Reparation

“ I succeeded in repairing the damage in a fashion which, to the eye of a casual observer, would have looked all that could be desired, but I saw perfectly well that the reparation would not hold out long against the strain which would necessarily be upon it whenever I had occasion either to walk or sit down. It was certain that I could not always remain standing during the entire length of my reign. Human misery mounts in some degree to the summit of the highest of human dignities. ”

“ Her loss is too recent to admit of any thought of reparation; and yet what man does not think of that time of reparation? and if she be more than usually charming in person and well dowered in purse, what man does not think of himself as the best repairer she could take? ”

“ One of the chief punishments of you men of ill-gotten wealth is that when you do repent you find that you have lost the power to make reparation or restitution. I admire your good intentions, Dan, but you can’t do anything. Those people were robbed of their precious pennies. It’s too late to remedy the evil. ”

“ Reformation takes a retrospective glance and begins in restitution and reparation for all previous wrongs and unfaithfulness. It is one of the worst evils of our day that even disciples are so ready to bury the financial and moral debts of their past life in the grave of a too-easy oblivion. ”

“ America will consult hers also. Do disputes in which the national honor is involved admit of consultations of this sort? Are lawyers or judges ever asked whether the country is insulted or attacked when it really is so?
Let England assure herself that the first condition of the demand for reparation is, that she shall make the reparation possible. Time is needed. Patience is needed—patience which will not pause before the first difficulty, and take as final the first refusal. ”

“ The end in view should be adequate material payments. If, however, reparation is to be used as an instrument of punishment and diverted from economic to political ends, general confusion is bound to result. ”

“ The people had much to endure during these forty years, and it was a noble idea to make reparation freely and with elaborate care. No prince had been known, of his own accord and at his own cost, to redress the wrongs inflicted on the people during the reigns of his father and grandfather. ”

“ The American people would more easily tolerate a spontaneous offer of reparation made by its government from a sense of justice than a compliance with a demand for satisfaction from a foreign minister. ”

“ But what injury had the infant done, when it came into the world, to the master of its mother, that reparation should be sought for, or punishment inflicted for example, and that this reparation and this punishment should be made to consist of a course of action and suffering, against which, more than against any other, human nature would revolt? ”

“ When I put my name to the production, which has occasioned this correspondence, I became responsible to all whom it might concern,—to explain where it requires explanation, and, where insufficiently, or too sufficiently explicit, at all events to satisfy. My situation leaves me no choice; it rests with the injured and the angry to obtain reparation in their own way. ”

“ There is no security for the permanence of public effort, save in the clear conviction of its intrinsic rightfulness and conduciveness to the public good. The rest must be left to time and posterity. True, the debt is sometimes paid after the creditor is dead. But if reparation never comes to the living, unknown persons whose condition needs betterment receive it, and that is the proud and consoling thought of those who—unrequited—effected it. ”

“ As individuals, Englishmen have already returned to Him. But a corporate crime must be expiated by corporate reparation, and it is that reparation which has already waited too long. I am an old man, gentlemen. ”

“ Alas, reparation is no longer possible for most of the moral and spiritual failures, and in any case the kind of man we have become is a much more important matter than the mistakes which may come back to us on the selective wings of memory. ”

“ There was satisfaction in their countenances, and in that of Guy, at least, a certain triumphant disdain which could only be partly explained by the victory which he had won over me through my fears. I awaited the proving of the will with anxiety. If there were no seeming reparation made in it, I should certainly doubt its being the expression of Mr. Pollard's wishes.
What was my surprise, then, when the will having been proved, I obtained permission to read it and found that it not only contained mention of reparation, but that this reparation was to be made to Margaret his wife. ”

“ Now, only reflect for a moment on the absurdity of such a plea, and think how many persons there are whose quiet and unobtrusive lives are unnoticed beyond the precincts of their own door—nay, how many estimable and excellent people who live less for the world than for themselves, and although, probably for this very reason, but little exposed to the casualty in question, would yet deem the injustice great that placed them beyond the pale of reparation because they had been homely and domestic. ”

“ When a person offends the sentiment of a community, or inflicts injury upon a neighbor, the matter is talked over among those interested, and reparation may be demanded in the shape of payment, not in money, for they have none, or anything that represents it, but in goods, such as a knife, a sled, a dog, gun, fish-hooks, walrus line, or, indeed, anything that comes handy. ”

“ Otherwise we should have to suppose that in his heart of hearts the benefactor aims at making a good bargain. It should be noticed that reparation made for harm done may also be regarded as a duty arising directly through an action. ”

“ It has been shown on a previous page [23] that equity might enforce specific reparation of torts which consist in mis-feasance in many cases in which it has hitherto declined to do so, and that it ought to do so whenever a specific reparation is necessary for the purposes of justice. ”

“ Ah! if the reparations discourage you at present, what shall it one day be, when, your crimes multiplied to infinity, almost no punishment whatever shall be capable of expiating them? They shall then plunge you into despair; and you will adopt the miserable part of casting off all yoke, and of no longer reckoning upon your salvation; you will raise up to yourself new maxims and modes of reasoning, in order to tranquillise your mind in freethinking; you will consider as needless a penitence which will then appear to you impossible. ”

“ The world, no doubt, according to ancient precedent, would rather pay its tribute of admiration, if we should not rather say its debt of homage, after death. But it is fortunately in the power of the present age to point to a modern example of tardy but full reparation made to a living man, a great improvement upon the old rule, the mockery of a national funeral, and Westminster Abbey. ”

