excessive population dependent for its livelihood on a complicated and
artificial organization, the psychological instability of the laboring
and capitalist classes, and the instability of Europe's claim, coupled
with the completeness of her dependence, on the food supplies of the New
World.

The war had so shaken this system as to endanger the life of Europe
altogether. A great part of the Continent was sick and dying; its
population was greatly in excess of the numbers for which a livelihood
was available; its organization was destroyed, its transport system
ruptured, and its food supplies terribly impaired.

It was the task of the Peace Conference to honor engagements and to
satisfy justice; but not less to re-establish life and to heal wounds.
These tasks were dictated as much by prudence as by the magnanimity
which the wisdom of antiquity approved in victors. We will examine in
the following chapters the actual character of the Peace.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] In 1913 there were 25,843 emigrants from Germany, of whom
19,124 went to the United States.

[2] The net decrease of the German population at the end of
1918 by decline of births and excess of deaths as compared with the
beginning of 1914, is estimated at about 2,700,000.

[3] Including Poland and Finland, but excluding Siberia,
Central Asia, and the Caucasus.