FRANCE AND ALSACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20432, 12 June 1928, Page 10

FRANCE AND ALSACE

SEQUEL TO RECENT TRIAL LOXDOX, May 29. A very serious situation has arisen im Alsace, one of the lost French province* reclaimed' from Germany after the war, as a result of the sentencing to a year’s imprisonment and five years’ banishment from Alsace, for party conspiracy against the State, of Alessieurs Recldin, Rosse, Schall, and Fasschauer, four leaders of the Alsatian Autonomist Party. Britain is vitally concerned in the preservation of peace in Alsace, because, in event of a breach of the Locarno Security Treaty, she would be obliged to stake British lives on the security of the French-Alsatian frontier. The Alsatians, who largely are Roman Catholics, are becoming increasingly suspicious at what they term the French misinterpretation of their claims for further control over such matters as local revenues, public works, and utilities, which they had wrung from Germany. The Provincial Diet—Dr Recklin, one of the sentenced men. was president—enjoyed a scheme of local pension and insurance, and a larger control of local expenditure than is exercised by any single department in France. Thus, it was accustomed to think in terms of federation, and to consider that F'rance should think the same; but the question of separation from France or a return to Germany does not arise. The leader of the Alsatian clergy, Abbe Haegy, directed his flock to support any candidate at the general elections whose programme held out hopes of reforms, and that the votes at the second ballot should bo transferred even to Communists. As a result, Alsace is represented by a number of men of integrity, but also by many self-seekers, fomenters of disturbance and exponents of dangerous subversive ideas. Actually, Alsace secured a worse representation, and the Goverfnment may find it more difficult to make concessions. Visitors observe that French culture in Alsace is still superficial. Signs above the shops are in French, but German is spoken over the counters. Furthermore, the region escaped the wave of secularism that largely shaped the modern French outlook. The French press treats the demand for autonomy as a demand for separation and, therefore, as seditions, and the band of revengeful Germany is discerned behind the whole movement. The French Premier, AI. Poincare, however, recently clearly stated the case against autonomy. He said that France is determined never again to allow an inch of Alsace and Lorraine to be retaken or to consent to the creation of an autonomous or neutral State, the existence of which would be precarious and inventive of fresh conflicts. He appealed to Alsatians to cultivate a closer intimacy with the rest of France, and to speak and teach the French language in the schools.