There was noticeable in all this a marked deficiency of public spirit in respect to private life. The German has for so long been drilled and dragooned in his public life that his civic conscience is little developed. Whereas in England one had the impression that the government and authorities, and especially the army, were the worst offenders against national economy and the mass of the middle class the most conscientious, in Germany it seemed quite the other way. Undoubtedly one of the irritants that excited the revolution was the failure of the rationing system to secure an equitable distribution--or anything more than a minimum of certain staple foods. This food shortage is, of course, a cause as well as a consequence of the economic collapse of Germany. German economic life, swept away for years on the tide of war effort, now revolves round and round in a vicious circle like a dead carcase in an eddy after a flood. Famine and fighting have made the people too weak and too weary to work; but until they work they cannot get food from abroad or grow it at home. That is the economic vicious circle. The boycott and blockade have made the people too restless and revolutionary to reconstruct and remodel their constitutional institutions; and until they do so they are to be boycotted and embargoed. That is the political vicious circle in foreign affairs. In all regions of economic life one finds this endless chain of cause and effect revolving round Paris and fettering such energies as are left to Germany. This is not the place for an estimate of the material sacrifices we have made and are making, so as to coerce Germany into accepting the peace conditions of Paris and into suppressing its own revolutionary movements. I would only point out that a brisk trade between France and Germany was proceeding all through these months of blockade. For example, an acquaintance in Switzerland who wanted in February a certain well-known make of French tyre was told by his garage that they could get them cheaper than in France if he did not mind where they came from. They came via Germany. And no sooner was the Treaty signed than a swarm of American agents descended on Berlin, buying up businesses right and left, as also such stocks as were left. Small wonder, with the mark at one-quarter its pre-war value. As to _objets d'art_ and paintings, the ruin of the plutocracy and the low rate of exchange threaten to strip Germany far more effectively than any German raiders could strip the villas of France and Belgium. But in this legitimate indemnity we English have not benefited. We are too much afraid of "dumping," no doubt.