1 66 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [464 



tories from German sovereignty to Belg^ium, Denmark, 

 Poland, and Czecho-Slovakia. No option is provided for 

 in the cessions of Danzig, Memel, and Alsace-Lorraine. In 

 the case of Alsace-Lorraine, Germany agrees to receive into 

 her territory all Germans to whom France shall refuse 

 French nationality and domicile. 



Whatever the merits of this form of option be, the emi- 

 gration stipulated is not, as Stoerk holds, voluntary, but 

 enforced. While as a rule a more or less limited time is 

 allowed for the disposal of immovable property, the element 

 of violence to the human attachment to soil and home, to 

 friends and relatives, remains. Furthermore, it is clear 

 that a very large percentage of those concerned are pre- 

 vented from taking advantage of opting under the given 

 conditions on account of economic and other reasons. The 

 Treaty of Frankfort of 1871 provided for option in favor 

 of France on condition of enforced emigration after two 

 years. Not less than 45,000 persons availed themselves of 

 the privilege ; nevertheless, after forty-five years of German 

 sovereignty, thirteen per cent of the population have pre- 

 served their French language and racial characteristics.'^ 



Option with compulsory emigration may be at the present 

 time the one measure giving the greatest amount of con- 

 sideration to the natural rights of men ; but in case of an 

 enforced cession which has become inevitable, it offers no 

 more of a solution to the ethical issues involved than does 

 the application of the plebiscite in the same instance or in 

 voluntary secession. 



Option without the demand for emigration seems to have 

 been applied so far only in the case of the settlement of the 

 Spanish-American war in the cession by Spain to America 



"1 The Encyclopaedia Britannica, nth ed., Alsace; Meyers Grosses 

 Konvcrsationslexikon, 6th ed., Elssass Lothringen. gives the number 

 of the emigrants as 50,000. Stoerk gives the following figures of 

 the opting: total population 1,517,494; an actual declaration of option 

 was made: before German authorities by 159,740, before French 

 authorities 2,7^,777 (Stoerk, p. 172). For the text of the treaty see 

 Hcrtslct, vol. iii, p. 1956, Art. ii. 