“ In the ideas of a semi-barbarous people, the man who attempts to take the property or life of any one, is deemed to have committed merely a private offence, reparation for which ought to be demanded, not by the public, but by the injured party or his family. ”

“ All are bound to reparation who in any way are accounted to be the actual efficient causes of the injury wrought, or who, being obliged by contract, express or implied, to prevent it, have not done so. There are circumstances in which fellowship in the working of damage to another makes the accomplice liable to restitution in solidum ”

“ The reparations movement has thus moved towards the notion that reparations should be directed towards certain groups of people, rather than specific individuals. "Pro-reparation positions more readily see harm to entire groups and want to repair that economic and psychological harm." ”

“ Justice required that reparation should be made for so many and such gross wrongs, and that a course of insolence and plunder, tending directly to the insecurity of the lives of numerous travelers and of the rich treasure belonging to our citizens passing over this transit way, should be peremptorily arrested. ”

“ Come and work for me as you work for other people; forget that I did you a service which my purse never so much as discovered, and thus force me to be your debtor, since you will accept, in satisfaction of an irreparable outrage, the most paltry of reparations—money. ”

“ Even after this is done, reparation will be incomplete. Restitution of the profits will not make up, without more, for the inadequacy of the overvalued land to return to the lienors their principal and interest. ”

“ Your disguise would carry you through Canadian territory, and once in the United States you would be free to go among good men and earn your bread. It is true that you never can make thorough reparation for all the crimes to which you have been an accessory, or all the misery that you have helped to create. ”

“ All resort to law would be avoided either in counsel or practice, unless absolutely necessary. But where manifest injustice and wrong are perpetrated, and every other method of obtaining reparation fails, we shall avail ourselves of the assistance the Law affords. ”

“ If in this respect it can be shown that I have mistaken the actual position, I will make such reparation as may be due from a man of letters, whose reasonable indignation in the midst of much imposture will, in such case, have misled him. ”

“ A debtor on whose restored health and nerve payment entirely depends has been violently pushed down several flights of stairs. It will take him a long time to recover from the bruises, the shake, and the loss of blood. What an achievement in scientific debt collecting! If reparations are ever to be paid the Allies must retrace their steps and get back to conference. ”

“ If I demand reparation from another for wrong or insults suffered from his servants, and he promises to punish them by dismissal from his service but afterwards relents and detains them, I consider it due to myself and my character to insist upon the fulfilment of his promise ”

“ Perhaps she may even now save herself and clear the moral atmosphere of the world by doing this. But time passes and the signs are against it. There can be no real peace in the world until voluntary reparation has been made. Forced reparation can only make things worse, for it cannot satisfy us, and it must embitter [29] them. I long for real peace, and should love to see our Spiritualist bodies lead the van. ”

“ Any number of things must be done, requiring continuous and hard work, "as, namely, the reparation of the falling Church and so of the Store-house, a stable for our horses, a munition house, a Powder house, a new well for the amending of the most unwholesome water which the old afforded. ”

“ If, however, we limit the requirement of Reparation, under the head of strict Justice, to cases in which the mischief repaired is due to acts or omissions in some degree culpable, a difficulty arises from the divergence between the moral view of culpability, and that which social security requires. ”

“ And from what has been said above upon the loss sustained from injury, it may be understood who are the persons, that come under this description. For the partnership in loss, and the partnership in guilt are regulated by nearly the same principles. Yet the obligation to repair a loss does not always imply guilt, except where there has been any notorious malice, in which case every damage renders the party, who has occasioned it, liable to make reparation. ”

“ Satisfaction might involve taking the offender’s life or the payment of a fine to compensate for loss through theft or killing. If satisfactory reparations were not made the offended party usually tried to forcibly take the equivalent in lives or goods to what had been lost. ”

“ When you come to consider that issue you must view the claim for reparations as you would any ordinary debt. You must make up your mind whether you wish to ruin the debtor or to recover the cash. If there are no sufficient realisable assets, [Pg 142] then, if you want your money, you must keep your debtor alive. If you want beef from your cow you must forgo the milk. If your object is to destroy your debtor, you press for payment of more than he can be reasonably expected to pay, and then seize his house, his lands, and his chattels, whether they can be disposed of or not. ”

“ There is a new note of confidence ringing through French despatches and echoed in the French Press. France must get what she wants; Britain must take what she is given. The French share of reparations must first be assured—debts due to Britain can come out of what is left. ”

“ Our inability to make a bigger contribution does not derive from any lack of will but from a lack of means. To augment the limited government resources available for these projects, we have recommended to Congress the amendment of the Reparations Law in order to allow greater utilization of reparations goods, services and funds for public works development. ”

“ That the proceeds from the sales of capital goods from reparations should constitute a perpetual source of funds for investment in our economic development. To this end, the establishment of an Economic Development Bank capitalized with these proceeds is indicated. This is perhaps the only way to bring our people not only of this generation but of those yet to be born the benefits of reparations. ”

“ The annual schedule of payments and allocations to the public and private sector is with a view of utilizing reparations payments in such a manner as shall assure the maximum benefits in an equitable and widespread a manner as possible. We set aside P5 million o develop the potential cottage and home industries and thereby provide more employment opportunities for the masses. This policy will be implemented annually as long as necessary. ”