to the American business man who has studied the intent and purpose of
the Paris Economic Pact which is described in a previous chapter, and
which declared for an Allied war of economic reprisal against Germany
and the other Central Powers. In that chapter, as you may recall, the
point was made that since individuals and not nations do business, the
Pact was likely to fail.

With their usual intelligence, the French understand this, and their
whole educational campaign at home is to make the individual Frenchman
immune against the lure of the cheap German products. The French know
that it is the sum of individual French resistance to German buying that
will keep the German product forever outside the realm of the Republic.

Indeed, the clearest-minded men in France to-day believe that more
commercial advantage will accrue to France by the intensive development
of her resources, the perfection of old industries and the creation of
new ones than in the formation of committees devoted to plans for
commercial alliances dedicated to reprisal. In other words, this helps
to bear out the theory held in many quarters that the economic pact is
after all merely a campaign document and utterly impracticable.

In France there are other signs that point to a rift in the Pact. While
I was in Paris, a well known Senator pointed out that as soon as the
war ended France would need coal and would look to Italy for it as she
had done in the past. To obtain her coal more cheaply than she is now
doing from the United States or England, Italy would very likely make
concessions to Germany in order to obtain German fuel. The result would
be an interchange of merchandise between the two countries regardless of
the decree of the Paris Pact. The question arises: Could France place
restrictions upon the Italian frontier to the annoyance of her Allies?