are to be expropriated and transferred to the Commission itself; it will assess the value of the interests so transferred; and it will divide the spoils. 5 The Commission will determine how much of the resources thus stripped from Germany must be returned to her to keep enough life in her economic organization to enable her to continue to make Reparation payments in future.[137] 6. The Commission will assess the value, without appeal or arbitration, of the property and rights ceded under the Armistice, and under the Treaty,—roiling-stock, the mercantile marine, river craft, cattle, the Saar mines, the property in ceded territory for which credit is to be given, and so forth. 7. The Commission will determine the amounts and values (within certain defined limits) of the contributions which Germany is to make in kind year by year under the various Annexes to the Reparation Chapter. 8. The Commission will provide for the restitution by Germany of property which can be identified. 9. The Commission will receive, administer, and distribute all receipts from Germany in cash or in kind. It will also issue and market German bonds of indebtedness. 10. The Commission will assign the share of the pre-war public debt to be taken over by the ceded areas of Schleswig, Poland, Danzig, and Upper Silesia. The Commission will also distribute the public debt of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire between its constituent parts. 11. The Commission will liquidate the Austro-Hungarian Bank, and will supervise the withdrawal and replacement of the currency system of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire. 12. It is for the Commission to report if, in their judgment, Germany is falling short in fulfillment of her obligations, and to advise methods of coercion. 13. In general, the Commission, acting through a subordinate body, will perform the same functions for Austria and Bulgaria as for Germany, and also, presumably, for Hungary and Turkey.[138] There are also many other relatively minor duties assigned to the Commission. The above summary, however, shows sufficiently the scope and significance of its authority. This authority is rendered of far greater significance by the fact that the demands of the Treaty generally exceed Germany s capacity. Consequently the clauses which allow the Commission to make abatements, if in their judgment the economic conditions of Germany require it, will render it in many different particulars the arbiter of Germany s economic life. The Commission is not only to inquire into Germany s general capacity to pay, and to decide (in the early years) what import of foodstuffs and raw materials is necessary; it is authorized to exert pressure on the German system of taxation (Annex II. para. 12(b))[139] and on German internal expenditure, with a view to insuring that Reparation payments are a first charge on the country s entire resources; and it is to decide on the effect on German economic life of demands for machinery, cattle, etc., and of the scheduled deliveries of coal. By Article 240 of the Treaty Germany expressly recognizes the Commission and its powers "as the same may be constituted by the Allied and Associated Governments," and "agrees irrevocably to the possession and exercise by such Commission of the power and authority given to it under the present Treaty." She undertakes to furnish the Commission with all relevant information. And finally in Article 241, "Germany undertakes to pass, issue, and maintain in force any legislation, orders, and decrees that may be necessary to give complete effect to these provisions." The comments on this of the German Financial Commission at Versailles were hardly an exaggeration —"German democracy is thus annihilated at the very moment when the German people was about to build it up after a severe struggle—annihilated by the very persons who throughout the war never tired of maintaining that they sought to bring democracy to us.... Germany is no longer a people and a State, but becomes a mere trade concern placed by its creditors in the hands of a receiver, without its being granted so much as the opportunity to prove its willingness to meet its obligations of its own accord. The Commission, which is to have its permanent headquarters outside Germany, will possess in Germany incomparably greater rights than the German Emperor ever possessed, the German people under its régime would remain for decades to come shorn of all rights, and deprived, to a far greater extent than any people in the days of absolutism, of any independence of action, of any individual aspiration in its economic or even in its ethical progress." In their reply to these observations the Allies refused to admit that there was any substance, ground, or force in them. "The observations of the German Delegation," they pronounced, "present a view of this Commission so distorted and so inexact that it is difficult to believe that the clauses of the Treaty have been calmly or carefully examined. It is not an engine of oppression or a device for interfering with German sovereignty. It has no forces at its command; it has no executive powers within the territory of Germany; it cannot, as is suggested, direct or control the educational or other systems of the country. Its business is to ask what is to be paid; to satisfy itself that Germany can pay; and to report to the Powers, whose delegation it is, in case Germany makes default, If Germany raises the money required in her own way, the Commission cannot order that it shall be raised in some other way; if Germany offers payment in kind, the Commission may accept such payment, but, except as specified in the Treaty itself, the Commission cannot require such a payment." This is not a candid statement of the scope and authority of the Reparation Commission, as will be seen by a comparison of its terms with the summary given above or with the Treaty itself. Is not, for example, the statement that the Commission "has no forces at its command" a little difficult to justify in view of Article 430 of the Treaty, which runs —"In case, either during the occupation or after the expiration of the fifteen years referred to above, the Reparation Commission finds that Germany refuses to observe the whole or part of her obligations under the present Treaty with regard to Reparation, the whole or part of the areas specified in Article 429 will be reoccupied immediately by the Allied and Associated Powers"? The decision, as to whether Germany has kept her engagements and whether it is possible for her to keep them, is left, it should be observed, not to the League of Nations, but to the Reparation Commission itself; and an adverse ruling on the part of the Commission is to be followed "immediately" by the use of armed force. Moreover, the depreciation of the powers of the Commission attempted in the Allied reply largely proceeds from the assumption that it is quite open to Germany to "raise the money required in her own way," in which case it is true that many of the powers of the Reparation Commission would not come into practical effect; whereas in truth one of the main reasons for setting up the Commission at all is the expectation that Germany will not be able to carry the burden nominally laid upon her. It is reported that the people of Vienna, hearing that a section of the Reparation Commission is about to visit them, have decided characteristically to pin their hopes on it. A financial body can obviously take nothing from them, for they have nothing; therefore this body must be for the purpose of assisting and relieving them. Thus do the Viennese argue, still light-headed in adversity. But perhaps they are right. The Reparation Commission will come into very close contact with the problems of Europe; and it will bear a responsibility proportionate to its powers. It may thus come to fulfil a very different rôle from that which some of its authors intended for it. Transferred to the League of Nations, an appanage of justice and no longer of interest, who knows that by a change of heart and object the Reparation Commission may not yet be transformed from an instrument of oppression and rapine into an economic council of Europe, whose object is the restoration of life and of happiness, even in the enemy countries?
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Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 II The provisions relating to coal and iron are more important in respect of their ultimate consequences on Germany s internal industrial economy than for the money value immediately involved. The German Empire has been built more truly on coal and iron than on blood and iron. The skilled exploitation of the great coalfields of the Ruhr, Upper Silesia, and the Saar, alone made possible the development of the steel, chemical, and electrical industries which established her as the first industrial nation of continental Europe. One-third of Germany s population lives in towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants, an industrial concentration which is only possible on a foundation of coal and iron. In striking, therefore, at her coal supply, the French politicians were not mistaking their target. It is only the extreme immoderation, and indeed technical impossibility, of the Treaty s demands which may save the situation in the long-run. (1) The Treaty strikes at Germany s coal supply in four ways — (i.) "As compensation for the destruction of the coal-mines in the north of France, and as part payment towards the total reparation due from Germany for the damage resulting from the war, Germany cedes to France in full and absolute possession, with exclusive rights of exploitation, unencumbered, and free from all debts and charges of any kind, the coal-mines situated in the Saar Basin."[36] While the administration of this district is vested for fifteen years in the League of Nations, it is to be observed that the mines are ceded to France absolutely. Fifteen years hence the population of the district will be called upon to indicate by plebiscite their desires as to the future sovereignty of the territory; and, in the event of their electing for union with Germany, Germany is to be entitled to repurchase the mines at a price payable in gold.[37] The judgment of the world has already recognized the transaction of the Saar as an act of spoliation and insincerity. So far as compensation for the destruction of French coal-mines is concerned, this is provided for, as we shall see in a moment, elsewhere in the Treaty. "There is no industrial region in Germany," the German representatives have said without contradiction, "the population of which is so permanent, so homogeneous, and so little complex as that of the Saar district. Among more than 650,000 inhabitants, there were in 1918 less than 100 French. The Saar district has been German for more than 1,000 years. Temporary occupation as a result of warlike operations on the part of the French always terminated in a short time in the restoration of the country upon the conclusion of peace. During a period of 1048 years France has possessed the country for not quite 68 years in all. When, on the occasion of the first Treaty of Paris in 1814, a small portion of the territory now coveted was retained for France, the population raised the most energetic opposition and demanded reunion with their German fatherland, to which they were related by language, customs, and religion. After an occupation of one year and a quarter, this desire was taken into account in the second Treaty of Paris in 1815. Since then the country has remained uninterruptedly attached to Germany, and owes its economic development to that connection." The French wanted the coal for the purpose of working the ironfields of Lorraine, and in the spirit of Bismarck they have taken it. Not precedent, but the verbal professions of the Allies, have rendered it indefensible.