German industry on the one hand and French and Italian industry on the
other. It may be admitted that the surrender of the coal will destroy
German industry, but it may be equally true that its non-surrender will
jeopardize French and Italian industry. In such a case must not the
victors with their Treaty rights prevail, especially when much of the
damage has been ultimately due to the wicked acts of those who are now
defeated? Yet if these feelings and these rights are allowed to prevail
beyond what wisdom would recommend, the reactions on the social and
economic life of Central Europe will be far too strong to be confined
within their original limits.

But this is not yet the whole problem. If France and Italy are to make
good their own deficiencies in coal from the output of Germany, then
Northern Europe, Switzerland, and Austria, which previously drew their
coal in large part from Germany's exportable surplus, must be starved of
their supplies. Before the war 13,600,000 tons of Germany's coal exports
went to Austria-Hungary. Inasmuch as nearly all the coalfields of the
former Empire lie outside what is now German-Austria, the industrial
ruin of this latter state, if she cannot obtain coal from Germany, will
be complete. The case of Germany's neutral neighbors, who were formerly
supplied in part from Great Britain but in large part from Germany,
will be hardly less serious. They will go to great lengths in the
direction of making their own supplies to Germany of materials which are
essential to her, conditional on these being paid for in coal. Indeed
they are already doing so.[49] With the breakdown of money economy the
practice of international barter is becoming prevalent. Nowadays money
in Central and South-Eastern Europe is seldom a true measure of value in
exchange, and will not necessarily buy anything, with the consequence
that one country, possessing a commodity essential to the needs of
another, sells it not for cash but only against a reciprocal engagement