We are considering in effect whether the facts show that nations must, in order to provide bread for their people, defeat in war competing nations who otherwise would secure it. But that economic case for the 'biological inevitability' of war is destroyed if it is true that, after having beaten the rival nation, we find that we have less bread than before; that the future security of our food is less; and that out of our own diminished store we have to feed a defeated enemy who, before his defeat, managed to feed himself, and helped to feed us as well. And that is precisely what the present facts reveal. Reference has already been made to the position of France. In the forty years of her defeat France was the banker of Europe. She exacted tribute in the form of dividends and interest upon investments from Russia, the Near East, Germany herself; exacted it in a form which suited the peculiar genius of her people and added to the security of her social life. She was Germany's creditor, and managed to secure from her conqueror of 1871 the prompt payment of the debts owing to her. When France was not in a position to compel anything whatsoever from Germany by military force, the financial claims of Frenchmen upon Germany were readily discountable in any market of the world. To-day, the financial claims on Germany, made by a France which is militarily all-powerful, simply cannot be discounted anywhere. The indemnity vouchers, whatever may be the military predominance behind them, are simply not negotiable instruments so long as they depend upon present policy. They are a form of paper which no banker would dream of discounting on their commercial merits. To-day France stands as the conquerer of the richest ore-fields in the world, of territory which is geographically the industrial centre of Europe; of a vast Empire in Africa and Asia; in a position of predominance in Poland, Hungary, and Rumania. She has acquired through the Reparations Commission such power over the enemy countries as to reduce them almost to the economic position of an Asiatic or African colony. If ever wealth could be conquered, France has conquered it. If political power could really be turned to economic account, France ought to-day to be rich beyond any nation in history. Never was there such an opportunity of turning military power into wealth. Then why is she bankrupt? Why is France faced by economic and financial difficulties so acute that the situation seems inextricable save by social revolution, a social reconstruction, that is, involving new principles of taxation, directly aiming at the re-distribution of wealth, a re-distribution resisted by the property-owning classes. These, like other classes, have since the Armistice been so persistently fed upon the fable of making the Boche pay, that the government is unable to induce them to face reality.[126]