[38] (ii.) Upper Silesia, a district without large towns, in which, however, lies one of the major coalfields of Germany with a production of about 23 per cent of the total German output of hard coal, is, subject to a plebiscite,[39] to be ceded to Poland. Upper Silesia was never part of historic Poland; but its population is mixed Polish, German, and Czecho-Slovakian, the precise proportions of which are disputed.[40] Economically it is intensely German; the industries of Eastern Germany depend upon it for their coal; and its loss would be a destructive blow at the economic structure of the German State.[41] With the loss of the fields of Upper Silesia and the Saar, the coal supplies of Germany are diminished by not far short of one-third. (iii.) Out of the coal that remains to her, Germany is obliged to make good year by year the estimated loss which France has incurred by the destruction and damage of war in the coalfields of her northern Provinces. In para. 2 of Annex V. to the Reparation Chapter, "Germany undertakes to deliver to France annually, for a period not exceeding ten years, an amount of coal equal to the difference between the annual production before the war of the coal-mines of the Nord and Pas de Calais, destroyed as a result of the war, and the production of the mines of the same area during the year in question such delivery not to exceed 20,000,000 tons in any one year of the first five years, and 8,000,000 tons in any one year of the succeeding five years." This is a reasonable provision if it stood by itself, and one which Germany should be able to fulfil if she were left her other resources to do it with. (iv.) The final provision relating to coal is part of the general scheme of the Reparation Chapter by which the sums due for Reparation are to be partly paid in kind instead of in cash. As a part of the payment due for Reparation, Germany is to make the following deliveries of coal or equivalent in coke (the deliveries to France being wholly additional to the amounts available by the cession of the Saar or in compensation for destruction in Northern France) — (i.) To France 7,000,000 tons annually for ten years;[42] (ii.) To Belgium 8,000,000 tons annually for ten years; (iii.) To Italy an annual quantity, rising by annual increments from 4,500,000 tons in 1919-1920 to 8,500,000 tons in each of the six years, 1923-1924 to 1928-1929; (iv.) To Luxemburg, if required, a quantity of coal equal to the pre-war annual consumption of German coal in Luxemburg. This amounts in all to an annual average of about 25,000,000 tons. These figures have to be examined in relation to Germany s probable output. The maximum pre-war figure was reached in 1913 with a total of 191,500,000 tons. Of this, 19,000,000 tons were consumed at the mines, and on balance (i.e. exports less imports) 33,500,000 tons were exported, leaving 139,000,000 tons for domestic consumption. It is estimated that this total was employed as follows — Railways 18,000,000 tons. Gas, water, and electricity 12,500,000 " Bunkers 6,500,000 " House-fuel, small industry and agriculture 24,000,000 " Industry 78,000,000 " 139,000,000 " The diminution of production due to loss of territory is — Alsace-Lorraine 3,800,000 tons. Saar Basin 13,200,000 " Upper Silesia 43,800,000 " 60,800,000 " There would remain, therefore, on the basis of the 1913 output, 130,700,000 tons, or, deducting consumption at the mines themselves, (say) 118,000,000 tons. For some years there must be sent out of this supply upwards of 20,000,000 tons to France as compensation for damage done to French mines, and 25,000,000 tons to France, Belgium, Italy, and Luxemburg;[43] as the former figure is a maximum, and the latter figure is to be slightly less in the earliest years, we may take the total export to Allied countries which Germany has undertaken to provide as 40,000,000 tons, leaving, on the above basis, 78,000,000 tons for her own use as against a pre-war consumption of 139,000,000 tons. This comparison, however, requires substantial modification to make it accurate. On the one hand, it is certain that the figures of pre-war output cannot be relied on as a basis of present output. During 1918 the production was 161,500,000 tons as compared with 191,500,000 tons in 1913; and during the first half of 1919 it was less than 50,000,000 tons, exclusive of Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar but including Upper Silesia, corresponding to an annual production of about 100,000,000 tons.[44] The causes of so low an output were in part temporary and exceptional but the German authorities agree, and have not been confuted, that some of them are bound to persist for some time to come. In part they are the same as elsewhere; the daily shift has been shortened from 8-1/2 to 7 hours, and it is improbable that the powers of the Central Government will be adequate to restore them to their former figure. But in addition, the mining plant is in bad condition (due to the lack of certain essential materials during the blockade), the physical efficiency of the men is greatly impaired by malnutrition (which cannot be cured if a tithe of the reparation demands are to be satisfied,—the standard of life will have rather to be lowered), and the casualties of the war have diminished the numbers of efficient miners. The analogy of English conditions is sufficient by itself to tell us that a pre-war level of output cannot be expected in Germany. German authorities put the loss of output at somewhat above 30 per cent, divided about equally between the shortening of the shift and the other economic influences. This figure appears on general grounds to be plausible, but I have not the knowledge to endorse or to criticize it. The pre-war figure of 118,000,000 tons net (i.e. after allowing for loss of territory and consumption at the mines) is likely to fall, therefore, at least as low as to 100,000,000[45] tons, having regard to the above factors. If 40,000,000 tons of this are to be exported to the Allies, there remain 60,000,000 tons for Germany herself to meet her own domestic consumption. Demand as well as supply will be diminished by loss of territory, but at the most extravagant estimate this could not be put above 29,000,000 tons.[46] Our hypothetical calculations, therefore, leave us with post-war German domestic requirements, on the basis of a pre-war efficiency of railways and industry, of 110,000,000 tons against an output rot exceeding 100,000,000 tons, of which 40,000,000 tons are mortgaged to the Allies. The importance of the subject has led me into a somewhat lengthy statistical analysis. It is evident that too much significance must not be attached to the precise figures arrived at, which are hypothetical and dubious.[47] But the general character of the facts presents itself irresistibly. Allowing for the loss of territory and the loss of efficiency, Germany cannot export coal in the near future (and will even be dependent on her Treaty rights to purchase in Upper Silesia), if she is to continue as an industrial nation. Every million tons she is forced to export must be at the expense of closing down an industry. With results to be considered later this within certain limits is possible. But it is evident that Germany cannot and will not furnish the Allies with a contribution of 40,000,000 tons annually. Those Allied Ministers, who have told their peoples that she can, have certainly deceived them for the sake of allaying for the moment the misgivings of the European peoples as to the path along which they are being led. The presence of these illusory provisions (amongst others) in the clauses of the Treaty of Peace is especially charged with danger for the future. The more extravagant expectations as to Reparation receipts, by which Finance Ministers have deceived their publics, will be heard of no more when they have served their immediate purpose of postponing the hour of taxation and retrenchment. But the coal clauses will not be lost sight of so easily,—for the reason that it will be absolutely vital in the interests of France and Italy that these countries should do everything in their power to exact their bond. As a result of the diminished output due to German destruction in France, of the diminished output of mines in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and of many secondary causes, such as the breakdown of transport and of organization and the inefficiency of new governments, the coal position of all Europe is nearly desperate;[48] and France and Italy, entering the scramble with certain Treaty rights, will not lightly surrender them. As is generally the case in real dilemmas, the French and Italian case will possess great force, indeed unanswerable force from a certain point of view. The position will be truly represented as a question between German industry on the one hand and French and Italian industry on the other. It may be admitted that the surrender of the coal will destroy German industry, but it may be equally true that its non-surrender will jeopardize French and Italian industry. In such a case must not the victors with their Treaty rights prevail, especially when much of the damage has been ultimately due to the wicked acts of those who are now defeated? Yet if these feelings and these rights are allowed to prevail beyond what wisdom would recommend, the reactions on the social and economic life of Central Europe will be far too strong to be confined within their original limits. But this is not yet the whole problem. If France and Italy are to make good their own deficiencies in coal from the output of Germany, then Northern Europe, Switzerland, and Austria, which previously drew their coal in large part from Germany s exportable surplus, must be starved of their supplies. Before the war 13,600,000 tons of Germany s coal exports went to Austria-Hungary. Inasmuch as nearly all the coalfields of the former Empire lie outside what is now German-Austria, the industrial ruin of this latter state, if she cannot obtain coal from Germany, will be complete. The case of Germany s neutral neighbors, who were formerly supplied in part from Great Britain but in large part from Germany, will be hardly less serious. They will go to great lengths in the direction of making their own supplies to Germany of materials which are essential to her, conditional on these being paid for in coal. Indeed they are already doing so.[49] With the breakdown of money economy the practice of international barter is becoming prevalent. Nowadays money in Central and South-Eastern Europe is seldom a true measure of value in exchange, and will not necessarily buy anything, with the consequence that one country, possessing a commodity essential to the needs of another, sells it not for cash but only against a reciprocal engagement on the part of the latter country to furnish in return some article not less necessary to the former. This is an extraordinary complication as compared with the former almost perfect simplicity of international trade. But in the no less extraordinary conditions of to-day s industry it is not without advantages as a means of stimulating production. The butter-shifts of the Ruhr[50] show how far modern Europe has retrograded in the direction of barter, and afford a picturesque illustration of the low economic organization to which the breakdown of currency and free exchange between individuals and nations is quickly leading us. But they may produce the coal where other devices would fail.