GERMANY AND EUROPE.

The world is realizing more clearly every day that Germany is the foundation for Europe's economic structure, and that without a busy, peaceful Germany the effectiveness of the efforts toward industrial reconstruction in the other central European nations will be greatly hampered. None of the Allies has the slightest sympathy with the idea of getting Germany back on her feet for her own sake; their feeling in the matter is naturally quite the reverse. But what thinking men everywhere are appreciating more and more forcibly as the weeks go by is that, if it can be done with safety, the best thing for all Europe will be is reestablishment of Germany's economic activity.

For the last four or five months practically all of the writers on European reconstruction, from J. M. Keynes down to the newspaper correspondents, have emphasized two things: first, that German business rehabilitation is indispensable to the prosperity of the bordering nations, and, second, that strong support for a democratic German government by America and the Allied Powers is greatly to be desired.

The five-day upheaval in March has apparently demonstrated that the present German government is committed to a sound, middle ground policy, equally opposed either to Bolshovism or the restoration of the old, monarchical regime. What is still more important is that an overwhelming majority of the German people seem to be behind the government in its stand. As the Allies, in their ten or fifteen years of control, can easily crush any tendency toward militarism or anything else that might menace future peace, it seems exceedingly advisable for the world to assist the present German government's plans for the reestablishment of business activity, not for Germany's sake, but for the sake of all central Europe.