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^lume 111 For the Week Ending February 17, 1923 Number 7 
The March of Events in the Ruhr 
The Eyes of Europe and America are Anxiously Fixed on This Little Valley 
W HAT is the Ruhr? It is simply 
the valley of a small tributary 
river of the Rhine. This valley 
contains about three-fourths of 
the producing coal mines of Germany and a 
vast proportion of the German iron and steel 
mines. The Ruhr is, in fact, the 
heart of what might be called the 
German factory, for Germany in 
the last forty or fifty years has 
developed into a highly organized 
and industrialized state, of which 
the natural resources of the Ruhr 
and its vast manufactures form 
the central and most vital_ part. 
What has France done in the 
Ruhr? Nominally, she simply 
took over the mines and railways 
with her engineers, adding only 
a sufficient military force to pro¬ 
tect the engineers. Our State De¬ 
partment recently expressed sur¬ 
prise when anything else hap¬ 
pened. They must have known, 
as the rest of the world knew, 
that this talk of occupation 
merely as an engineering enterprise wa^ 
absurd, and that it would inevitably develop 
into a military enterprise, as it now has. In¬ 
stead of the 25,000 troops which France first 
had there, 100,000 are now involved in an 
invasion and a military occupation of the 
very center of Germany’s in¬ 
dustrial life. 
The question of the Ruhr ^ is 
important not only from the point 
of view of the Ruhr itself and 
what it involves, but also be¬ 
cause France’s actions there may 
mean very serious things for Ger¬ 
many, for France itself and in¬ 
directly for all of us. It also illus¬ 
trates what I feel is the dominant 
situation in Europe to-^day—a 
situation which might be con¬ 
trasted with that which followed 
the signing of the Armistice in 
1918. 
You will remember the enor¬ 
mous thrill of relief when slaugh¬ 
ter seemed ended and we all felt 
that at last we had peace, an 
opportunity for reconciliation 
and a chance to start the work 
of rehabilitation. This was more 
than four years ago. To-day 
there is less peace in Europe than 
in 1918, more bitterness, hatred, 
suspicion and jealousy. Many 
portions of Europe economically 
are worse off than at the end of 
the war. These are the dominant 
characteristics of the foreign 
situation. 
The Ruhr invasion has not sur¬ 
prised anyone who has been fol¬ 
lowing the march of events. It 
is, however, significant in bring¬ 
ing to the attention of those who 
have not, that Europe is, in the 
By j. G. McDonald 
judgment of most observers, facing a situa¬ 
tion in many respects as critical as that 
of July, 1914. 
There are two sorts of reasons why 
France went into the Ruhr — the nominal 
reasons and the real reasons. Before tak¬ 
ing up the latter, two or three basic con¬ 
siderations must be understood if we are 
to be fair to France and the French psy¬ 
chology of to-day. 
1 
There are four facts which Frenchmen 
never forget and which both British and 
Americans are inclined to forget: 
First, there is the simple fact that 
France is less than 40,000,000 while Ger¬ 
many is 60,000,000. Ten years from now, 
France will be 40,000,000 or less 
and Germany will be approach¬ 
ing 70,000,000. Twenty years 
from now, France will be 40,000,- 
000 or less, and Germany more 
than 70 or 80,000,000. 
Second, Frenchmen remember 
that, in order to dissuade them 
from following the advice of their 
militarists and taking over the 
Rhine as an armed frontier, they 
w.ere promised two things by 
Great Britain and two by the 
United States. The first was the 
participation of both allies in the 
League of Nations. Britain is in 
and we are out. France was 
promised, moreover, a triple alli¬ 
ance or guarantee against Ger 
man aggression consisting of the 
United States, Great Britain and France. 
We refused to ratify and Britain, taking ad¬ 
vantage of our stand, refused also. To the 
Frenchman therefore, he has been twice de¬ 
serted by us and once by Britain^ 
Third, France has never been paid for her 
devasted regions. Perhaps one- 
half of these have been rebuilt 
at enormous cost, without any¬ 
thing being received from Ger¬ 
many towards the expenditure. 
This does not mean that Germany 
has not paid anything. She has 
paid the Allies, in gold and goods, 
conservatively, from five to six 
billions of dollars. How does it 
happen that France received no 
reparations from this? All the 
cast of these payments which was 
available for reparations in de¬ 
vastated regions went to pay bill 
collectors, fexcept for a very 
small amount to Belgium, the 
money has been used to pay the 
French, British and Italian 
armies in Germany. 
Fourth, unpaid France sees 
herself faced by two former al¬ 
lies, changed into persistent and 
nagging creditors. Britain, more 
willing to forgive her debt than 
we, still does not agree to do it 
unqualifiedly, while the United 
States refuses to diminish the 
debt at all. 
Summing up, France sees her¬ 
self enormously outnumbered by 
Germany, unsecured except by the 
League of which we are not a 
part, without the promised triple 
alliance, unpaid for her devastated 
regions, and unforgiven by her 
creditors. Is it surprising that 
{Continued on page 140) 
From the New York “Evening Post.” 
WHERE FRANCE WILL COLLECT FROM GERMANY 
The Ruhr Valley where French troops, in the words of Premier Poin¬ 
care, have gone “to force respect for France and the Versailles Treaty.” 
This region, which has been called the “solar plexus of industrial Ger¬ 
many,” “the richest jewel in the Prussian crown,” is full of coal-min^s, 
steel-mills and textile factories. The diagonal shading indicates Ger¬ 
man territory held under the peace treaty; the spotted region, the 
Ruhr basin. The Krupp works are at Essen; the headquarters of the 
Stinnes organization are at Muelheim, between Essen and Duisburg.— 
{Courtesy of Literary Digest) 
“A Consensus of Various Opinions” 
“ T SHALL try to give you,” said Mr. James G. McDonald, to an audi- 
i ence recently, “not so much a personal judgment, as a consensus 
of various opinions. What it lacks in definiteness and dogmatism may 
be made up, I hope by fairness and tolerance.” 
It was the notable fairness and tolerance of the address which es¬ 
pecially appealed to the editor and led him to ask Mr. McDonald for 
the stenographic report. As chairman of the Executive Committee 
of the Foreign Policy Associatiop, which seeks to broadcast accurate 
and impartial information of world conditions and thus to help shape 
an intelligent and consistent attitude in our relations with other 
countries, Mr. McDonald has had unusual opportunity to examine 
American policy—or lack of policy—in the light of international 
events. 