[51] Yet if Germany can find coal for the neighboring neutrals, France and Italy may loudly claim that in this case she can and must keep her treaty obligations. In this there will be a great show of justice, and it will be difficult to weigh against such claims the possible facts that, while German miners will work for butter, there is no available means of compelling them to get coal, the sale of which will bring in nothing, and that if Germany has no coal to send to her neighbors she may fail to secure imports essential to her economic existence. If the distribution of the European coal supplies is to be a scramble in which France is satisfied first, Italy next, and every one else takes their chance, the industrial future of Europe is black and the prospects of revolution very good. It is a case where particular interests and particular claims, however well founded in sentiment or in justice, must yield to sovereign expediency. If there is any approximate truth in Mr. Hoover s calculation that the coal output of Europe has fallen by one-third, a situation confronts us where distribution must be effected with even-handed impartiality in accordance with need, and no incentive can be neglected towards increased production and economical methods of transport. The establishment by the Supreme Council of the Allies in August, 1919, of a European Coal Commission, consisting of delegates from Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Czecho-Slovakia was a wise measure which, properly employed and extended, may prove of great assistance. But I reserve constructive proposals for Chapter VII. Here I am only concerned with tracing the consequences, per impossibile, of carrying out the Treaty au pied de lettre.[52] (2) The provisions relating to iron-ore require less detailed attention, though their effects are destructive. They require less attention, because they are in large measure inevitable. Almost exactly 75 per cent of the iron-ore raised in Germany in 1913 came from Alsace-Lorraine.[53] In this the chief importance of the stolen provinces lay. There is no question but that Germany must lose these ore-fields. The only question is how far she is to be allowed facilities for purchasing their produce. The German Delegation made strong efforts to secure the inclusion of a provision by which coal and coke to be furnished by them to France should be given in exchange for minette from Lorraine. But they secured no such stipulation, and the matter remains at France s option. The motives which will govern France s eventual policy are not entirely concordant. While Lorraine comprised 75 per cent of Germany s iron-ore, only 25 per cent of the blast furnaces lay within Lorraine and the Saar basin together, a large proportion of the ore being carried into Germany proper. Approximately the same proportion of Germany s iron and steel foundries, namely 25 per cent, were situated in Alsace-Lorraine. For the moment, therefore, the most economical and profitable course would certainly be to export to Germany, as hitherto, a considerable part of the output of the mines. On the other hand, France, having recovered the deposits of Lorraine, may be expected to aim at replacing as far as possible the industries, which Germany had based on them, by industries situated within her own frontiers. Much time must elapse before the plant and the skilled labor could be developed within France, and even so she could hardly deal with the ore unless she could rely on receiving the coal from Germany. The uncertainty, too, as to the ultimate fate of the Saar will be disturbing to the calculations of capitalists who contemplate the establishment of new industries in France. In fact, here, as elsewhere, political considerations cut disastrously across economic. In a régime of Free Trade and free economic intercourse it would be of little consequence that iron lay on one side of a political frontier, and labor, coal, and blast furnaces on the other. But as it is, men have devised ways to impoverish themselves and one another; and prefer collective animosities to individual happiness. It seems certain, calculating on the present passions and impulses of European capitalistic society, that the effective iron output of Europe will be diminished by a new political frontier (which sentiment and historic justice require), because nationalism and private interest are thus allowed to impose a new economic frontier along the same lines. These latter considerations are allowed, in the present governance of Europe, to prevail over the intense need of the Continent for the most sustained and efficient production to repair the destructions of war, and to satisfy the insistence of labor for a larger reward.[54] The same influences are likely to be seen, though on a lesser scale, in the event of the transference of Upper Silesia to Poland. While Upper Silesia contains but little iron, the presence of coal has led to the establishment of numerous blast furnaces. What is to be the fate of these? If Germany is cut off from her supplies of ore on the west, will she export beyond her frontiers on the east any part of the little which remains to her? The efficiency and output of the industry seem certain to diminish. Thus the Treaty strikes at organization, and by the destruction of organization impairs yet further the reduced wealth of the whole community. The economic frontiers which are to be established between the coal and the iron, upon which modern industrialism is founded, will not only diminish the production of useful commodities, but may possibly occupy an immense quantity of human labor in dragging iron or coal, as the case may he, over many useless miles to satisfy the dictates of a political treaty or because obstructions have been established to the proper localization of industry.
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Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 3. An International Loan I pass to a second financial proposal. The requirements of Europe are immediate. The prospect of being relieved of oppressive interest payments to England and America over the whole life of the next two generations (and of receiving from Germany some assistance year by year to the costs of restoration) would free the future from excessive anxiety. But it would not meet the ills of the immediate present,—the excess of Europe s imports over her exports, the adverse exchange, and the disorder of the currency. It will be very difficult for European production to get started again without a temporary measure of external assistance. I am therefore a supporter of an international loan in some shape or form, such as has been advocated in many quarters in France, Germany, and England, and also in the United States. In whatever way the ultimate responsibility for repayment is distributed, the burden of finding the immediate resources must inevitably fall in major part upon the United States. The chief objections to all the varieties of this species of project are, I suppose, the following. The United States is disinclined to entangle herself further (after recent experiences) in the affairs or Europe, and, anyhow, has for the time being no more capital to spare for export on a large scale. There is no guarantee that Europe will put financial assistance to proper use, or that she will not squander it and be in just as bad case two or three years hence as she is in now;—M. Klotz will use the money to put off the day of taxation a little longer, Italy and Jugo-Slavia will fight one another on the proceeds, Poland will devote it to fulfilling towards all her neighbors the military rôle which France has designed for her, the governing classes of Roumania will divide up the booty amongst themselves. In short, America would have postponed her own capital developments and raised her own cost of living in order that Europe might continue for another year or two the practices, the policy, and the men of the past nine months. And as for assistance to Germany, is it reasonable or at all tolerable that the European Allies, having stripped Germany of her last vestige of working capital, in opposition to the arguments and appeals of the American financial representatives at Paris, should then turn to the United States for funds to rehabilitate the victim in sufficient measure to allow the spoliation to recommence in a year or two? There is no answer to these objections as matters are now. If I had influence at the United States Treasury, I would not lend a penny to a single one of the present Governments of Europe. They are not to be trusted with resources which they would devote to the furtherance of policies in repugnance to which, in spite of the President s failure to assert either the might or the ideals of the people of the United States, the Republican and the Democratic parties are probably united. But if, as we must pray they will, the souls of the European peoples turn away this winter from the false idols which have survived the war that created them, and substitute in their hearts for the hatred and the nationalism, which now possess them, thoughts and hopes of the happiness and solidarity of the European family,—then should natural piety and filial love impel the American people to put on one side all the smaller objections of private advantage and to complete the work, that they began in saving Europe from the tyranny of organized force, by saving her from herself. And even if the conversion is not fully accomplished, and some parties only in each of the European countries have espoused a policy of reconciliation, America can still point the way and hold up the hands of the party of peace by having a plan and a condition on which she will give her aid to the work of renewing life. The impulse which, we are told, is now strong in the mind of the United States to be quit of the turmoil, the complication, the violence, the expense, and, above all, the unintelligibility of the European problems, is easily understood. No one can feel more intensely than the writer how natural it is to retort to the folly and impracticability of the European statesmen,—Rot, then, in your own malice, and we will go our way— Remote from Europe; from her blasted hopes; Her fields of carnage, and polluted air. But if America recalls for a moment what Europe has meant to her and still means to her, what Europe, the mother of art and of knowledge, in spite of everything, still is and still will be, will she not reject these counsels of indifference and isolation, and interest herself in what may prove decisive issues for the progress and civilization of all mankind? Assuming then, if only to keep our hopes up, that America will be prepared to contribute to the process of building up the good forces of Europe, and will not, having completed the destruction of an enemy, leave us to our misfortunes,—what form should her aid take? I do not propose to enter on details. But the main outlines of all schemes for an international loan are much the same, The countries in a position to lend assistance, the neutrals, the United Kingdom, and, for the greater portion of the sum required, the United States, must provide foreign purchasing credits for all the belligerent countries of continental Europe, allied and ex-enemy alike. The aggregate sum required might not be so large as is sometimes