Demographic forecasts, like all forecasts of social events, have but a comparative value. It is true that demographic movements are especially biological manifestations, but it is also true that economic and social factors exercise a profound influence in limiting their regularity and can disturb them very considerably. It is better therefore not to make long prophecies.
What is certain is that the French population has increased almost imperceptibly while the population of Germany augmented very rapidly. The annual average of births in the five years before the War, 1908-13, was 762,000 in France and 176,000 in Belgium. In Germany it was 1,916,000. The average of deaths was 729,000 in France, 117,000 in Belgium, and 1,073,000 in Germany. Thus, per thousand, the excess of births in France was 0.9, in Belgium 7.7, in Germany 13. The War has terribly aggravated the situation in France, whose demographic structure is far from being a healthy one. From statistics published giving the first results of the French census of 1921—without the new territory of Alsace-Lorraine—France, in the interval between the two census periods, has decreased by 2,102,864; from 39,602,258 to 37,499,394 (1921). The deaths in the War do not represent a half of this decrease, when is deducted the losses among the coloured troops and those from French colonies who fought for France. The new territories annexed to France do not compensate for the War-mortality and the decrease in births.
We may presume that if normal conditions of life return, the population of Germany and German-Austria will be more than one hundred millions, that the population of Belgium altogether little less than fifty millions, that Italy will have a population much greater than that of France, of at least forty-five million inhabitants, and that Great Britain will have about sixty million inhabitants. In the case of the Germans we have mentioned one hundred million persons, taking into consideration Germany and German-Austria. But the Germans of Poland, of Czeko-Slovakia and the Baltic States will amount to at least twenty millions of inhabitants. No one can make forecasts, even of an approximate nature, on Russia, whose fecundity is always the highest in Europe, and whose losses are rapidly replaced by a high birth-rate even after the greatest catastrophes. And then there are the Germans spread about the world, great aggregations of populations as in the United States of America and in a lesser degree in Brazil. Up to now these people have been silent, not only because they were surrounded by hostile populations, but because the accusation of being sons of the Huns weighed down upon them more than any danger of the War. But the Treaty of Versailles, and more still the manner in which it has been applied, is to dissipate, and soon will entirely dissipate, the atmosphere of antipathy that existed against the Germans. In Great Britain the situation has changed profoundly in three years. The United States have made their separate peace and want no responsibility. In Italy there scarcely exists any hatred for the Germans, and apart from certain capitalists who paint in lurid colours the danger of German penetration in their papers because they want higher tariff protection and to be able to speculate on government orders, there is no one who does not desire peace with all peoples. The great majority of the Italian people only desire to reconstruct the economic and social life of the nation.
Certain tendencies in France's policy depend perhaps on her great anxiety for the future, an anxiety, in fact, not unjustified by the lessons of the past. Germany, notwithstanding her fallen state, her anguish and the torment she has to go through, is so strong and vital that everybody is certain of seeing her once again potent, indeed more potent and formidable than ever.
Everyone in France is convinced that the Treaty of Versailles has lost all foundation since the United States of America abandoned it, and since Great Britain and Italy, persuaded of the impossibility of putting certain clauses into effect, have shown by their attitude that they are not disposed to entertain coercive measures which are as useless as they are damaging.
In France the very authors of the Treaty of Versailles recognize that it is weakened by a series of successive attenuations. Tardieu has asserted that the Treaty of Versailles tends to be abandoned on all sides: "Cette faillite a des causes allemandes, des causes alliés, des causes françaises" (p. 489). The United States has asked itself, after the trouble that has followed the treaty, if wisdom did not lie in the old time isolation, in Washington's testament, in the Monroe doctrine: Keep off. But in America they have not understood, says Tardieu, that to assist Europe the same solidarity was necessary that existed during the War (p. 493).
Great Britain, according to Tardieu, tends now also to stand aside. The English are inclined to say, "N'en parlons plus" (p. 493). No Frenchman will accept with calm the manner in which Lloyd George has conceived the execution of the peace treaty. The campaign for the revision of the treaties sprang up in lower spheres and from popular associations and workmen's groups, has surprised and saddened the French spirit (p. 495). In the new developments "était-ce une autre Angleterre, était-ce un autre Lloyd George?" (p. 496). Even in France herself Tardieu recognizes sadly the language has altered: "les gouvernements français, qui se sont succédé au pouvoir depuis le 10 janvier, 1920," that is, after the fall of Clemenceau, accused in turn by Poincaré of being weak and feeble in asserting his demands, "ont compromis les droits que leur prédecesseur avait fait reconnaître à la France" (p. 503).
Taking into consideration Germany's financial downfall, which threatens to upset not only all the indemnity schemes but the entire economy of continental Europe, the state of mind which is prevalent is not much different from that which Tardieu indicates.
It is already more than a year ago since I left the direction of the Italian Government, and the French Press no longer accused me of being in perfect agreement with Lloyd George, yet Poincaré wrote on August 1, 1920:
L'autre jour M. Asquith déclarait au parlement britannique: "Quelque forme de langage qu'on emploie, la conférence de Spa a bien été, en fait, une conférence pour la révision des conditions du traité." "Chut!" a répondu M. Lloyd George: "c'est là une déclaration très grave par l'effet qu'elle peut produire en France. Je ne puis la laisser passer sans la contredire." Contradiction de pure forme, faite pour courtoisie vis-à-vis de nous, mais qui malheureusement ne change rien au fond des choses. Chaque fois que le Conseil Suprême s'est réuni, il a laissé sur la table des delibérations quelques morceaux épars du traité.