The unofficial discussions in Paris about inter-Allied debts have yielded
only the vaguest of rumours. It is reported that Mr. Churchill would like to have a conference on the whole subject, and we hope that the report is true —on one condition however. That condition is that we should enter such a conference with a full realization of the lessons we have learned, or ought to have learned; from the reparations imbroglio. Immediately after the War Englishmen were encouraged to believe that they would receive vast sums from Germany. In those days our politicians did not even get so far as facing the awkward question how a normal-condition of the Money Exchanges and of international trade could possibly be restored if huge payments were being poured from one country into another. Gradually and reluctantly the admission was publicly made that in the long run payments could be made only in goods. By the time sanity had asserted itself the dreams of Eldorado had all vanished, and the ordinary man, who had become quite reconciled to the expectation of getting hardly anything, smiled wearily at the mere remembrance of the talk about searching Germany's pockets for the uttermost farthing.
