Germany's population was increasing, her industries were intact, she had no factories to reconstruct, she had no flooded mines. Her resources were intact, above and below ground... In fifteen or twenty years Germany would be mistress of Europe. In front of her would be France with a population scarcely increased.

'Inter-Allied Conference on Reparations, etc.', Miscellaneous No. 3 (1923), pp. 123-124, quoted in Étienne Mantoux, The Carthaginian Peace, or The Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 23.