262 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



A clear exposition of the French attitude towards the coal and iron 

 problem by L. DeLaunay 1 has unfortunately never been translated 

 into English. The second part of the book deals with the treaty of 

 peace and post-war conditions. He discusses the coal situation of 

 Europe and calls attention to the fact that the production of Ger- 

 many had increased nearly 20 per cent in the five pre-war years 

 while the production of Great Britain had remained nearly station- 

 ary during the same time. He emphasizes the excellent quality of 

 the coal of Westphalia, which amounts to two-thirds of the actual 

 coal production of Germany (lignite excluded). He notes the low 

 cost of extraction of coal in Germany due to the natural ease in 

 working their coal deposits and to the installation of machine cut- 

 ting in German mines. To this natural richness in coal he ascribes 

 the longing of the Germans to possess not only the iron ore of Ger- 

 man Lorraine but even the share that remained to France in the 

 field of Briey and Longwy. 



He then acknowledges the absolute deficiency of France in coal and 

 calls attention to the fact that her reserves are far surpassed by those 

 of England, Belgium, and Holland. He discounts as impractical the 

 possibility of further important reserves being found beneath the 

 Paris basin and he disposes of France's water power as an inade- 

 quate substitute in addition to the fact that the electrometallurgy of 

 iron is not yet available for any but special purposes. He, therefore, 

 states that France is dependent for necessary coal upon the approach- 

 ing treaty. The production of Belgium is not sufficient to supply the 

 deficit, and importation from England would not be profitable. He 

 will not allow that France should be relegated, for lack of sufficient 

 raw materials, to the position of a manufacturer of only highly re- 

 fined and specialized finished products, justly contending that she has 

 shown in the past war that she is far from being in the position of a 

 dying nation that must be sustained by unnatural and selected 

 industries. He claims on the contrary that she is entitled in return 

 for her noble efforts to sustain herself against invasion to have a cer- 

 tain reparation for the injuries that have been dealt to her by nature 

 in her scant endowment of mineral wealth. 



He demands therefore the restitution to France of Alsace-Lor- 

 raine with her annual output of 21,000,000 metric tons of iron ore, to- 

 gether with the Saare basin and its annual output of 17,500,000 metric 

 tons of coal and complete freedom to utilize the ore so acquired. 



He then proceeds to examine what would be the situation if France 

 in order to paralyze the iron and steel industries of Germany should 

 refuse to export her iron ore to the Germans. The pre-war produc- 

 tion of iron ore in French Lorraine was 19,500,000 metric tons, and 

 her exports 8,000,000 tons. By adding to this the 21,000,000 tons of 



1 DeLaunay, L., " France-Allemagne," Librairie Armand Colin, Taris, 1017. 



