idea a misreading of the real nature of riches and poverty under modern conditions? Is it not productive power which now counts rather than dead wealth? Shall we cot all of us—and now in some degree even the Americans also—have spent our dead capital, and shall we not all of us, the Germans included, be starting again in the productive race practically from scratch? The world was astonished at the rapidity with which France recovered from her disaster of 1870, but the power of industrial production was as nothing then to what it is now. Sober calculation in regard to Britain leads to the conclusion that her increased productive power owing to reorganisation and new methods compelled by the War, should far exceed the interest and sinking fund even of her vast War debts. No doubt you have the Paris Resolutions, and can deny to a refractory Germany the raw materials wherewith to compete with you. If you resort to that method, however, you postpone your League of Nations, and you remain a League of Allies. Are you certain, moreover, that you would win in an economic war? You might undoubtedly handicap Germany, but a handicap may only lead to greater effort. Did not Napoleon limit the Prussian Army after Jena to 42,000 men
