ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to set forth baldly the principal economic provisions of the Peace Treaty. The German commentators had little difficulty in showing that the draft Treaty constituted a breach of engagements and of international morality comparable with their own offense in the invasion of Belgium. The German economic system as it existed before the war depended on three main factors. They are overseas commerce as represented by her mercantile marine, her colonies, her foreign investments, her exports, and the overseas connections of her merchants; the exploitation of her coal and iron and the industries built upon them; and her transport and tariff system. Of these the first, while not the least important, was certainly the most vulnerable. The Treaty aims at the systematic destruction of all three, but principally of the first two. The Treaty has made the international character of the rivers a pretext for taking the river system of Germany out of German control.
