But, of course, all such things must wait, and civilisation must wait, until M. Poincaré has collected the claims of France upon Germany or smashed up Europe. It is so much more important, you understand, to collect these legendary, impossible debts, that one little scrap of Europe has figured up against another little scrap of Europe, than to get on with living. The Germans must not be allowed to develop their air services; that would never do for the politicians; and, indeed, every European country must do all it can to restrain the air development of every other country. We must all get in each other’s way; that is the “common sense” of national “policy.” Why else are we all boxed up in little separate sovereign States? And so you and I, Dear Reader, will never get more than such brief samples and intimations of the happiness we might have in the air, and most people now alive in the world will never get to flying at all. They will die and never know. They will grub along the earth’s surface and die with this great delight almost within their reach, taunting them by its humming passage across their sky. III THE TRIUMPH OF FRANCE 6.10.23 The long-spun-out passive resistance in the Ruhr is over, and the controlled, instructed, and disciplined French Press, and the more than French Press which serves the national interests of France in Great Britain and Holland and other European countries, is cock-a-hoop with the clamour of this empty victory. Let us consider what it means for civilisation and the world at large. Men’s memories are short, and it may be well to remind them of the broad facts that have led up to this outrageous, pitiful struggle of the Ruhr. In November 1918 the German people, after an unexampled struggle of four years, surrendered to the Allied Powers arrayed against them. They surrendered on the promises held out to them by the Fourteen Points of President Wilson and by the British propaganda of Crewe House. They surrendered, and they were disarmed and placed in a position in which it was impossible for them to resume resistance. The Americans and British, at any rate, were bound in honour to see that the virtual pact of the surrender was observed, and they did not do so. A peace was put over the German peoples having no relation to the clear understanding of the virtual pact of the surrender, and the bill for damages and reparations was figured up against them utterly beyond their capacity to pay. The Germans signed the Peace Treaty only after the most strenuous protests and because they were then powerless to do anything else. The Treaty was not a bargain to which they agreed, it was a monstrous and impossible obligation rammed down their throats.