The French Grip on the Heart of Germany.

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 171, 7 April 1923, Page 13

The French Grip on the Heart of Germany.

Wonderful Wealth of the Ruhr Basin. (From the “ Literary Digest.”) Gripping the industrial heart of Germany is how France’s occupation of the Ruhr Valley is described in recent despatches from abroad. _ But when we hear of the French dragoons clattering at dawn into this hive j>f industry, it is hard to picture just what it all means. “What is the Ruhr ?” we ask, remembering vaguely constant mention of its importance in the papers, but having no clear idea of its extent or resources.

THE RUHR” mentioned in the papers is the valley of the Ruhr River, and about fifteen miles north and south of it, extending eastward from, where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine (about fourteen miles north of Dusseldorf) past Dortmund to Hamm, a distance of 50 miles. It is roughly an oblong basin of coal-beds, 50 miles wide at the Rhine, narrowing to about fifteen beyond Dortmund, and. fifty miles long. In this respect it is not unlike similar basins in the United States, except that the coal is more concentrated and the steel industry almost as much concentrated on top of it. Here are some anesting figures. Approximate area 1,234 square miles Approximate population ■ 4,UOU,UVU Labouring population Coal miners 500,00 U i Coal production in 1913 113,000,000 tons Visible black coal reserve 54,000,000,000 tons Visible brown coal reserve (lignite) ... » 4,000,000,000 tons Estimated unmined coal 220,000,(XX),000 tons Pig-iron production in 1913 5,000,000 tons Steel production in 1918 10,000,000 tons Stock companies operating 887 Invested capital ... •••• £225,000,000 Other industries —textile mills, iron and steel implements, machinery factories, linen mills, salt works, and coke ovens. In a statement made in the French Senate last November, Senator Lucien Hubert said: — “The Ruhr is in reality a sort of focus of human activity. It is something infinitely intricate and infinitely formidable. The developed portion of the Ruhr does not exceed in size more than 3200 square kilometers, that is to say, about half of one of our Departments. In this half Department there are ten cities or groups which exceed each 200,000 inhabitants. Four or five exceed 500,000. This half Department has 4,000,000 inhabitants te feed every morning. As far as Duisburg and Ruhrort are concerned, this one port represents in itself the traffic of all the French ports .taken together. “This half Department requires each day 21,000 ten-ton freight cars, while the Eat Railroad system altogether does not require more than 10,000. 'This half Department, has shipped during the year 1921, 160,000 tons of freight a day, while the whole company of the Est does not carry more than half of that.' In 1916 the monthly production of coke from the Ruhr equalled the annual production of all France.” That is a Frenchman’s view. What does the German say!’ In the New York “Times” of January 11, the German coal expert Shults is quoted as saying that:— “The region has a visible reserve of 54,000.000.000 tons, of which 11.000.000.000 may be mined down te 700 meters, 18.300,000.000 between 700 and 1000 meters, and 25.000,000.000 tons between 1000 and 1500 meters. Besides this vast store of black coal, according to the same expert, the Ruhr has a visible reserve of 4,000,000,000 tons of lignite or brown coal.” '■’To sum up the resources of this amazing ant-hill of industrialism, it is pointed out that: — "In coal, steel and iron it is one. of the richest regions nf file world ; in the production of steel nnd iron machinery nnd implements ft stands first in Germany; in the production of salt and textiles it has few rivals in the Reich.

Before the war its coal-fields, working only 40 per cent, of their Capacity, produced 90,000,000 tens a year, only second in the world to the Pennsylvania fields, and in corresponding ratio 5.000,000 tons of pig-iron were produced, which was 40 per cent, of Germany 1 s entire output and 10 per cent, oi tne world’s.’” The development of the region has been almost like magic. Ln 1850, the Krupps at Essen (then a town of 10,000) began tne manufacture of cannon. Just before the war, the Krupps alone employed more than 40,000 men there and as many more elsewhere. During the intense production induced by the war its pay-roll frequently reached a million men. The population of Essen is now more than half a million. “The same rapid development characterises Dortmund with its population of 300,000 and its 899 foundries; of Hagen, with its iron and textile mills; of Hamm, with its output of iron and steel implements; of Bielefeld with its machinery factories and linen mills; of Unna, with its salt works; and of half a dozen other towns of less productive importance. During this development the population of the district as a whole shot up from 800 to the square mile to 1800 to the square mile —the thickest population in all Europe to-day. In the financial crisis which swept over Western Europe in the 80’s three other magnates had secured a practical monopoly over the remaining coal and iron in the region. They were Thyssen, Haniel and Kirdoff. From the New York “Tinies” of January 17, we take this bit of history. The writer goes on to say: — “These were brought into contact with the man who already controlled the railways of the region, Hugo Stinnes. He established his headquarters at Bochum, and under his direction the various companies and corporations were grouped into thirteen consortiums of industry and mining and one financial consortium, under which the banks of the region were united.” The executives, producea-s and owners are organised as follows: — “The Cartel is the syndicate, the grouping of all of the products produced in a similar way by the same method of manufacture, a system which they call in Germany horizontal organisation. The ‘Konzern’ is the vertical organisation, that is to say, everything that has to do with the product from the first raw material up to the finished or half-finished product. That is to say, from coal to steel.” The situation is summed up by “The Times” as follows: — “There are 887 stock companies with an invested capital equal to nearly £225 000,000 in the Ruhr. These companies have all been absorbed by thirteeai great consortiums, while one new consortium directs their financial interests. At the head of the thirteen are the following industrial magnates or companies; Hugo Stinnes, Krupp, Haniel, Kloeckner, the Lotheringen, Hoeseh, Mannesmann, Mansfield, the Phoenix, Roechling, Stumm, Thyssen and the Rheinische Stahlwerbe. “These factories and mines have employed 1,000,000 men, 15,000 foremen, and 5000. engineers. The great coal-fields which; for obvious reasons; have recently onlv bedn operated scarcely up.to 80, per cent, of their pre-war normal, of 90,000.000 tons per annum, are'said to bo capable of producing 100,000,000 tons per annum for a period of 764 years, above a depth of 5000 feet. In 1918—when the last trustworthy German figures were published—lo,000,000 tons of steel were then turned out, which is rather more than. 68 per cent, of the entire German production, In addition, the foundries of the region produced 40,000,000 tons of crude or half-worked iron.”