When May 1, 1921, was set as a date on which the total amount of reparations due from Germany to her victors should be fixed, it seemed a long way off. American delegates urged that the amount the Allies intended to exact be decided upon immediately and be stipulated in the treaty, but the Allies would have had to determine the proportion of indemnity each country was to receive. This could not have been done during the Peace Conference, which had already too many friction-breathing problems on its hands to risk another. It involved the filing of claims of all the victors. With the fluctuation of exchange and the uncertainty of cost of labor, material, and freight, those who suffered damages could not even approximate the sum necessary to make good their losses. The French advanced a powerful argument against the American suggestion of a fixed indemnity when they said that, since all admitted the liability of Germany to be far more than could be collected from her, it would be wise to wait a year or two to see how hard hit Germany was and how the world would recover from the economic consequences of the war, before deciding how much money could be collected. Mr. Lloyd George supported the French contention. Having recently won a General Election on the promise to make Germany pay _all_ the expenses of the war, he did not dare to return from Paris with a treaty containing a fixed sum for reparations. Just as I have tried to show, in discussing the internal affairs of Germany since 1918, that the Government could probably have done no more than it has done in the matter of reparations, it is possible on the other side to show how the French Government has been compelled by public opinion to keep hounding Germany for money. The admission of a fixed indemnity in the treaty was not necessarily planned by the French to give them an indefinite strangle-hold upon Germany. At the time they may not have realized that the stipulation concerning the trial of war criminals, which Germany could not fulfil, and the disarmament clauses, which gave unlimited opportunity for quibble and dispute, together with the unpaid bills for reparations, would furnish a legal excuse for retaining the Rhine provinces and a technical ground for the further invasion of Germany. The weapons were at hand. Public opinion clamored for reparations. Briand was thrown out of power to make way for the more energetic Poincaré. Ought we not to give due weight to the popular outcry in France for reparations as a powerful factor forcing or tempting the French Government into its present policy?