supposed. Much might be done, perhaps, with a fund of $1,000,000,000 in the first instance. This sum, even if a precedent of a different kind had been established by the cancellation of Inter-Ally War Debt, should be lent and should be borrowed with the unequivocal intention of its being repaid in full. With this object in view, the security for the loan should be the best obtainable, and the arrangements for its ultimate repayment as complete as possible. In particular, it should rank, both for payment of interest and discharge of capital, in front of all Reparation claims, all Inter-Ally War Debt, all internal war loans, and all other Government indebtedness of any other kind. Those borrowing countries who will be entitled to Reparation payments should be required to pledge all such receipts to repayment of the new loan. And all the borrowing countries should be required to place their customs duties on a gold basis and to pledge such receipts to its service. Expenditure out of the loan should be subject to general, but not detailed, supervision by the lending countries. If, in addition to this loan for the purchase of food and materials, a guarantee fund were established up to an equal amount, namely $1,000,000,000 (of which it would probably prove necessary to find only a part in cash), to which all members of the League of Nations would contribute according to their means, it might be practicable to base upon it a general reorganization of the currency. In this manner Europe might be equipped with the minimum amount of liquid resources necessary to revive her hopes, to renew her economic organization, and to enable her great intrinsic wealth to function for the benefit of her workers. It is useless at the present time to elaborate such schemes in further detail. A great change is necessary in public opinion before the proposals of this chapter can enter the region of practical politics, and we must await the progress of events as patiently as we can. 4. The Relations of Central Europe to Russia I have said very little of Russia in this book. The broad character of the situation there needs no emphasis, and of the details we know almost nothing authentic. But in a discussion as to how the economic situation of Europe can be restored there are one or two aspects of the Russian question which are vitally important. From the military point of view an ultimate union of forces between Russia and Germany is greatly feared in some quarters. This would be much more likely to take place in the event of reactionary movements being successful in each of the two countries, whereas an effective unity of purpose between Lenin and the present essentially middle-class Government of Germany is unthinkable. On the other hand, the same people who fear such a union are even more afraid of the success of Bolshevism; and yet they have to recognize that the only efficient forces for fighting it are, inside Russia, the reactionaries, and, outside Russia, the established forces of order and authority in Germany. Thus the advocates of intervention in Russia, whether direct or indirect, are at perpetual cross-purposes with themselves. They do not know what they want; or, rather, they want what they cannot help seeing to be incompatibles. This is one of the reasons why their policy is so inconstant and so exceedingly futile. The same conflict of purpose is apparent in the attitude of the Council of the Allies at Paris towards the present Government of Germany. A victory of Spartacism in Germany might well he the prelude to Revolution everywhere it would renew the forces of Bolshevism in Russia, and precipitate the dreaded union of Germany and Russia; it would certainly put an end to any expectations which have been built on the financial and economic clauses of the Treaty of Peace. Therefore Paris does not love Spartacus. But, on the other hand, a victory of reaction in Germany would be regarded by every one as a threat to the security of Europe, and as endangering the fruits of victory and the basis of the Peace. Besides, a new military power establishing itself in the East, with its spiritual home in Brandenburg, drawing to itself all the military talent and all the military adventurers, all those who regret emperors and hate democracy, in the whole of Eastern and Central and South-Eastern Europe, a power which would be geographically inaccessible to the military forces of the Allies, might well found, at least in the anticipations of the timid, a new Napoleonic domination, rising, as a phoenix, from the ashes of cosmopolitan militarism. So Paris dare not love Brandenburg. The argument points, then, to the sustentation of those moderate forces of order, which, somewhat to the world s surprise, still manage to maintain themselves on the rock of the German character. But the present Government of Germany stands for German unity more perhaps than for anything else; the signature of the Peace was, above all, the price which some Germans thought it worth while to pay for the unity which was all that was left them of 1870. Therefore Paris, with some hopes of disintegration across the Rhine not yet extinguished, can resist no opportunity of insult or indignity, no occasion of lowering the prestige or weakening the influence of a Government, with the continued stability of which all the conservative interests of Europe are nevertheless bound up. The same dilemma affects the future of Poland in the rôle which France has cast for her. She is to be strong, Catholic, militarist, and faithful, the consort, or at least the favorite, of victorious France, prosperous and magnificent between the ashes of Russia and the ruin of Germany. Roumania, if only she could he persuaded to keep up appearances a little more, is a part of the same scatter-brained conception. Yet, unless her great neighbors are prosperous and orderly, Poland is an economic impossibility with no industry but Jew-baiting. And when Poland finds that the seductive policy of France is pure rhodomontade and that there is no money in it whatever, nor glory either, she will fall, as promptly as possible, into the arms of somebody else. The calculations of "diplomacy" lead us, therefore, nowhere. Crazy dreams and childish intrigue in Russia and Poland and thereabouts are the favorite indulgence at present of those Englishmen and Frenchmen who seek excitement in its least innocent form, and believe, or at least behave as if foreign policy was of the same genre as a cheap melodrama. Let us turn, therefore, to something more solid. The German Government has announced (October 30, 1919) its continued adhesion to a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of Russia, "not only on principle, but because it believes that this policy is also justified from a practical point of view." Let us assume that at last we also adopt the same standpoint, if not on principle, at least from a practical point of view. What are then the fundamental economic factors in the future relations of Central to Eastern Europe? Before the war Western and Central Europe drew from Russia a substantial part of their imported cereals. Without Russia the importing countries would have had to go short. Since 1914 the loss of the Russian supplies has been made good, partly by drawing on reserves, partly from the bumper harvests of North America called forth by Mr. Hoover s guaranteed price, but largely by economies of consumption and by privation. After 1920 the need of Russian supplies will be even greater than it was before the war; for the guaranteed price in North America will have been discontinued, the normal increase of population there will, as compared with 1914, have swollen the home demand appreciably, and the soil of Europe will not yet have recovered its former productivity. If trade is not resumed with Russia, wheat in 1920-21 (unless the seasons are specially bountiful) must be scarce and very dear. The blockade of Russia, lately proclaimed by the Allies, is therefore a foolish and short-sighted proceeding; we are blockading not so much Russia as ourselves. The process of reviving the Russian export trade is bound in any case to be a slow one. The present productivity of the Russian peasant is not believed to be sufficient to yield an exportable surplus on the pre-war scale. The reasons for this are obviously many, but amongst them are included the insufficiency of agricultural implements and accessories and the absence of incentive to production caused by the lack of commodities in the towns which the peasants can purchase in exchange for their produce. Finally, there is the decay of the transport system, which hinders or renders impossible the collection of local surpluses in the big centers of distribution. I see no possible means of repairing this loss of productivity within any reasonable period of time except through the agency of German enterprise and organization. It is impossible geographically and for many other reasons for Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Americans to undertake it;—we have neither the incentive nor the means for doing the work on a sufficient scale. Germany, on the other hand, has the experience, the incentive, and to a large extent the materials for furnishing the Russian peasant with the goods of which be has been starved for the past five years, for reorganizing the business of transport and collection, and so for bringing into the world s pool, for the common advantage, the supplies from which we are now so disastrously cut off. It is in our interest to hasten the day when German agents and organizers will be in a position to set in train in every Russian village the impulses of ordinary economic motive. This is a process quite independent of the governing authority in Russia; but we may surely predict with some certainty that, whether or not the form of communism represented by Soviet government proves permanently suited to the Russian temperament, the revival of trade, of the comforts of life and of ordinary economic motive are not likely to promote the extreme forms of those doctrines of violence and tyranny which are the children of war and of despair. Let us then in our Russian policy not only applaud and imitate the policy of non-intervention which the Government of Germany has announced, but, desisting from a blockade which is injurious to our own permanent interests, as well as illegal, let us encourage and assist Germany to take up again her place in Europe as a creator and organizer of wealth for her Eastern and Southern neighbors. There are many persons in whom such proposals will raise strong prejudices. I ask them to follow out in thought the result of yielding to these prejudices. If we oppose in detail every means by which Germany or Russia can recover their material well-being, because we feel a national, racial, or political hatred for their populations or their Governments, we must be prepared to face the consequences of such feelings. Even if there is no moral solidarity between the nearly-related races of Europe, there is an economic solidarity which we cannot disregard. Even now, the world markets are one. If we do not allow Germany to exchange products with Russia and so feed herself, she must inevitably compete with us for the produce of the New World. The more successful we are in snapping economic relations between Germany and Russia, the more we shall depress the level of our own economic standards and increase the gravity of our own domestic problems. This is to put the issue on its lowest grounds. There are other arguments, which the most obtuse cannot ignore, against