100 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



able. The cotton industry of Alsace may pei-haps attach itself to that 

 of France without great difficulty ; but the agricultural produce of the 

 Ehine plain will as before be likely to find its best and most convenient 

 market in the industrial regions of Germany. 



With regard to Lorraine the position is somewhat different. Physi- 

 cally that region belongs in the main to the country of the Paris basin, 

 and is therefore in a sense part of France. Strategically it commands 

 the routes which enter France from Germany between Belgium and 

 the Vosges, and from that point of view its possession is of the utmost 

 importance to her. Of the native population about one-third speak 

 French, and the German element is mainly concentrated in the more 

 densely populated districts of the north-east. But although in these 

 various aspects Lorraine may be regarded as belonging to France in a 

 sense in which Alsace does not, the real argument for the restoration 

 of the ceded provinces is in both cases the same. Lorraine, no less 

 than Alsace, is French in its civilisation and in its sympathies. 



From the economic point of view, however, the gi'eat deposits of 

 iron ore in Lorraine constitute its chief attraction for France to-day, 

 just as they appear to have constituted its chief attraction for Germany 

 half a century ago. But the transfer of the province from Germany, 

 which has built up a great industry on the exploitation of its mines, 

 to France, which does not possess in sufficient abundance coal for 

 smelting purposes, together with other arrangements of a territorial or 

 quasi-territorial nature made partly at least in consequence of this 

 transfer, at once raises questions as to the extent to which the economic 

 stability of Germany is threatened. The position of that country with 

 regard to the manufacture of iron and steel will be greatly affected, for 

 not only does she lose, in Lorraine and the Saar, regions in which these 

 manufactures were highly developed, but she loses in them the sources 

 from which other manufacturing regions' still left to her, notably the 

 Ruhr, drew considerable quantities either of raw materials or of semi- 

 manufactured goods. For example, in 1913 the Ruhr, which produced 

 over 40 per cent, of the pig iron of the German Empire, obtained 15 per 

 cent, of its iron ore from Lorraine, and it also obtained from there 

 and fi'om the Saar a large amount of pig iron for the manufacture of 

 steel. Unless, therefore, arrangements can be made for a continued 

 supply of these materials a number of its industrial establishments will 

 have to be closed down. 



In regard to coal, the position is also serious. We need not, perhaps, 

 be unduly impressed by the somewhat alarmist attitude of Mr. Keynes, 

 who estimates that on the basis of the 1913 figures Germany, as she 

 is now constituted, will require for the pre-war efficiency of her rail- 

 ways and industries an annual output of 110,000,000 tons, and that 

 instead she will have in future only 100,000,000 tons, of which 

 40,000,000 will be mortgaged to the Allies. In arriving at these figures 

 Mr. Keynes has made an allowance of 18,000,000 tons for decreased 

 production, one-half of which is caused by the Gei'man miner having 

 shortened his shift from eight and a half tO' seven hours per day. 

 This is certainly a deduction which we need not take into account. 

 Mr. Keynes also leaves out of his calculation the fact that pre\"ioi,is to the 



