TOPICS OF THE DAY.
REPARATIONS AND DEBTS.
WE arc very near disaster. If the French Govern- ment maintain and develop their present policy, there can be no settlement of the Economic or the Political Crisis in Europe. The world, like a ship with her steering-gear destroyed, will drift before the storm of hate and fear, and of revenge cherished like a religion, till all is lost. What aggravates so greatly the pains of our anxiety is that their cause is utterly unnecessary.
We are almost as near safety as we are to disaster. A little sanity, a little courage, a little concern in man's duty to his fellows, a little remembrance of the fact that those who try to exact the uttermost farthing and demand their pound of flesh at all costs never succeed, is all that is wanted to save us. Humanity is so closely knit that you cannot injure your neighbour without hurting your- self. But it is also so closely knit that you cannot help one part without helping the whole. To cure your neighbour is to cure yourself. The healing hand of time, the astonishing strength and toughness of society, the elasticity of men's minds and bodies—in fine, the natural facility of recuperation implanted in all things human—have prepared the world for a rapid and complete reconstruction. All that is wanted is good will and credit, in the moral as well as in the material sphere. An honest faith in the future is enough to set the wheels moving, as we see by what is happening in Austria. There was war-stricken Europe at its worst. Yet pros- perity is returning because men have regained Faith, Hope, and the knowledge that Love and Charity still walk the earth. In sober truth, Europe is " standing by " to restart the vast machinery of trade and exchange, and so of civilization—material, moral, and intellectual. Only let the mandatory word be given and once more the vast cranks and axles will revolve in answer to the million impulses of mankind. In a year or two we should have cleared away the ruins of the War and forgotten it in a flood of prosperity and enterprise and discovery. But, alas, France persists in forbidding the world's renewal of her youth and her happiness. France has only to snap a thread, or to speak a word, to break the spell which now binds Europe, in order to see mankind rise like a liberated giant and strike with his mighty hammer on the anvils of Industry and Commerce.
What is it that keeps France from saying the creating word, the " let there be light " for which we all yearn ? The answer cannot but sound harsh, but since it is true it must be given. Yet at the same time none must forget what wrongs and what miseries France has endured. It is Fear, it is the inability to forget, it is the unwilling- ness to forgive. She cannot wash away the past, its tears and errors, to think only of the future. She will not learn that whether we like it or not, and whether in the abstract they deserve it or not, we have got to treat our enemies as beneficently as our friends. There is the curse. Till France can change her spirit, Europe cannot recover. So long as we do not treat our friends worse, they have no more right to complain than the workers in the vineyard. Here, indeed, is the greatest of all political and social lessons. There is of grace and mercy an inexhaustible store. It is infinite. It cannot be reduced by being drawn on. We receive that which we give. If we will give nothing; nothing can be ours. If France is afraid to forgive her enemies lest she should not keep the extreme rights to which she is nominally entitled, she will ruin us all and herself first. The Eternal Court of Equity forbids a cruel and pedantic exercise of legal rights. Power she has no doubt got, or fancies she has got. But Power, as the reeling satyrs of world- politics who ruled at Potsdam before the War learned too late, and in such awful terms, is the great demoralizer, the Prince of Ruin and of Pain. Those who, in effect, tell France that she has got the right to hunt her foes to death, to avail herself of the opportunity of revenge, and to keep her foot on the neck of her enemy, are playing the Devil's game. If they persist, the word which would set the world free will never be spoken.
France has it in her power to save us and herself, or to ban us and herself. Will she, even at the eleventh hour, remember herself, and give us salvation ? If, in her blindness; she refuses, she will call up unknown, and at the moment unknowable, forces of resistance in Germany. She will break the social atom and let loose elements of awful potency. These new forces will be almost wholly malign, like all things that come from the sense of despair. They will also be a thousand times more recklessly destructive than those which France is now setting in motion. There is a rapid crescendo in actions which violate the common sense of Justice and of Mercy. They will be those forces of madness and of moral eclipse of which the histories of Revolutions afford us such evil examples—forces which reduce men to the level of the beast in violence, but maintain men's ingenuity and subtlety in the arts of destruction.
But it is useless to speak only in general terms. In such a situation as the present we must be specific if we are to boa service. In a sense nothing is easier than to save the world—provided that faith and good will are not wanting. An excellent method of securing that economic settlement which is the sine qua non of our relief is set forth in the letter in Tuesday's Times signed by two eminent English bankers, Mr. Walter Leaf and Sir Felix Schuster. In it they expound in full the admir- able resolution passed by the Congress held in Rome laSt March by the International Chamber of Commerce. Our readers may remember our call for the setting up of an International Commission and Clearing House for the joint settlement of Reparations and, Debts. It is, in effect, such a scheme that the International Chamber of Commerce proposes in carefully thought out terms, and we advise all who want guidance on the problem of the hour to study very carefully the full text. The proposed plan will, we are convinced, obtain the general support of those who master its terms.
The resolution ends with a declaration that the Inter- national Chamber of Commerce will stand by ready to lend the Governments of Europe every assistance that can be required. Here are the actual words, and with them we may fitly conclude. Once obtain an Economic settlement, and the political and moral settlement is bound to follow.
" The International Chamber of Commerce believes that a general economic conference of the nations interested for the final adjust- ment of these problems is essential and inevitable. This Chamber fully recognizes that it would be inopportune now to propose any suggestions for the settlement of the present situation which exists between the Allied nations and Germany. Yet, believing that at the proper time Governments may wish to avail themselves of the practical experience of the business men of the several countries, this Chamber agrees to hold itself in readiness to render to the interested nations such assistance as may be desired. Meanwhile, the International Chamber of Commerce will undertake to promote among the business men, on whose behalf it speaks, continued careful study of all the elements in the international financial problems here reviewed, and it urges upon its members, as well as the Governments, the serious consideration of the suggestions here- with respectfully offered. Therefore be it resolved that the Council be and hereby is instructed to appoint such committees and to take such action as may be necessary to make effective the purposes herein set forth." •
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
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