Neither of them paid adequate attention to these problems at any stage of the Conference.

But in any event the atmosphere for the wise and reasonable consideration of them was hopelessly befogged by the commitments of the British delegation on the question of Indemnities.

The hopes to which the Prime Minister had given rise not only compelled him to advocate an unjust and unworkable economic basis to the Treaty with Germany, but set him at variance with the President, and on the other hand with competing interests to those of France and Belgium.

The clearer it became that but little could be expected from Germany, the more necessary it was to exercise patriotic greed and "sacred egotism" and snatch the bone from the juster claims and greater need of France or the well-founded expectations of Belgium.
Yet the financial problems which were about to exercise Europe could not be solved by greed.

The possibility of _their_ cure lay in magnanimity.
Europe, if she is to survive her troubles, will need so much magnanimity from America, that she must herself practice it.