For these reasons the true voice of the new generation has not yet spoken, and silent opinion is not yet formed. To the formation of the general opinion of the future I dedicate this book. THE END FOOTNOTES: [157] The figures for the United Kingdom are as follows: Net Excess of Monthly Imports Exports Imports Average $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 1913 274,650 218,850 55,800 1914 250,485 179,465 71,020 Jan.-Mar. 1919 547,890 245,610 302,280 April-June 1919 557,015 312,315 244,700 July-Sept. 1919 679,635 344,315 335,320 But this excess is by no means so serious as it looks; for with the present high freight earnings of the mercantile marine the various "invisible" exports of the United Kingdom are probably even higher than they were before the war, and may average at least $225,000,000 monthly. [158] President Wilson was mistaken in suggesting that the supervision of Reparation payments has been entrusted to the League of Nations. As I pointed out in Chapter V., whereas the League is invoked in regard to most of the continuing economic and territorial provisions of the Treaty, this is not the case as regards Reparation, over the problems and modifications of which the Reparation Commission is supreme without appeal of any kind to the League of Nations. [159] These Articles, which provide safeguards against the outbreak of war between members of the League and also between members and non-members, are the solid achievement of the Covenant. These Articles make substantially less probable a war between organized Great Powers such as that of 1914. This alone should commend the League to all men. [160] It would be expedient so to define a "protectionist tariff" as to permit (_a_) the total prohibition of certain imports; (_b_) the imposition of sumptuary or revenue customs duties on commodities not produced at home; (_c_) the imposition of customs duties which did not exceed by more than five per cent a countervailing excise on similar commodities produced at home; (_d_) export duties. Further, special exceptions might be permitted by a majority vote of the countries entering the Union. Duties which had existed for five years prior to a country's entering the Union might be allowed to disappear gradually by equal instalments spread over the five years subsequent to joining the Union.