remain with me, I can promise nothing more than the bread, black with dirt and vermin, which you have already tasted; the bread of sorrow, and the crown of glory. 'We shall have the glory of suffering together for fair Italy. 'After all we have suffered, we are willing to suffer more. 'For fifteen months, poorly fed, poorly clothed, poorly shod, treated as men afflicted with a pestilence, quarantined like patients confined to a pest house, we have suffered, with songs in our hearts. 'Now, we must suffer in silence.' But the latter injunction was not to apply to the poet. The following day, a shell from a cruiser struck the palace of the Commandant, and slightly wounded D'Annunzio. Thinking that the shell had been directed against him personally, his irony changed to wrath: "The warship Andrea Doria has tried to visit on me personally the vengeance decreed by Rome. Oh! cowards of Italy! I still live, and do not yield. Yesterday, I prepared myself for sacrifice. I rallied the strength and fortitude of my soul. To-day, I shall defend myself with all my might. I offered my life hundreds and hundreds of times in the war with a smile. But it would be an unworthy sacrifice, to throw it away for a people who carelessly forget themselves in Christmas merriment, when their rulers slaughtering with cold design an heroic band of citizens, ennobled by Fiume's sublime virtues, who for sixteen months have stood heart to heart by our side, and have never faltered in suffering and service.' are A little later, he concluded an appeal to the Italians with these words. 'Christmas brings Fiume new blood shed. The city offers itself for sacrifice, like an immortal victim, over whose corpse the Italian fatherland it loved so devotedly is summoned to shed the bitterest of tears, and whom it will mourn with a remorse that knows no ending.' Let us stop here: "The Italian fatherland loved so devotedly.' These words summarize the spirit of the Fiume adventure. They might likewise serve as an epilogue to the speeches and messages of Gabriel D'Annunzio at Fiume. Despite appearances, despite certain traits of vanity which go with the pride of genius, D'Annunzio has always preferred the glory of his fatherland to his own glory. The Fiume expedition was not the exploit of a handful of madmen. It was a plan deeply matured. It was designed as a clarion call to an Italy gorged with victory. To be sure, the poet did not efface his personality behind the demands of Italian policy. He did make difficulties for those who guided Italy's official courses, and a stranger might be tempted to consider him an enfant perdu. But this would be unjust. He personified the revolt of Italian public opinion against the abdication of the government. Is it surprising, then, that his personality always holds the centre of the scene in these Fiume orations? The expedition was his, the soul of the resistance was himself. The enthusiasm of the people of Fiume, he, alone, created and sustained. That spirit spoke through his mouth — and how happily! The miracle of his enterprise was his own creation, and what a glorious one! Fiume and D'Annunzio are henceforth inseparable. It is D'Annunzio everywhere. Has he ever in his life done ought but paint himself? What else could we expect from the author of Fire and The Child of Pleasure? Thus, the Fiume epic was merely his last masterpiece as much a literary as a political feat and, of all his works, it is the one dearest to his heart. He could not easily part with it. He is like an artist, who, having produced an immortal masterpiece and cherished it in his soul, recoils from abandoning it to the judgment of the world. Quite possibly, he dreamed of dying on the walls of Fiume, as Byron died amidst the ruins of Missolonghi. But, was it not one of his dreams to realize in action the verses of another Italian poet, which D'Annunzio doubtless knew by heart from childhood: Donato un Regno al sopraggiunto Re (He returns after giving a kingdom to his king.) We have called it the Fiume epic. In truth, the history of Fiume for more than a year is a poem, in which D'Annunzio's speeches and messages are the songs. We sometimes forget that D'Annunzio is first and always a poet. He is not a dramatist, neither is he a romanticist; he is not even what certain blockheads have called him, an adventurer, a sabre-rattler, a movie actor. He is, with Carducci, the greatest living Italian poet; he is, with Kipling, the only living poet whose reputation is as wide as the world. While he is best known abroad, perhaps, by his romances, his real merit is in his poems. It is the author of Laudi who speaks at Fiume; the man who sang with unequalled fervor and beauty, the land, the sea, and the sky of Italy. That sky, that sea, that land, he rediscovered at Fiume. They inspired his eloquence, illumined his metaphor, evoked in the people of that most Italian city the responsive chord of a race gifted by nature with sensibility for artistic. form. It is hardly necessary to say that such speeches lose in translation. Those poems are veritable symphonies. No other language can reproduce their sweetness, their seriousness, their sonority. It can only copy them in faulty and less harmonious chords. Whatever may become of these addresses, let them not be forgotten as literature. The future will tell their political value. But, already, they form the most interesting monument of an episode which will remain famous in history. Three hundred years ago, a little group of men and women, one hundred and twenty to be exact, not finding in their homeland the possibilities of spiritual life which they sought, embarked for a new continent, that they might found there an ideal