The clause is unequivocal and all-embracing.

It is worth while to note in passing that it introduces a quite novel principle in the collection of indemnities.

Hitherto, a sum has been fixed, and the nation mulcted has been left free to devise and select for itself the means of payment.

But in this case the payees can (for a certain period) not only demand a certain sum but specify the particular kind of property in which payment is to be effected.

Thus the powers of the Reparation Commission, with which I deal more particularly in the next chapter, can be employed to destroy Germany's commercial and economic organization as well as to exact payment.
The cumulative effect of (_a_), (_b_), and (_c_) (as well as of certain other minor provisions on which I have not thought it necessary to enlarge) is to deprive Germany (or rather to empower the Allies so to deprive her at their will--it is not yet accomplished) of everything she possesses outside her own frontiers as laid down in the Treaty.