Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1923 THE SECRET OF RUHR. Economic occupation of Germany

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16074, 10 March 1923, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1923 THE SECRET OF RUHR. Economic occupation of Germany

constantly becoming more military and political and less economic. It now cm braces the whole of the Rhineland. 'Hit Germans are at the. latest extension of occupation and speak of it -plainly as an •invasion tjiat ljas bee systematically planned, not through fear of German attack, hut to add l< French territory, to secure control o Lorraine ore and Ruhr coal, and'there by to reduce Germany to a powerless vassal. French people, whilst denying the truth of this imputation, are willinf for the nonce to take the German vie\ qjf it. It is satisfactory to them tlm' Germany lias now the same experience which she has twice imposed on France It is comforting to he able to say t< Germany, as Germany said to Fraud fifty years ago, that the soldiers wi] be withdrawn when the indemnity i paid. It is..true that France is nut 11 the Rhineland and the Ruhr valley: merely for the purpose of collecting re pnrations. She is there, says .an: Amrvi can writer, for the purpose of undoing the injustice she conceives herself t< have .suffered ever since Mr. Wilson and -Mr. Lloyd George offered her ; defensive alliance for the purpose of i.-. during lier to 1 forego her claim to the left bank of. the - Rhine as a strategy frontier.. The Senate of j the United States knocked the oiler unceremonious!,) On'-the head. • It is quite .'true, as both ifr. Lloyd George and -Mr. Wilson pointed *-out, France would have had a Rheinish Alsace-Lorraine "on her hands had she been given l the left, bank, flu France-does not-see it. this way. Twice said' Mi. Clemenceau the other day. ■ have living Frenchmen seen Germsi ‘battalions cross-the - Rhino and desceiiu upon 'Paris,- and it must not be si again. What France is in the Rliui if or to-day, isio discover how this is ti •sbo ! accomplished. Unfortunately tin “ho'w” does not at present seem very japjJarent/ but tliis does not in any wav disturb-' France’s purpose, which is # ti find a way out of the Versailles Treaty with which 'sho is convinced she \v:u lasso tied, and to prevent Germany’: economic recovery at the same time That recovery is no doubt the grea' aim of all Germany, and it is one o the mysteries of world economics tlm: whilst the mark sinks lower and lower and whilst the condition of the German operatives may he miserable, tram) steamers crowd the Hamburg docks, the wheels of Germany whirl jind it: furnaces roar. Given a. stable exchange, the commercial Germany which wm peacefully conquering the nations : 1914, is ready to leap again into life. Franco feels this in her hones am l shivers. By occupying the Ruhr sinputs her hand on the driving wheel o! German industrialism. As for reparations. it would ho a. disappointment i' these Were forthcoming. The indefiniti exploitation of the Ruhr coal and iron fields, in conjunction with the iron o Lorraine and the coal of Sarro, of Briey. and of Longwy, this would make France the dominating industrial forco in Europe and reduce Germany to im potency. It was the Westphalian co:fi magnates, unable to get. full value from their coke ovens, who combined with German general staff in demanding Lor raine in 1871. The one wanted- iron, the other a strategic frontier. Now. under the, cloak of reparations, the directors of French industrialism reverse the

process. It is tit lor tat. Decidedly Paris lias bettered by the instruction of Berlin. And it is difficult to blame her. Just for the moment the ghost of Germany in 1870, 11 io Germany of Bismarck, Moltke, and Boon is laid, but the Germany of Ballin, Gtvinnes, and Rathenau is intensely alive in the persons of such industrialists as PUinnes and Thyssen. This is the Germany which France has gone into Ruhr to strangle. if there is anything to he got in the' way of reparations, in the process, well and good. But it is quite understood at the Quai d’O'rsay that reparations are the excuse, not the reason. Behind the determination to crip pie Germany industrially, is the figure of Marshal Foch with his inexorable demand for the left hank. The Rhine, he insisted at the Paris Conference, “lithe indispensable frontier of the nationof western Europe, ot. par la, de 1; civilisation.” The zones of occupation represent- the compromise engineered by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Llovd George, but inasmuch as these zones may lu occupied until the treaty is faithfully executed, and that the treaty is now admitted to be incapable of execution, ihe marshal has not only very nearly got his own way, but actually has sad died the cost of the occupation on Germany. Even then he is not content, ihe Rhine frontier is the dream oi the French soldier. And so he too waits Tor the excuse to turn up. All Tiis would be excellent statecraft, tilt American writer observes, if political incidents bore no relation to one an other, instead of being inextricably oound together, If, for instance, the economic strangulation of Germany mattered to no one but Germany, the French would have, a simple job before l(iem. But the first nation to be touched in the ratio of .success will be France herself. When the mark fell jit (lie announcement of the decision tc 'enter the Ruhr, it was not the dollar, or the lira, or the pound which showed sympathy for it, it was the franc. li is a trilling indication but a sure one, and to use an Americanism, it pointer to the fact that- France had bitten oh more than she could chew. The manu .acturers of Great Britain, the exporters of America, the financiers of all land, know what is at stake. The economic strangulation of Germany means the economic disruption of Europe, and is this that France has decreed. Tire policy of M. Poincare and Marshal Foci, was conceived in an effort to make per manent the occupation of the left bank as a strategic barrier to German militarism. As the months have gone by, it has become evident that there is a greater danger than German militarism, and that is German commerce. To-day Stinnes rather than Hindenburg is the enemy. This is the clue to the political labyrinth in the Ruhr. It is clear that the present situation cannot go on indefinitely. France found it easy to march in. She does not expect to stay. Permanent or even prolonged domination by France over four or live million Germaris, in addition: to a larger number dwelling in lands occupied by the Allies is impossible. The Allied occupation of the left bank of the Rhine is quite an'dther thing, fit is merely the presence of soldiers in a dew cities. There is no interference in tlie political, social, industrial or" commercial life o the country. In the Ruhr the French dominate everything. The Germans feel themselves- to be in actual subjection- if they obey the French orders as they are now given, and the Germans are stubbornly resisting. 'Who can hold out Jongest remains to be seen. It is obvious that the situation must come to ■a crisis before long. The Governments of, France and Germany are making policies from day to day. They must soon seek some way out., And it must be some way other than war.