fatherland. They carried with them their faith, their beliefs, their traditions, and their hopes. The dissenters of 1620 have become a great nation. Who knows but what these legionaries, likewise, bore in their hearts the image of Fiume, as the home of a greater Italy. Did not D'Annunzio, himself, write, a few days before the expedition: 'The history of heroes is the history of their race'? Those to whom it was granted to spend a few days at Fiume, will never deny that one breathed there an atmosphere of heroism, of mediævalism, and of the spirit of Italy. Some will say: 'He rebelled against his fatherland.' Others will say: 'He converted an enterprise which many considered desperate, into a reality, for fifteen months. If he failed to give Fiume to Italy, at least he preserved it from the Yugoslavs. If he sinned against his fatherland, it was because he loved it over much. He has sweetened with Latin charm the coast of "the bitter sea," But most important of all, excelling others in courage, he staked his faith in favor of an ideal. His breath gave new life to all who neared him. He showed that in a century of factions and skepticism a single man may start a new crusade, providing he be a poet, and a poet of genius. He communicated his enthusiasm and faith to others. He sowed broadcast, beauty, and love of beauty. He shed about himself the radiance of that inner light which illumines life, and without which life is scarcely worth the living.' [The Manchester Guardian (Liberal Daily), January 31] GERMAN REPARATION AGAIN BY J. M. KEYNES In my book, I expressed the opinion IN that Germany might conceivably be able to pay £100,000,000 gold per annum in discharge of her liabilities under the treaty, but that, for political and other reasons, it would probably turn out imprudent and impracticable to exact so high a figure. Some authorities, including Mr. Baruch, who was President Wilson's economic adviser at the Conference, have accepted this figure, or something near it. Other authorities, whose opinions deserve respect, have made varying estimates up to a maximum of £200,000,000 gold. This latter figure has been put forward by impartial American economists as a conceivable maximum which might possibly be reached under favoring conditions. I have never heard of any competent person who has put forward a reasoned estimate exceeding £200,000,000 gold per annum. How does this compare with the proposals of the Paris Conference? These are made up of a determinate and an indeterminate part. The former consists of £100,000,000 per annum for two years, £150,000,000 for the next three, then £200,000,000 for three more and £250,000,000 for three after that, and, finally, £300,000,000 annually for 31 years. All these figures are in terms of gold. They are not appreciably affected by the small discount allowed in the improbable contingency of Germany paying in advance of the due dates. The latter the indeterminate part-consists of an annual sum in addition to the other, which shall be equal in value to 12 per cent of the German exports. How much is this addition likely to amount to? Before the war, German exports came to about £500,000,000 annually, and the imports to rather more than this. At present prices, these same exports would now be worth more than £1,000,000,000 gold. British exports in 1920-exclusive of re-exports were worth £1,300,000,000. Now, it is clear that Germany cannot possibly pay the determinate part of the indemnity, except by developing a large export trade. For her exports must exceed her imports by at least the amount paid over as indemnity, and many of her staple exports can only be produced at all-for example, metal manufactures and textiles-if the raw material, or a large part of it, has been previously imported. I do not suppose that anyone would seriously argue that Germany could continuously, year after year, maintain her exports at a value of more than, say, 40 per cent above her imports. That is to say, to give a numerical example, if Germany is to have surplus exports worth £200,000,000 she will have to have total exports worth at least £700,000,000. Twelve per cent of this figure is £84,000,000. It is clear, therefore, that the indeterminate item is a very formidable one. With total exports worth £700,000,000, against imports of £500,000,000, leaving surplus exports worth £200,000,000, she could just pay a fixed sum of £116,000,000, plus the export proportion of £84,000,000-making up £200,000,000 in all. That is to say, trade on this scale is nearly required, even to meet the minimum payment of £100,000,000 prescribed for the first two years plus the export proportion. It is difficult to imagine figures which would permit the proposed normal payment of £300,000,000 plus the export proportion. But it is safe to say that on total exports capable of yielding a surplus of £300,000,000, the 12 per cent proportion would certainly exceed £100,000,000. The proposals of the Paris Conference for the normal period amount, therefore, to a demand for more than £400,000,000 per annum, which is double the highest figure that, to my knowledge, any competent person here or in the United States has ever attempted to justify. Let it be remembered, further, that according to the last published figures, Germany has at the present time an export deficit. The Paris proposals cannot, then, be meant seriously, any more than the original treaty was. They are simply another move in a game by which the players, at any rate, are no longer taken in. Mr. Lloyd George feels that he is making progress perhaps he iswhen he succeeds in persuading M. Briand to agree with him that 2 plus 2 does not make 12, but only 8; M. Briand