In connection with the various clauses throughout the treaty, which, in their ensemble, cut Germany off from the rest of the world and make her a pariah for ever among nations, an interesting dilemma faces those who hope to profit by the treaty. If they are able to enforce its provisions, do they still expect to have large reparations from a Germany bound hand and foot in the matter of her foreign trade, while enjoying the advantages in their own foreign trade of having her no longer for a competitor? And, if so, will not the example of a Germany without colonies, army, fleet, political and economic contacts with Asia and Africa, paying not only her own expenses but a huge surplus for reparations, refute the time-worn argument of economic imperialism, that a nation must have all these things to live? The answer to the former question is an economic one, difficult to explain and uphold, whether you say yes or no. The answer to the second question, if in the affirmative, proves that the greater part of our national expenditures are money wasted, and, if in the negative, that the Treaty of Versailles was a sentence of death passed upon a great nation, affecting not so much those guilty of the war as their progeny and an unborn generation. _The Consecration of the Principle of the Right of the Victors in a War to Confiscate the Private Property of the Vanquished._ It is impossible to deny that the Treaty of Versailles infringes upon the age-old principle of the sanctity of private property. A study of its reparations and economic clauses reveals that the greatest damage done to the world during the riot of ungoverned passions at Paris was the attack made in the treaty upon the fundamental bases of society. The Treaty of Versailles assumes the dangerous doctrine that the state is all-powerful and has the right to dispose of the property of its citizens, and that a government can not only levy taxes on capital and property of a confiscatory character but is able to give a clear title to the confiscation by others of its subjects’ property. I am sure that I have not exaggerated, or stated unfairly or extremely, this feature of the Treaty of Versailles. During the last five years I have had the opinion of a dozen international lawyers, French and British and American, who are agreed that this feature of the Treaty of Versailles, if applied, would lead to departures in existing notions of property and the rôle of the state so startling as to be subversive of the existing social order. The boomerang is evident. If Germany has a right to confiscate or assent to the confiscation of private property for the purposes of reparation, if the assent and carte blanche of the German Government to confiscation by the Allies gives a valid title, if taxes on capital can be levied by the German Government--all this without ruining industry in Germany--why are not these measures legal and practicable against private property and capital in other countries?