Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/207

 locked up in her treasury, is the most desirable, but least accessible, partner in Christendom. As the great creditor of the civilized world, she has been impelled to assert that no participation on her part in any international conference implies a surrender of her claims to payment. France, as the great sufferer by a world's war, has made it equally clear that no participation on her part implies a surrender of her claims to reparation. The anger and shame with which the Allies first saw the injuries inflicted on her have been softened by time; and that strange twist in human nature which makes men more concerned for the welfare of a criminal than for the welfare of his victim has disposed us to think kindly of an unrepentant Germany. But France cannot well forget the wounds from which she bleeds. Less proud than Britain, which prefers beggary to debt, she is infinitely more logical;