take or leave them, but you will get nothing else.”  No attempt was made to appreciate, or even investigate the view put forward by the Germans on that occasion.  And last, but not least, they were most unfortunately excluded from membership of the League at that time.  I felt profoundly indignant with the Germans and their conduct of the war.  I still believe it was due almost exclusively to the German policy and the policy of their rulers that the war took place, and that it was reasonable and right to feel profound indignation, and to desire that international misdeeds of that character should be adequately punished.  But what was wrong was to think that you could as a matter of practice or of international ethics try to impose by main force a series of provisions without regard to the consent or dissent of the country on which you were trying to impose them.  That is part of the heresy that force counts for everything.  I wish some learned person in Oxford or elsewhere would write an essay to show how little force has been able to achieve in the world.  And the curious and the really remarkable thing is that it was this heresy which brought Germany herself to grief.  It is because of the false and immoral belief in the all-powerfulness of force that Germany has fallen, and yet those opposed to Germany, though they conquered her, adopted only too much of her moral code.

It was because the Allies really adopted the doctrine of the mailed fist that we are now suffering from the terrible economic difficulties and dangers which surround us.  I venture to insist on that now, because there are a large number of people who have not abandoned that view.  There are still a number of people who think the real failure that has been committed is not that we went wrong, as I think, in our negotiations at Versailles, but that we have not exerted enough force, and that the remedy for the present situation is more threats of force.  I am sure it won’t answer.  I want to say that that doctrine is just as pernicious when applied to France as when applied to Germany.  You have made an agreement.  You have signed and ratified a treaty; you are internationally bound by that treaty.  It is no use turning round and with a new incarnation of the policy of the mailed fist threatening one of your co-signatories that they are bound to abandon the rights which you wrongly and foolishly gave to them under that treaty.

I am against a policy based on force as applied to Germany.  I am equally opposed to a policy based on force as applied to France.  If we really understand the creed for which we stand, we must aim at co-operation all round.  If we have made a mistake we must pay for it.  If we are really anxious to bring peace to the world, and particularly to Europe, we must be prepared for sacrifices.  We have got to establish economic peace, and if we don’t establish it in a very short time we shall be faced with economic ruin.  In the strictest, most nationalistic interests of this country, we have to see that economic war comes to an end.  We have got to make whatever concessions are necessary in order to bring that peace into being.