hopes that, being eloquent, he may, after all, be able in the French Chamber to make a good enough song about 8 to defeat any argument from M. Poincaré as to how much better it would be for France if 2 plus 2 made 12. I doubt if there has ever been anything in history quite like it. Perhaps it is best diagnosed as a consequence of the portentous development of what we have learned to call 'propaganda.' The monster has escaped from the control of its authors, and the extraordinary situation is produced in which the VOL. 21-NO. 1086 most powerful and the most intelligent statesmen in the world are compelled by unescapable forces to meet together, day after day, to discuss detailed variations of the impossible. It would be easy to go on to point out how, if Germany could compass the vast export trade which the Paris proposals contemplate, it could only be by ousting some of the staple trades of Great Britain from the markets of the world. Exports of what commodities, we may ask, in addition to her present exports, is Germany going to find a market for in 1922 to look no farther ahead which will enable her to make the payment of between £150,000,000 and £200,000,000, including the export proportion which will be due from her in that year? Germany's five principal exports before the war were iron, steel, and machinery, coal and coke, woolen goods, and cotton goods. Which of these trades does Paris think she is going to develop on a hitherto unprecedented scale? Or, if not these, what others? And how is she going to finance the import of raw materials. which, except in the case of coal and coke, are a prior necessity to manufacture, if the proceeds of the goods when made will not be available to repay the credits? I ask these questions in respect of the year 1922 because many people may, erroneously, believe that while the proposed settlement is necessarily of a problematic character for the later years-only time can show it makes some sort of a start possible. These questions are serious and practical, and they deserve to be answered. If the Paris proposals are more than wind, they mean a vast reorganization of the channels of international trade. If anything remotely like them is really intended to happen, the reactions on the trade and industry of this country are incalculable. It is an outrage that they should be dealt with by the methods of the poker party. One other aspect of the situation deserves mention. A sum of £200,000,000 gold to take the sum more immediately in question represents at represents at the present rate of exchange more than 50 milliards of marks. The present revenue of the Central government of Germany is about 30 milliards, and its expenditure about 100 milliards. Thus, the Finance Minister of that country, if he is to pay what he owes, will be set the problem of trebling his revenue and at the same time halving his expenditure. And then, a few years later, he will have to double his revenue again. We are once more in the region of the fantastic. And if he does n't, what is to happen then? According to some of the papers, the Reparation Commission is to step in, collect the Customs, and levy the taxes! What a temptation to him to ask them in at once! The proposal, if it has been made, is a very good instance of how, when the mind has left solid earth and is traveling in imaginary realms, one idea is just as good as any other. Nevertheless, the postponement of the consideration of effective penalties constitutes Mr. Lloyd George's solid triumph at the recent conference. He has yielded to the French, only things which cannot possibly happen, and has succeeded, so far, in withholding his assent from things which could happen. It is not yet clear what relations these new proposals are supposed to bear to the treaty. Apparently, they supersede it. They introduce elements for which the treaty does not provide. They require, therefore, the acceptance by Germany of a new treaty. It is not possible to compare, exactly, the money burden of them with that of the treaty. I estimate that they are somewhat less two thirds to three quarters of the treaty demands. But so long as they are very excessive, the precise degree in which they are excessive is not important. So long as our demands bear no relation to the facts, their precise form is not significant. These proposals bring us, therefore, no nearer to settling Europe's problem. The interested parties are no better placed for calculating what Germany is really going to pay, so as to make their plans accordingly. The reestablishment of normal economic life is put off for another period. The next act of the play must wait until the end of February, when there is to be a conference in London attended by Germans. They, at least, will, presumably, treat it seriously. For anything which they agree to now will have a moral authority which the treaty can never have. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd George reckons that this will give him another chance of achieving what is sensible. He thinks, perhaps, that he has brought the French one step along his way, and that that has been very clever of him; that his critics are tiresome and unhelpful, and that, as usual, he is doing his best. But we shall never escape from the coils we have got into by any shift or trick. Surely, the truth will have to come out some day. Surely, there is no method for a situation like this, except to proclaim it sincerely. The thought of the two Prime Ministers in Paris muddling over silly formulas, with M. Loucheur buzzing about between them - formulas which they all know to be silly-is, for anyone who realizes what it is like, a thought of gibbering night mare. |