beyond her capacity, which is then to be reduced at the discretion of a foreign Commission acting with the object of obtaining each year the maximum which the circumstances of that year permit. The first still leaves her with some slight incentive for enterprise, energy, and hope. The latter skins her alive year by year in perpetuity, and however skilfully and discreetly the operation is performed, with whatever regard for not killing the patient in the process, it would represent a policy which, if it were really entertained and deliberately practised, the judgment of men would soon pronounce to be one of the most outrageous acts of a cruel victor in civilized history.
There are other functions and powers of high significance which the Treaty accords to the Reparation Commission. But these will be most conveniently dealt with in a separate section.
III. Germany's Capacity to pay
The forms in which Germany can discharge the sum which she has engaged herself to pay are three