can be neglected towards increased production and economical methods of
transport. The establishment by the Supreme Council of the Allies in
August, 1919, of a European Coal Commission, consisting of delegates
from Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, and Czecho-Slovakia
was a wise measure which, properly employed and extended, may prove of
great assistance. But I reserve constructive proposals for Chapter VII.
Here I am only concerned with tracing the consequences, _per
impossibile_, of carrying out the Treaty _au pied de lettre_.[52]

(2) The provisions relating to iron-ore require less detailed attention,
though their effects are destructive. They require less attention,
because they are in large measure inevitable. Almost exactly 75 per cent
of the iron-ore raised in Germany in 1913 came from Alsace-Lorraine.[53]
In this the chief importance of the stolen provinces lay.

There is no question but that Germany must lose these ore-fields. The
only question is how far she is to be allowed facilities for purchasing
their produce. The German Delegation made strong efforts to secure the
inclusion of a provision by which coal and coke to be furnished by them
to France should be given in exchange for _minette_ from Lorraine. But
they secured no such stipulation, and the matter remains at France's
option.

The motives which will govern France's eventual policy are not entirely
concordant. While Lorraine comprised 75 per cent of Germany's iron-ore,
only 25 per cent of the blast furnaces lay within Lorraine and the Saar
basin together, a large proportion of the ore being carried into Germany
proper. Approximately the same proportion of Germany's iron and steel
foundries, namely 25 per cent, were situated in Alsace-Lorraine. For
the moment, therefore, the most economical and profitable course would