A permanently wrecked Germany, vast black armies for France, armed allies always ready on Germany's eastern frontier; with these conditions fulfilled, France, it is hoped by these politicians, may at last breathe freely. * * * * * What is wrong with this policy? You may call it devilish, if you will, since it is based on the deliberate and artificial creation of human misery; but is it bad policy? After all, air-bombs and poison gas and the like may be called devilish. But, devilish or not, they have sometimes to be used. If Germany is certainly and confessedly looking out for the next opportunity of escaping from the consequences of the treaty and retrieving her fortunes on the battlefield, is not France bound to take every precaution to see that Germany shall never be strong enough to do so with success? The next war will be far worse than the last. The terms imposed on the beaten party will be even more desolating and destructive. France is probably a less vigorous plant than her enemy. She has failed to kill Germany, but Germany might succeed in killing her. It seems that Germany is absolutely bound to fight, if there is no other way of recovering her freedom and her right to live, while France is absolutely bound to hold her enemy down mercilessly, if there is no other way of securing her own safety. III. THE SOLUTION But perhaps after all there is. Last among the Fourteen Points came the proposal to found "A general Association of Nations under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to small and great states alike." The Treaty of Versailles has after all two faces. It had to express two great waves of feeling and two international necessities. Mr. Wilson was not so utterly "bamboozled" as Mr. Keynes would have us believe. General Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil were not so utterly without influence on the settlement. The least depressing paragraphs in the Allied Reply to the German delegation are those in which they explain that the terrific severity of the greater part of the treaty applies only to a "transition period" of punishment, of reparation and of trial, at the end of which they see the realization of Mr. Wilson's promises. "The conditions of peace contain some provisions for the future which may outlast the transition period during which the economic balance"--between Germany and the invaded countries--"is to be restored; and a reciprocity is foreseen after that period which is very clearly that equality of trade conditions for which President Wilson has stipulated." The phrasing of the paragraph is awkward, but the main drift is clear. The Fourteen Points are accepted, but adjourned; when Germany has been punished and reparation made, they will come into force. "The Allied and Associated Powers look forward to the time when the League of Nations established by this treaty shall extend its membership to all peoples." "They see no