GERMANY SHOWS HER HAND

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 17, 15 October 1917, Page 4

GERMANY SHOWS HER HAND

The explicit declaration of the German Foreign Minister that Germany cannot mako concessions in any form, regarding Alsace-Lor-raine is up-to-dato evidence to the world that the Allies ivill not gain such a, peace as they desire until Prussian militarism has been destroyed. For reasonß that will appear, it is perhaps better' that the German Government should tako this stand than, that they should persevere in the policy well described by Mr. Asquith when ha said a day or two ago: "The world will never find the way to peil« through a morass of equivocatioi and ambiguities. Plain question have been asked, but studiousl; avoided. . . ." fo

once from this policy, Heek Kuhlmann has betrayed tho utter insincerity of tho peace intrigues in which Germany has engaged for a long fcimo past, and of late. with increased assiduity. Tho ease of Alsace-Lorraine as it hears on tho question of peace has representative value. This is true not merely because France, supported by her Allies, makes an unqualified demand for tho restoration of tho provinces reft from her in 1871, but also because the refusal to restore Alsace-Lorraine is a definite refusal to recognise or admit the principles of nationality which tho Allies, including America, arc pledged to uphold and enforce. When Herr Kuhlmann talks of Alsace-Lorraine as territory handed down to Germans "as a glorious heritage from our forofathers," he id indulging in idle rhetoric. An appeal ,to historical evidence to determine tho rightI' ful ownership of tho disputed provinces would open up endless controversy, But it is amply sufficient for practical purposes that tho war of 1870 found them an integral part of France and that they were torn by violence, and in spite, of a solemn by their inhabitants, from the country with which they were wholly united in sympathy as well as by political arrangement. As the Pans correspondent of an English newspaper pointed out recently, among the numerous protests mado by tho members for Alsace-Lorraine in the Bordeaux Assembly of 1871 the most striking was tne unanimous declaration of .February 1871, the laßt paragraph of which distinctly concerns the future: We proclaim, by tho presont declaration, that the right of the Alsatians and tho Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation will be for ever inviolable, and wo swear, on behalf of our constituents, of our children and their offspring, as well an of ourselves, that we will vindicate it eternally, by all means and against all usurpers. Three years after the war the people of Alsace-Lorraine were permitted to elect fifteen members to the German Reichstag. _ Tho first thing these members did was to onter a unanimous protest, which was read before the House on February . 18, 1874, by Edouard Teutsch, member for Saverno: Citizens who have a soul and a brain aro not a saleable .goods on which you may tpde. ... In electing us all, our constituents desired before all to assert their sympathy for their French mothercountry as well as their Tight to dispose of themselves. •

"It is upon the protest of the Alsatians and Lorrainers, thus clearly expressed and never renounced, that the demand made by Franco in this war is based. In announcing its determination not to yield to this demand the German Government is not, only refusing' to restore stolen territory, but is asserting in plain terms that the members of a community have 110 right to determine under what sovereignty they shall live and be, governed. At various times Germany has advanced a number of proposals regarding AlsaceLorraine, all more or less obviously insinoere, even at the time when they were made. One proposal— that a referendum of the population should bo taken—was rejected in Prance on the ground that it would involve endless complications and that in any case it would be impossible to obtain a reliable expression of will from Alsace and Lprrainc until they had been freed from German rule and domination. Should the two provinces under these conditions ask to be reunited to Germany or set apart as an independent 'State, one authority observed recently, there is not a man in Franco who would want to keep them against their will. "But," he added, "about that one need not feel anxious." The merits of the case are all the plainer since Germany during the whole course of the war has treated Alsace and Lorraine inoro like invaded foreign territory than part of her natioual domain. The provinces have been ruled by terrorism and nnder methods described in a cablegram to-day. The prisons are full. A considerable part of the population has been deported, and the plant and material of industrial establishments have also been transport-

ied into tho interior of Germany. I Parallels for the policy and actions of Germany in Alsace and Lorraine must be sought in tho treatment of Poland and the treatment of tho Serbians. These facts afford a most complete exposure and refutation of the fiction of "a glorious heritage." It is possible that internal as well as external forces may operate . to compel the retraction of the German Government's claims. The German people, or a great many of them, jtnow just what talk of a "glorious heritage" applied to Alsace-Lor-raine is wortn. They are now invited openly and without equivocation to persevere in tho war in ordor that tho yoke of Gorman conquest may bo kept upon an unwilling and _ protesting people. Tho clear-cut issue now presented will determine once and for all whether there is any distinction to bo drawn between the German Government and the German nation.