a policy of spreading and encouraging further the economic ruin of great countries. I see few signs of sudden or dramatic developments anywhere. Riots and revolutions there may be, but not such, at present, as to have fundamental significance. Against political tyranny and injustice Revolution is a weapon. But what counsels of hope can Revolution offer to sufferers from economic privation, which does not arise out of the injustices of distribution but is general? The only safeguard against Revolution in Central Europe is indeed the fact that, even to the minds of men who are desperate, Revolution offers no prospect of improvement whatever. There may, therefore, be ahead of us a long, silent process of semi-starvation, and of a gradual, steady lowering of the standards of life and comfort. The bankruptcy and decay of Europe, if we allow it to proceed, will affect every one in the long-run, but perhaps not in a way that is striking or immediate. This has one fortunate side. We may still have time to reconsider our courses and to view the world with new eyes. For the immediate future events are taking charge, and the near destiny of Europe is no longer in the hands of any man. The events of the coming year will not be shaped by the deliberate acts of statesmen, but by the hidden currents, flowing continually beneath the surface of political history, of which no one can predict the outcome. In one way only can we influence these hidden currents,—by setting in motion those forces of instruction and imagination which change opinion. The assertion of truth, the unveiling of illusion, the dissipation of hate, the enlargement and instruction of men s hearts and minds, must be the means. In this autumn of 1919, in which I write, we are at the dead season of our fortunes. The reaction from the exertions, the fears, and the sufferings of the past five years is at its height. Our power of feeling or caring beyond the immediate questions of our own material well-being is temporarily eclipsed. The greatest events outside our own direct experience and the most dreadful anticipations cannot move us. In each human heart terror survives The ruin it has gorged the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man s estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare. The good want power but to weep barren tears. The powerful goodness want worse need for them. The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom; And all best things are thus confused to ill. Many are strong and rich, and would be just, But live among their suffering fellow-men As if none felt they know not what they do. We have been moved already beyond endurance, and need rest. Never in the lifetime of men now living has the universal element in the soul of man burnt so dimly. For these reasons the true voice of the new generation has not yet spoken, and silent opinion is not yet formed. To the formation of the general opinion of the future I dedicate this book. The End FOOTNOTES [157] The figures for the United Kingdom are as follows Monthly AverageNet Imports $1,000Exports $1,000Excess of Imports $1,000 1913274,650218,85055,800 1914250,485179,46571,020 Jan.-Mar. 1919547,890245,610302,280 April-June 1919557,015312,315244,700 July-Sept. 1919679,635344,315335,320 But this excess is by no means so serious as it looks; for with the present high freight earnings of the mercantile marine the various "invisible" exports of the United Kingdom are probably even higher than they were before the war, and may average at least $225,000,000 monthly. [158] President Wilson was mistaken in suggesting that the supervision of Reparation payments has been entrusted to the League of Nations. As I pointed out in Chapter V., whereas the League is invoked in regard to most of the continuing economic and territorial provisions of the Treaty, this is not the case as regards Reparation, over the problems and modifications of which the Reparation Commission is supreme without appeal of any kind to the League of Nations. [159] These Articles, which provide safeguards against the outbreak of war between members of the League and also between members and non-members, are the solid achievement of the Covenant. These Articles make substantially less probable a war between organized Great Powers such as that of 1914. This alone should commend the League to all men. [160] It would be expedient so to define a "protectionist tariff" as to permit (a) the total prohibition of certain imports; (b) the imposition of sumptuary or revenue customs duties on commodities not produced at home; (c) the imposition of customs duties which did not exceed by more than five per cent a countervailing excise on similar commodities produced at home; (d) export duties. Further, special exceptions might be permitted by a majority vote of the countries entering the Union. Duties which had existed for five years prior to a country s entering the Union might be allowed to disappear gradually by equal instalments spread over the five years subsequent to joining the Union. [161] The figures in this table are partly estimated, and are probably not completely accurate in detail; but they show the approximate figures with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of the present argument. The British figures are taken from the White Paper of October 23, 1919 (Cmd. 377). In any actual settlement, adjustments would be required in connection with certain loans of gold and also in other respects, and I am concerned in what follows with the broad principle only. The total excludes loans raised by the United Kingdom on the market in the United States, and loans raised by France on the market in the United Kingdom or the United States, or from the Bank of England. [162] This allows nothing for interest on the debt since the Bolshevik Revolution. [163] No interest has been charged on the advances made to these countries. [164] The actual total of loans by the United States up to date is very nearly $10,000,000,000, but I have not got the latest details. [165] The financial history of the six months from the end of the summer of 1916 up to the entry of the United States into the war in April, 1917, remains to be written. Very few persons, outside the half-dozen officials of the British Treasury who lived in daily contact with the immense anxieties and impossible financial requirements of those days, can fully realize what steadfastness and courage were needed, and how entirely hopeless the task would soon have become without the assistance of the United States Treasury. The financial problems from April, 1917, onwards were of an entirely different order from those of the preceding months. [166] Mr. Hoover was the only man who emerged from the ordeal of Paris with an enhanced reputation. This complex personality, with his habitual air of weary Titan (or, as others might put it, of exhausted prize-fighter), his eyes steadily fixed on the true and essential facts of the European situation, imported into the Councils of Paris, when he took part in them, precisely that atmosphere of reality, knowledge, magnanimity, and disinterestedness which, if they had been found in other quarters also, would have given us the Good Peace. [167] Even after the United States came into the war the bulk of Russian expenditure in the United States, as well as the whole of that Government s other foreign expenditure, had to be paid for by the British Treasury. [168] It is reported that the United States Treasury has agreed to fund (i.e. to add to the principal sum) the interest owing them on their loans to the Allied Governments during the next three years. I presume that the British Treasury is likely to follow suit. If the debts are to be paid ultimately, this piling up of the obligations at compound interest makes the position progressively worse. But the arrangement wisely offered by the United States Treasury provides a due interval for the calm consideration of the whole problem in the light of the after-war position as it will soon disclose itself.
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日本では1980年前後に流行した。 日本では、玉野井の他に栗本慎一郎も有名。 広辞苑の説明では、以下のような説明がある。 けいざい‐じんるいがく【経済人類学】 文化・社会の経済的側面あるいは経済活動の文化・社会的側面に焦点をおいた人類学の一領域。 外部リンク ウィキペディアの経済人類学
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Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Contents Top Chapter I.序論(Introductory) Chapter II.戦争以前のヨーロッパ(Europe before the War) Chapter III.会議(The Conference) Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-1 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-2 Chapter IV.条約(The Treaty)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-1 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-2 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-3 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-4 Chapter V.賠償(Reparation)-5 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty)-5 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-1 Chapter VII.救済策(Remedies)-2 Chapter VI.条約後のヨーロッパ(Europe after the Treaty) This chapter must be one of pessimism. The Treaty includes no provisions for the economic rehabilitation of Europe,—nothing to make the defeated Central Empires into good neighbors, nothing to stabilize the new States of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it promote in any way a compact of economic solidarity amongst the Allies themselves; no arrangement was reached at Paris for restoring the disordered finances of France and Italy, or to adjust the systems of the Old World and the New. The Council of Four paid no attention to these issues, being preoccupied with others,—Clemenceau to crush the economic life of his enemy, Lloyd George to do a deal and bring home something which would pass muster for a week, the President to do nothing that was not just and right. It is an extraordinary fact that the fundamental economic problems of a Europe starving and disintegrating before their eyes, was the one question in which it was impossible to arouse the interest of the Four. Reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and they settled it as a problem of theology, of polities, of electoral chicane, from every point of view except that of the economic future of the States whose destiny they were handling. I leave, from this point onwards, Paris, the Conference, and the Treaty, briefly to consider the present situation of Europe, as the War and the Peace have made it; and it will no longer be part of my purpose to distinguish between the inevitable fruits of the War and the avoidable misfortunes of the Peace. The essential facts of the situation, as I see them, are expressed simply. Europe consists of the densest aggregation of population in the history of the world. This population is accustomed to a relatively high standard of life, in which, even now, some sections of it anticipate improvement rather than deterioration. In relation to other continents Europe is not self-sufficient; in particular it cannot feed Itself. Internally the population is not evenly distributed, but much of it is crowded into a relatively small number of dense industrial centers. This population secured for itself a livelihood before the war, without much margin of surplus, by means of a delicate and immensely complicated organization, of which the foundations were supported by coal, iron, transport, and an unbroken supply of imported food and raw materials from other continents. By the destruction of this organization and the interruption of the stream of supplies, a part of this population is deprived of its means of livelihood. Emigration is not