The cause of the desperate condition in which Germany finds herself is the impossibility of balancing her budget. The key to the inflation of the currency does not lie in the first place in the indemnity liabilities but in the further contents of the Treaty of Versailles. The reparations demands intensify the process of impoverishment and hasten the crisis to which it leads, but they are not the real cause of the impoverishment and of the crisis. The real cause is that an amputated Germany has been deprived of the possibility of feeding and maintaining its population of 63,000,000 souls, and the importance of the crisis which is upon us is that it will prove the awful truth of the words attributed to Clemenceau: “There are twenty million Germans too many.” Professor Stuart believes that Germany cannot exist in her present condition, even if she pays no reparations at all! He points out, with a masterly array of figures, what has been said over and over again by the foremost British economists, that the territorial losses of Germany and the export of reparations coal have made it necessary for Germany to buy more food-stuffs than she did before the war in outside markets, and, instead of exporting coal, she has had to buy coal. On the other hand, she has lost most of her shipping. The means she formerly had of overcoming an adverse balance of trade are gone, and the adverse balance of trade is greater than ever. Inflation warded off the collapse. But Germany’s depreciated mark has not helped her abroad, as some people think, because she has had to buy foreign currencies to meet the adverse trade balance and the reparations payments, and to pay for food-stuffs and raw materials. Less than five years have proved that the Treaty of Versailles has deprived the German people of the possibility of a normal economic existence. With the Rhineland and the Ruhr cut off, it is clear that the Germans can not in the long run do otherwise than submit to the demands of the French. But the whole problem remains. Unless there is a radical revision of the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans may have to emigrate in large numbers or die or fight again. CHAPTER XXI THE EXPANSION AND DEBACLE OF GREECE