In the summer of 1923 the French may assert that the settlement of the Ruhr dispute is a matter between France and Belgium on the one side and Germany on the other. But clairvoyant Frenchmen do not indorse this attitude, which, if persisted in, spells ruin for France and Belgium in the future. No greater calamity could fall upon France and Germany alike than the adoption by the rest of the world of the easy rôle of Pilate. France is on top now; to-morrow Germany will have her day. Is it no concern of the rest of the world? The circumstances being as they are, is not the victory of France, in this question, as disastrous as her failure? Upon a fair and just solution of the Franco-German conflict over reparations, in which France shall be assured just reparation for damages done during the war but at the same time be not allowed to follow the Bismarckian policy, which the present generation of Frenchmen seems to approve, depends the question of a durable peace or a new and more horrible war than the last one. CHAPTER XXIX INTERALLIED DEBTS “Your money lend and lose a friend” is an adage that the former comrades in arms have been ruefully recalling ever since the stirring days of the World War, when they were borrowing and spending with no thought of the day of reckoning. We kept no books in which were charged up to one another’s account the expenditure in human lives. We gave our own lives and our son’s lives, and expected nothing in return. The appalling loss of life and the human wreckage were cheerfully accepted; for that was traditionally the expected sacrifice of war. Each member of the coalition contributed without stint, for service on all the fronts, all the fighting men it could muster; and if there was ever any haggling about quotas, the public knew nothing about it. But when it came to money and material wealth there were no free-will offerings, no pooling of resources. Although money and credits furnished the sinews of war and were used as weapons to crush the common enemy, books were kept down to the smallest outlay. The Allied powers did not forget to charge up every item against one another; and while the soldiers were fighting on the fields of battle, the accountants were buried in vouchers and ledgers, working night and day to record the biggest expenditures the world had ever seen. When the armistice came, there were outstanding bills. It was taken for granted that accounts would be settled. On the books friends were to all intents and purposes on the same footing as enemies. Whether it was the individual in account with his own Government, or one Government in account with another, it was assumed that amounts owing would be paid with interest.