open to the redundant surplus. For it would take years to transport them overseas, even, which is not the case, if countries could be found which were ready to receive them. The danger confronting us, therefore, is the rapid depression of the standard of life of the European populations to a point which will mean actual starvation for some (a point already reached in Russia and approximately reached in Austria). Men will not always die quietly. For starvation, which brings to some lethargy and a helpless despair, drives other temperaments to the nervous instability of hysteria and to a mad despair. And these in their distress may overturn the remnants of organization, and submerge civilization itself in their attempts to satisfy desperately the overwhelming needs of the individual. This is the danger against which all our resources and courage and idealism must now co-operate. On the 13th May, 1919, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau addressed to the Peace Conference of the Allied and Associated Powers the Report of the German Economic Commission charged with the study of the effect of the conditions of Peace on the situation of the German population. "In the course of the last two generations," they reported, "Germany has become transformed from an agricultural State to an industrial State. So long as she was an agricultural State, Germany could feed forty million inhabitants. As an industrial State she could insure the means of subsistence for a population of sixty-seven millions; and in 1913 the importation of foodstuffs amounted, in round figures, to twelve million tons. Before the war a total of fifteen million persons in Germany provided for their existence by foreign trade, navigation, and the use, directly or indirectly, of foreign raw material." After rehearsing the main relevant provisions of the Peace Treaty the report continues "After this diminution of her products, after the economic depression resulting from the loss of her colonies, her merchant fleet and her foreign investments, Germany will not he in a position to import from abroad an adequate quantity of raw material. An enormous part of German industry will, therefore, be condemned inevitably to destruction. The need of importing foodstuffs will increase considerably at the same time that the possibility of satisfying this demand is as greatly diminished. In a very short time, therefore, Germany will not be in a position to give bread and work to her numerous millions of inhabitants, who are prevented from earning their livelihood by navigation and trade. These persons should emigrate, but this is a material impossibility, all the more because many countries and the most important ones will oppose any German immigration. To put the Peace conditions into execution would logically involve, therefore, the loss of several millions of persons in Germany. This catastrophe would not be long in coming about, seeing that the health of the population has been broken down during the War by the Blockade, and during the Armistice by the aggravation of the Blockade of famine. No help, however great, or over however long a period it were continued, could prevent those deaths en masse." "We do not know, and indeed we doubt," the report concludes, "whether the Delegates of the Allied and. Associated Powers realize the inevitable consequences which will take place if Germany, an industrial State, very thickly populated, closely bound up with the economic system of the world, and under the necessity of importing enormous quantities of raw material and foodstuffs, suddenly finds herself pushed back to the phase of her development, which corresponds to her economic condition and the numbers of her population as they were half a century ago. Those who sign this Treaty will sign the death sentence of many millions of German men, women and children." I know of no adequate answer to these words. The indictment is at least as true of the Austrian, as of the German, settlement. This is the fundamental problem in front of us, before which questions of territorial adjustment and the balance of European power are insignificant. Some of the catastrophes of past history, which have thrown back human progress for centuries, have been due to the reactions following on the sudden termination, whether in the course of nature or by the act of man, of temporarily favorable conditions which have permitted the growth of population beyond what could be provided for when the favorable conditions were at an end. The significant features of the immediate situation can be grouped under three heads first, the absolute falling off, for the time being, in Europe s internal productivity; second, the breakdown of transport and exchange by means of which its products could be conveyed where they were most wanted; and third, the inability of Europe to purchase its usual supplies from overseas. The decrease of productivity cannot be easily estimated, and may be the subject of exaggeration. But the primâ facie evidence of it is overwhelming, and this factor has been the main burden of Mr. Hoover s well-considered warnings. A variety of causes have produced it;—violent and prolonged internal disorder as in Russia and Hungary; the creation of new governments and their inexperience in the readjustment of economic relations, as in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia; the loss throughout the Continent of efficient labor, through the casualties of war or the continuance of mobilization; the falling-off in efficiency through continued underfeeding in the Central Empires; the exhaustion of the soil from lack of the usual applications of artificial manures throughout the course of the war; the unsettlement of the minds of the laboring classes on the above all (to quote Mr. Hoover), "there is a great fundamental economic issues of their lives. But relaxation of effort as the reflex of physical exhaustion of large sections of the population from privation and the mental and physical strain of the war." Many persons are for one reason or another out of employment altogether. According to Mr. Hoover, a summary of the unemployment bureaus in Europe in July, 1919, showed that 15,000,000 families were receiving unemployment allowances in one form or another, and were being paid in the main by a constant inflation of currency. In Germany there is the added deterrent to labor and to capital (in so far as the Reparation terms are taken literally), that anything, which they may produce beyond the barest level of subsistence, will for years to come be taken away from them. Such definite data as we possess do not add much, perhaps, to the general picture of decay. But I will remind the reader of one or two of them. The coal production of Europe as a whole is estimated to have fallen off by 30 per cent; and upon coal the greater part of the industries of Europe and the whole of her transport system depend. Whereas before the war Germany produced 85 per cent of the total food consumed by her inhabitants, the productivity of the soil is now diminished by 40 per cent and the effective quality of the live-stock by 55 per cent.[145] Of the European countries which formerly possessed a large exportable surplus, Russia, as much by reason of deficient transport as of diminished output, may herself starve. Hungary, apart from her other troubles, has been pillaged by the Romanians immediately after harvest. Austria will have consumed the whole of her own harvest for 1919 before the end of the calendar year. The figures are almost too overwhelming to carry conviction to our minds; if they were not quite so bad, our effective belief in them might be stronger. But even when coal can be got and grain harvested, the breakdown of the European railway system prevents their carriage; and even when goods can be manufactured, the breakdown of the European currency system prevents their sale. I have already described the losses, by war and under the Armistice surrenders, to the transport system of Germany. But even so, Germany s position, taking account of her power of replacement by manufacture, is probably not so serious as that of some of her neighbors. In Russia (about which, however, we have very little exact or accurate information) the condition of the rolling-stock is believed to be altogether desperate, and one of the most fundamental factors in her existing economic disorder. And in Poland, Roumania, and Hungary the position is not much better. Yet modern industrial life essentially depends on efficient transport facilities, and the population which secured its livelihood by these means cannot continue to live without them. The breakdown of currency, and the distrust in its purchasing value, is an aggravation of these evils which must be discussed in a little more detail in connection with foreign trade. What then is our picture of Europe? A country population able to support life on the fruits of its own agricultural production but without the accustomed surplus for the towns, and also (as a result of the lack of imported materials and so of variety and amount in the saleable manufactures of the towns) without the usual incentives to market food in return for other wares; an industrial population unable to keep its strength for lack of food, unable to earn a livelihood for lack of materials, and so unable to make good by imports from abroad the failure of productivity at home. Yet, according to Mr. Hoover, "a rough estimate would indicate that the population of Europe is at least 100,000,000 greater than can be supported without imports, and must live by the production and distribution of exports." The problem of the re-inauguration of the perpetual circle of production and exchange in foreign trade leads me to a necessary digression on the currency situation of Europe. Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers,", who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. In the latter stages of the war all the belligerent governments practised, from necessity or incompetence, what a Bolshevist might have done from design. Even now, when the war is over, most of them continue out of weakness the same malpractices. But further, the Governments of Europe, being many of them at this moment reckless in their methods as well as weak, seek to direct on to a class known as "profiteers" the popular indignation against the more obvious consequences of their vicious methods. These "profiteers" are, broadly speaking, the entrepreneur class of capitalists, that is to say, the active and constructive element in the whole capitalist society, who in a period of rapidly rising prices cannot help but get rich quick whether they wish it or desire it or not. If prices are continually rising, even trader who has purchased for stock or owns property and plant inevitably makes profits. By directing hatred against this class, therefore, the European Governments are carrying a step further the fatal process which the subtle mind of Lenin had consciously conceived. The profiteers are a consequence and not a cause of rising prices. By combining a popular hatred of the class of entrepreneurs with the blow already given to social security by the violent and arbitrary disturbance of contract and of the established equilibrium of wealth which is the inevitable result of inflation, these Governments are fast rendering impossible a continuance of the social and economic order of the nineteenth century. But they have no plan for replacing it. We are thus faced in Europe with the spectacle of an extraordinary weakness on the part of the great capitalist class, which has emerged from the industrial triumphs of the nineteenth century, and seemed a very few years ago our all-powerful master. The terror and personal timidity of the individuals of this class is now so great, their confidence in their place in society and in their necessity to the social organism so diminished, that they are the easy victims of intimidation. This was not so in England twenty-five years ago, any more than it is now in the United States. Then the capitalists believed in themselves, in their value to society, in the propriety of their continued existence in the full enjoyment of their riches and the unlimited exercise of their power. Now they tremble before every insult;—call them pro-Germans, international financiers, or profiteers, and they will give you any ransom you choose to ask not to speak of them so harshly. They allow themselves to be ruined and altogether undone by their own instruments, governments of their own making, and a press of which they are the proprietors. Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand. In the complexer world of Western Europe the Immanent Will may achieve its ends more subtly and bring in the revolution no less inevitably through a Klotz or a George than by the intellectualisms, too ruthless and self-conscious for us, of the bloodthirsty philosophers of Russia. The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance. In Russia and Austria-Hungary this process has reached a point where for the purposes of foreign trade the currency is practically valueless. The Polish mark can be bought for about three cents and the Austrian crown for less than two cents, but they cannot be sold at all. The German mark is worth less than four cents on the exchanges. In most of the other countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe the real position is nearly as bad. The currency of Italy has fallen to little more than a halt of its nominal value in spite of its being still subject to some degree of regulation; French currency maintains an uncertain market; and even sterling is seriously diminished in present value and impaired in its future prospects. But while these currencies enjoy a precarious value abroad, they have never entirely lost, not even in Russia, their purchasing power at home. A sentiment of trust in the legal money of the State is so deeply implanted in the citizens of all countries that they cannot but believe that some day this money must recover a part at least of its former value. To their minds it appears that value is inherent in money as such, and they do not apprehend that the real wealth, which this money might have stood for, has been dissipated once and for all. This sentiment is supported by the various legal regulations with which the Governments endeavor to control internal prices, and so to preserve some purchasing power for their legal tender. Thus the force of law preserves a measure of immediate purchasing power over some commodities and the force of sentiment and custom maintains, especially amongst peasants, a willingness to hoard paper which is really worthless. The presumption of a spurious value for the currency, by the force of law expressed in the regulation of prices, contains in itself, however, the seeds of final economic decay, and soon dries up the sources of ultimate supply. If a man is compelled to exchange the fruits of his labors for paper which, as experience soon teaches him, he cannot use to purchase what he requires at a price comparable to that which he has received for his own products, he will keep his produce for himself, dispose of it to his friends and neighbors as a favor, or relax his efforts in producing it. A system of compelling the exchange of commodities at what is not their real relative value not only relaxes production, but leads finally to the waste and inefficiency of barter. If, however, a government refrains from regulation and allows matters to take their course, essential commodities soon attain a level of price out of the reach of all but the rich, the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent, and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer. The effect on foreign trade of price-regulation and profiteer-hunting as cures for inflation is even worse. Whatever may be the case at home, the currency must soon reach its real level abroad, with the result that prices inside and outside the country lose their normal adjustment. The price of imported commodities, when converted at the current rate o exchange, is far in excess of the local price, so that many essential goods will not be imported at all by private agency, and must be provided by the government, which, in re-selling the goods below cost price, plunges thereby a little further into insolvency. The bread subsidies, now almost universal throughout Europe, are the leading example of this phenomenon. The countries of Europe fall into two distinct groups at the present time as regards their manifestations of what is really the same evil throughout, according as they have been cut off from international intercourse by the Blockade, or have had their imports paid for out of the resources of their allies. I take Germany as typical of the first, and France and Italy of the second. The note circulation of Germany is about ten times[146] what it was before the war. The value of the mark in terms of gold is about one-eighth of its former value. As world-prices in terms of gold are more than double what they were, it follows that mark-prices inside Germany ought to be from sixteen to twenty times their pre-war level if they are to be in adjustment and proper conformity with prices outside Germany.[147] But this is not the case. In spite of a very great rise in German prices, they probably do not yet average much more than five times their former level, so far as staple commodities are concerned; and it is impossible that they should rise further except with a simultaneous and not less violent adjustment of the level of money wages. The existing maladjustment hinders in two ways (apart from other obstacles) that revival of the import trade which is the essential preliminary of the economic reconstruction of the country. In the first place, imported commodities are beyond the purchasing power of the great mass of the population,[148] and the flood of imports which might have been expected to succeed the raising of the blockade was not in fact commercially possible.[149] In the second place, it is a hazardous enterprise for a merchant or a manufacturer to purchase with a foreign credit material for which, when he has imported it or manufactured it, he will receive mark currency of a quite uncertain and possibly unrealizable value. This latter obstacle to the revival of trade is one which easily escapes notice and deserves a little attention. It is impossible at the present time to say what the mark will be worth in terms of foreign currency three or six months or a year hence, and the exchange market can quote no reliable figure. It may be the case, therefore, that a German merchant, careful of his future credit and reputation, who is actually offered a short period credit in terms of sterling or dollars, may be reluctant and doubtful whether to accept it. He will owe sterling or dollars, but he will sell his product for marks, and his power, when the time comes, to turn these marks into the currency in which he has to repay his debt is entirely problematic. Business loses its genuine character and becomes no better than a speculation in the exchanges, the fluctuations in which entirely obliterate the normal profits of commerce. There are therefore three separate obstacles to the revival of trade a maladjustment between internal prices and international prices, a lack of individual credit abroad wherewith to buy the raw materials needed to secure the working capital and to re-start the circle of exchange, and a disordered currency system which renders credit operations hazardous or impossible quite apart from the ordinary risks of commerce. The note circulation of France is more than six times its pre-war level. The exchange value of the franc in terms of gold is a little less than two-thirds its former value; that is to say, the value of the franc has not fallen in proportion to the increased volume of the currency.[150] This apparently superior situation of France is due to the fact that until recently a very great part of her imports have not been paid for, but have been covered by loans from the Governments of Great Britain and the United States. This has allowed a want of equilibrium between exports and imports to be established, which is becoming a very serious factor, now that the outside assistance is being gradually discontinued. The internal economy of France and its price level in relation to the note circulation and the foreign exchanges is at present based on an excess of imports over exports which cannot possibly continue. Yet it is difficult to see how the position can be readjusted except by a lowering of the standard of consumption in France, which, even if it is only temporary, will provoke a great deal of discontent.[151] The situation of Italy is not very different. There the note circulation is five or six times its pre-war level, and the exchange value of the lira in terms of gold about half its former value. Thus the adjustment of the exchange to the volume of the note circulation has proceeded further in Italy than in France. On the other hand, Italy s "invisible" receipts, from emigrant remittances and the expenditure of tourists, have been very injuriously affected; the disruption of Austria has deprived her of an important market; and her peculiar dependence on foreign shipping and on imported raw materials of every kind has laid her open to special injury from the increase of world prices. For all these reasons her position is grave, and her excess of imports as serious a symptom as in the case of France.[152] The existing inflation and the maladjustment of international trade are aggravated, both in France and in Italy, by the unfortunate budgetary position of the Governments of these countries. In France the failure to impose taxation is notorious. Before the war the aggregate French and British budgets, and also the average taxation per head, were about equal; but in France no substantial effort has been made to cover the increased expenditure. "Taxes increased in Great Britain during the war," it has been estimated, "from 95 francs per head to 265 francs, whereas the increase in France was only from 90 to 103 francs." The taxation voted in France for the financial year ending June 30, 1919, was less than half the estimated normal post-bellum expenditure. The normal budget for the future cannot be put below $4,400,000,000 (22 milliard francs), and may exceed this figure; but even for the fiscal year 1919-20 the estimated receipts from taxation do not cover much more than half this amount. The French Ministry of Finance have no plan or policy whatever for meeting this prodigious deficit, except the expectation of receipts from Germany on a scale which the French officials themselves know to be baseless. In the meantime they are helped by sales of war material and surplus American stocks and do not scruple, even in the latter half of 1919, to meet the deficit by the yet further expansion of the note issue of the Bank of France.