II 
THE ECONOMIC ROOTS OF THE RUHR 
In the world today there are three great coal and iron areas. 
One is in the United States, another in England, and a third 
in France and Germany. In the American and British fields 
political control is unified; in Western Europe it is divided 
between France and Germany. France has the iron ore ; Ger- 
many has the coal deposits. The nation that controls this 
great coal and iron area holds the key to economic supremacy 
in Europe. France, by going into the Ruhr, comes into pos- 
session of great coal fields, and thereby makes possible uni- 
fied political control of the third important steel-producing 
region in the world. She can, in this way, become the strong- 
est industrial power in Europe, and threaten, if not break, the 
supremacy of Britain. 
The importance of coal and iron in the industrial and com- 
mercial life of the world is only of recent origin. A wooden 
hoe, plow, and flail for centuries was the only equipment of 
the tiller of the soil. After the exertions of Tubalcain, the 
only change in mechanical equipment of agriculture for five 
thousand years after Adam was largely a little metal with 
which to tip the implements. The early methods in spinning 
and weaving also prevailed until about the middle of the 
eighteenth century. What historians have called the “Indus- 
trial Revolution’' brought in the modern methods in industrial 
life and organization. This revolution is unquestionably the 
most important single event in modern history. 
Modernity is distinctly an age of machinery. Our factories 
are considered highly efficient when labor-saving devices are 
brought into service at every stage of production. Man’s 
fingers are almost solely used to start, steer, and stop ma- 
chines. Transportation consists no more in carrying a pack 
on the back of a man or animal; it is the moving of goods 
by truck, train, or ships. Our lighting and heating facilities 
bring into play machinery of colossal value. In agricultural 
pursuits labor-saving devices are becoming as prominent as in 
any other industry. Withal in production as well as in the 
distribution of the product, machinery is everywhere domi- 
nant. 
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