ABSTRACT
The victors in the World War attempted to arrange terms of peace in a conference from which the vanquished were excluded. The London conference failed to arrive at any agreement, whereupon the Entente powers and Belgium threatened to levy an import tax of 50 per cent, on German goods entering their countries, and to force Germany to pay the tax, which would be pooled and divided as indemnity. At a meeting of the French and British financiers in Paris, a corporation was organized to finance the restoration of Europe, to whose capital the United States and Germany were to be invited to subscribe equally with Great Britain and France. Upon the suggestion of Italy, it was agreed that a general conference should be called to meet at Genoa in the first week of March, "of an economic and financial nature, of all the European powers, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Russia included".
