they did, would do so with a sense of grudging injustice that would embitter their hearts against us. If our Government had only then had the sense to make a bonfire of the promises to pay of our Allies, they would not have cost us a Stiver and they would have made a gesture of generosity which would have had a quite immeasurable effect on the economic atmosphere in Europe, in America, in the rest of the world and at home in England.
As it was, the fashionable sentiment, both in international affairs, home politics and in industrial matters, favoured getting as much as possible out of anybody who could be squeezed. Abroad this sentiment was one of the reasons why it took a most unconscionable time to put together a Peace Treaty, which when it was put together produced anything but peace, and that the Reparations problem developed into that dreary mixture of tragedy and farce of which more will have to be said later.
At home the Government instead of telling us, what it ought to have known if it did not, that in some ways the most difficult part of the war began when it was over, encouraged us in the belief, already much too prevalent, that the country's wealth was unlimited and there was a bottomless purse into which everybody could dip for the purpose of carrying out any reform
