The Allied Debts

THERE cannot be a war without losses. For five years the world discontinued productive effort and concentrated upon destruction. The resulting losses are measured by debt. The debt assumes varying forms?internal, reparation, inter-Allied, etc.?and is generally represented by bonds or notes. For the four years succeeding the armistice the nations of the world have been desperately concentrated upon manipulating and shifting these symbols of loss. Each nation has sought to place them so as to relieve itself from, and impose on another, the task of making good its own war losses. But have the stakes of this game been as high as they seemed ? Will they ever be more than paper counters, due to practical limitations on the possibility of one nation making good material losses suffered in another nation ?