E. — GEOGRAPHY. 101 



war about 10,000,000 tons per year were sent from Upper Silesia to 

 other parts of Germany, and there is no reason to suppose that this 

 amount need be greatly reduced, especially in view of Article 90 of the 

 Treaty of Versailles, which provides that ' for a period of fifteen years 

 Poland will permit the produce of the mines of Upper Silesia to be 

 available for sale to purchasers in Germany on terms as favourable 

 as are applicable to hke products sold under similar conditions in Poland 

 or in any other country.' We have further 'to take into account the 

 opportunities for economy in the use of coal, the reduction in the 

 amount which will be required for bunkers, the possibility of renewing 

 imports from abroad — to a very limited extent indeed, but still to some 

 extent — ^and the fact that the French mines are being restored more 

 rapidly than at one time appeared possible. (On the basis of the 

 production of the first four months of 1920 Germany could already 

 reduce her Treaty obligations to France by 1,000,000 tons per year.) 

 Taking all of these facts into account, it is probably correct to say that 

 when Germany can restore the output of the mines left to her to the 

 1913 figure, she will, as regards her coal supply for industrial purposes, 

 be in a position not very far removed from that in which she was in 

 1910, when her total consumption, apart from that at the mines, was 

 about 100,000,000 tons. 



The actual arrangements which have been made, it is true, are in 

 some cases open to objection. The Saar is not geographically part of 

 France, and its inhabitants are German by race, language, and sym- 

 pathy. It is only in the economic necessities of the situation that a 

 defence, though hardly a justification, of the annexation of the coal- 

 field can be found. The coal from it is to be used in the main for the 

 same purposes as before, whereas if it had been left to Germany much 

 of it might have been diverted to other purposes. In 1913 the total 

 production of Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar amounted to about 

 13,000,000 tons, while their consumption was about 14,000,000 tons. 

 There is thus apparently a net gain to France of about 4,000,000 tons, 

 but from that must be deducted the amount which the North-East of 

 France received from this field in pre-war days. Switzerland also will 

 probably in future continue to draw part of its supplies from the Saar. 



The stipulation that Germany should for ten years pay part of her 

 indemnities to France, Belgium, and Italy in kind also indicates an 

 attempt to preserve the pre-war distribution of coal in Europe, though 

 in some respects the scales seem to have been rather unfairly weighted 

 figainst Germany. France, for example, requires a continuance of 

 Westphalian coal for the metallm'gical industries of Lorraine and the 

 Saar, while Germany requires a continuance of Lorraine ore if her iron- 

 works on the Euhr are not to be closed down. There was therefore 

 nothing unreasonable in the German request that she should be secured 

 her supplies of the latter commodity. Indeed, it would have been to 

 the advantage of both countries if a clause similar to Article 90, which 

 I have already quoted, had been inserted in the Treaty. It is true 

 that temporary arrangements have since been made which will ensure 

 to Germany a considerable proportion of her pre-war consumption of 

 minette ores. But some agreement which enabled the two separate 



