The Council of Four, as recorded in the newspapers of
Satur- day last, has addressed to Count Brockdorff-Rantzau a reminder of some pertinent facts. The Allies are taking from Germany only a third of the amount of shipping which she destroyed during the war. German territory has wholly escaped the ravages she inflicted on her neighboUrs, and is therefore as potentially productive now as before 1914. Germany has no ground to protest against the taking of her coalfields to counter- vail her calculated savagery of destruction in Northern France, where an entire industry was purposely obliterated. Germany has every chance of rapid economic recovery : her country has not been pillaged or destroyed, and she will no longer have to endure the burden of huge armaments. But she cannot go unscathed by the war which she created. Hardships are one of its just consequences. We commend this straight talk to those Englishmen who are bemusing themselves with phrases about " a breach of faith with a beaten enemy."