[153] The budgetary position of Italy is perhaps a little superior to that of France. Italian finance throughout the war was more enterprising than the French, and far greater efforts were made to impose taxation and pay for the war. Nevertheless Signor Nitti, the Prime Minister, in a letter addressed to the electorate on the eve of the General Election (Oct., 1919), thought it necessary to make public the following desperate analysis of the situation —(1) The State expenditure amounts to about three times the revenue. (2) All the industrial undertakings of the State, including the railways, telegraphs, and telephones, are being run at a loss. Although the public is buying bread at a high price, that price represents a loss to the Government of about a milliard a year. (3) Exports now leaving the country are valued at only one-quarter or one-fifth of the imports from abroad. (4) The National Debt is increasing by about a milliard lire per month. (5) The military expenditure for one month is still larger than that for the first year of the war. But if this is the budgetary position of France and Italy, that of the rest of belligerent Europe is yet more desperate. In Germany the total expenditure of the Empire, the Federal States, and the Communes in 1919-20 is estimated at 25 milliards of marks, of which not above 10 milliards are covered by previously existing taxation. This is without allowing anything for the payment of the indemnity. In Russia, Poland, Hungary, or Austria such a thing as a budget cannot be seriously considered to exist at all.[154] Thus the menace of inflationism described above is not merely a product of the war, of which peace begins the cure. It is a continuing phenomenon of which the end is not yet in sight. All these influences combine not merely to prevent Europe from supplying immediately a sufficient stream of exports to pay for the goods she needs to import, but they impair her credit for securing the working capital required to re-start the circle of exchange and also, by swinging the forces of economic law yet further from equilibrium rather than towards it, they favor a continuance of the present conditions instead of a recovery from them. An inefficient, unemployed, disorganized Europe faces us, torn by internal strife and international hate, fighting, starving, pillaging, and lying. What warrant is there for a picture of less somber colors? I have paid little heed in this book to Russia, Hungary, or Austria.[155] There the miseries of life and the disintegration of society are too notorious to require analysis; and these countries are already experiencing the actuality of what for the rest of Europe is still in the realm of prediction. Yet they comprehend a vast territory and a great population, and are an extant example of how much man can suffer and how far society can decay. Above all, they are the signal to us of how in the final catastrophe the malady of the body passes over into malady of the mind. Economic privation proceeds by easy stages, and so long as men suffer it patiently the outside world cares little. Physical efficiency and resistance to disease slowly diminish,[156] but life proceeds somehow, until the limit of human endurance is reached at last and counsels of despair and madness stir the sufferers from the lethargy which precedes the crisis. Then man shakes himself, and the bonds of custom are loosed. The power of ideas is sovereign, and he listens to whatever instruction of hope, illusion, or revenge is carried to him on the air. As I write, the flames of Russian Bolshevism seem, for the moment at least, to have burnt themselves out, and the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe are held in a dreadful torpor. The lately gathered harvest keeps off the worst privations, and Peace has been declared at Paris. But winter approaches. Men will have nothing to look forward to or to nourish hopes on. There will be little fuel to moderate the rigors of the season or to comfort the starved bodies of the town-dwellers. But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes? FOOTNOTES [145] Professor Starling s Report on Food Conditions in Germany. (Cmd. 280.) [146] Including the Darlehenskassenscheine somewhat more. [147] Similarly in Austria prices ought to be between twenty and thirty times their former level. [148] One of the moat striking and symptomatic difficulties which faced the Allied authorities in their administration of the occupied areas of Germany during the Armistice arose out of the fact that even when they brought food into the country the inhabitants could not afford to pay its cost price. [149] Theoretically an unduly low level of home prices should stimulate exports and so cure itself. But in Germany, and still more in Poland and Austria, there is little or nothing to export. There must be imports before there can be exports. [150] Allowing for the diminished value of gold, the exchange value of the franc should be less than 40 per cent of its previous value, instead of the actual figure of about 60 per cent, if the fall were proportional to the increase in the volume of the currency. [151] How very far from equilibrium France s international exchange now is can be seen from the following table Monthly AverageImports $1,000Exports $1,000Excess of Imports $1,000 1913140,355114,67025,685 1914106,70581,14525,560 1918331,91569,055262,860 Jan.-Mar. 1919387,14066,670320,470 Apr.-June 1919421,41083,895337,515 July 1919467,565123,675343,890 These figures have been converted, at approximately par rates, but this is roughly compensated by the fact that the trade of 1918 and 1919 has been valued at 1917 official rates. French imports cannot possibly continue at anything approaching these figures, and the semblance of prosperity based on such a state of affairs is spurious. [152] The figures for Italy are as follows Monthly AverageImports $1,000Exports $1,000Excess of Imports $1,000 191360,76041,86018,900 191448,72036,84011,880 1918235,02541,390193,635 Jan.-Mar. 1919229,24038,685191,155 Apr.-June 1919331,03569,250261,785 July-Aug. 1919223,53584,515139,020 [153] In the last two returns of the Bank of France available as I write (Oct. 2 and 9, 1919) the increases in the note issue on the week amounted to $93,750,000 and $94,125,000 respectively. [154] On October 3, 1919, M. Bilinski made his financial statement to the Polish Diet. He estimated his expenditure for the next nine months at rather more than double his expenditure for the past nine months, and while during the first period his revenue had amounted to one-fifth of his expenditure, for the coming months he was budgeting for receipts equal to one-eighth of his outgoings. The Times correspondent at Warsaw reported that "in general M. Bilinski s tone was optimistic and appeared to satisfy his audience." [155] The terms of the Peace Treaty imposed on the Austrian Republic bear no relation to the real facts of that State s desperate situation. The Arbeiter Zeitung of Vienna on June 4, 1919, commented on them as follows "Never has the substance of a treaty of peace so grossly betrayed the intentions which were said to have guided its construction as is the case with this Treaty . . . in which every provision is permeated with ruthlessness and pitilessness, in which no breath of human sympathy can be detected, which flies in the face of everything which binds man to man, which is a crime against humanity itself, against a suffering and tortured people." I am acquainted in detail with the Austrian Treaty and I was present when some of its terms were being drafted, but I do not find it easy to rebut the justice of this outburst. [156] For months past the reports of the health conditions in the Central Empires have been of such a character that the imagination is dulled, and one almost seems guilty of sentimentality in quoting them. But their general veracity is not disputed, and I quote the three following, that the reader may not be unmindful of them "In the last years of the war, in Austria alone at least 35,000 people died of tuberculosis, in Vienna alone 12,000. Today we have to reckon with a number of at least 350,000 to 400,000 people who require treatment for tuberculosis.... As the result of malnutrition a bloodless generation is growing up with undeveloped muscles, undeveloped joints, and undeveloped brain" (Neue Freie Presse, May 31, 1919). The Commission of Doctors appointed by the Medical Faculties of Holland, Sweden, and Norway to examine the conditions in Germany reported as follows in the Swedish Press in April, 1919 "Tuberculosis, especially in children, is increasing in an appalling way, and, generally speaking, is malignant. In the same way rickets is more serious and more widely prevalent. It is impossible to do anything for these diseases; there is no milk for the tuberculous, and no cod-liver oil for those suffering from rickets.... Tuberculosis is assuming almost unprecedented aspects, such as have hitherto only been known in exceptional cases. The whole body is attacked simultaneously, and the illness in this form is practically incurable.... Tuberculosis is nearly always fatal now among adults. It is the cause of 90 per cent of the hospital cases. Nothing can be done against it owing to lack of food-stuffs.... It appears in the most terrible forms, such as glandular tuberculosis, which turns into purulent dissolution." The following is by a writer in the Vossische Zeitung, June 5, 1919, who accompanied the Hoover Mission to the Erzgebirge "I visited large country districts where 90 per cent of all the children were ricketty and where children of three years are only beginning to walk.... Accompany me to a school in the Erzgebirge. You think it is a kindergarten for the little ones. No, these are children of seven and eight years. Tiny faces, with large dull eyes, overshadowed by huge puffed, ricketty foreheads, their small arms just skin and bone, and above the crooked legs with their dislocated joints the swollen, pointed stomachs of the hunger oedema.... You see this child here, the physician in charge explained; it consumed an incredible amount of bread, and yet did not get any stronger. I found out that it hid all the bread it received underneath its straw mattress. The fear of hunger was so deeply rooted in the child that it collected stores instead of eating the food a misguided animal instinct made the dread of hunger worse than the actual pangs. " Yet there are many persons apparently in whose opinion justice requires that such beings should pay tribute until they are forty or fifty years of age in relief of the British taxpayer.
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２００８ 秋 日本経済史Ｂ 寺本益英 ７０分 持ち込みすべて可 【１】景気の牽引役に注目し、いざなぎ景気、バブル景気、２００２年２月～２００７年末までの回復局面の３つの好況期の特徴を比較検討しなさい。３０点 【２】サブプライムローンとこれを引き金とする最近の金融危機について、次の設問に答えなさい。 （１）サブプライムローンの仕組みと機能について述べなさい。１０点 （２）サブプライムローンがなぜ今回のような深刻な危機につながったのか説明しなさい。１５点 （３）資本主義経済の本質および貨幣の投機性を念頭に置いて、今回の金融危機から学ぶべき教訓は何か論じなさい。１５点 【３】次の３問から１問を選択し、解答しなさい。３０点 （１）自由民権運動、および大正デモクラシーの展開過程を概観し、戦前期日本における民主主義の不完全性について述べなさい。 （２）太平洋戦争に至るまでの背景を、「帝国主義の正統化」、「経済的行き詰まり」をキーワードに論じなさい。 （３）戦時統制の展開とその帰結について述べなさい。
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１９９９年度・秋学期・経済史（寺本 益英） 【１】次の（Ａ）、（Ｂ）のどちらか一方を選択しなさい。 （Ａ）具体的な事例を挙げて理論経済学や経済政策学と比較し、 経済学の特徴を明らかにしなさい。 （Ｂ）フォーゲルとノースの業績を紹介しながらクリオメトリックスの特徴を 述べなさい。 【２】次の（Ａ）、（Ｂ）のどちらか一方を選択し、（Ｃ）は全員が解答しなさい。 （Ａ）封建制について、（１）特徴、（２）解体の原因、（３）解体の結果領主と 農民はどうなったかを説明しなさい。 （Ｂ）１５世紀末から西欧人が航海、探検によって新航路を発見し、 未知の地域や民族と接触するようになった結果、ヨーロッパの 経済・社会にどのような変化が見られるようになったか説明しなさい。 （Ｃ）労働市場に対する古典派とケインズの考えの違いを明らかにし、 ケインズ革命の意義について述べなさい。（図も使って説明すること。） 【３】次の（Ａ）、（Ｂ）のどちらか一方を選択しなさい。 （Ａ）問屋制家内工業に関し、下記の設問に答えなさい。 （１）どのようなシステムか簡潔に述べなさい。 （２）このようなシステムが出現する背景となった経済的変化は何か。 （３）このシステムではどのような条件のもとで成立するか。 技術面と社会経済面に分けて述べなさい。 （Ｂ）新しい資本主義（２０世紀末から始まった産業資本主義に続く資本主義） の特徴と問題点を明らかにしなさい。