THE QUESTION OF ALSACELORRAINE.

Free Lance, Volume XVII, Issue 914, 18 January 1918, Page 8

THE QUESTION OF ALSACELORRAINE.

Why France Objects to a Plebiscite. N paper the argument that AlsaceLorraine slioitld decide by &. plebiscite whether it should be German or French seems- fair enough,, and manypeople may have wondered why M. Pichon, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, should have declared the other day that- "France wants the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine without a plebiscite." The truth is thatever since 1870 the two provinces havebeen undergoing a process of Germanisation which has led to a wholesale emigration of the people to Franc©. Germany now claims the provinces on a language test, but, as a Fi-ench writer, Leon Dominiaa, has pointed: out in a book, entitled "The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe," the "natural" language conditions were themselves rendered artificial by the means resorted to by theunscrupulous political masters. * * « ■» In 1871 there were 1,517,000 inhabitants in Alsace-Lorraine. By 1875 thenumber had decreased by nearly 100,000. In 1875 the proportion of nativeborn inhabitants amounted to 93 percent. of the total population. In 1905 it did not exceed 81, and by 1914 theproportion would be still further decreased. Meanwhile the Huns kept flocking in, the strictly German element having grown from 38,000 in 1875 to 176,000 in 1905, and fulily 90per cent, of these were native-born Prussians. A plebiscite in Alsace-Lor-raine, which did not take into consideration the huge number of peoplewho' left the provinces to escape from Hun tyranny and which would undoubtedly be engineered by Huns with every possible means to secure a proGerman vote, would be a perfect farce, and France very naturally will havenone of it. The robbers of 1871 must be made to disgorge their spoil unconditionally 7.