In the first place, some of these powers can only be exercised if the Commission or the Governments represented on it are _unanimous_.[116] But also, which is perhaps more important, it will be the _duty_ of the Reparation Commission, until there has been a unanimous and far-reaching change of the policy which the Treaty represents, to extract from Germany year after year the maximum sum obtainable.

There is a great difference between fixing a definite sum, which though large is within Germany's capacity to pay and yet to retain a little for herself, and fixing a sum far beyond her capacity, which is then to be reduced at the discretion of a foreign Commission acting with the object of obtaining each year the maximum which the circumstances of that year permit.

The first still leaves her with some slight incentive for enterprise, energy, and hope.

The latter skins her alive year by year in perpetuity, and however skilfully and discreetly the operation is performed, with whatever regard for not killing the patient in the process, it would represent a policy which, if it were really entertained and deliberately practised, the judgment of men would soon pronounce to be one of the most outrageous acts of a cruel victor in civilized history.
There are other functions and powers of high significance which the Treaty accords to the Reparation Commission.

But these will be most conveniently dealt with in a separate section.
III.