TRIALS OF THE SAAR

Evening Star, Issue 22454, 26 September 1936, Page 28

TRIALS OF THE SAAR

LIFE UNDER THE REICH LOST MONEY AND MARKETS LIVING NOW HARDER Sixteen months after the plebiscite the Saar is now bound up for better or for worse with the general economic developments in the Reich, and its economic health has deteriorated since the days under the League of Nations, says a writer in ‘ The Times.’ The best that can be said is that the collapse predicted by voters for the status quo has been averted. The Saar, no longer a somewhat spoilt corner of Western Europe, is now compelled to share all the national sacrifices demanded in the rest of Germany. Almost every international, especially French, symbol has vanished from Saarbrucken, shop windows no longer display foreign goods, no foreign tongues can be heard, and few foreign cars seen. German hopes that the territory would be an important link in Franco-German trade under workable agreements for a mutual free exchange of goods have been dashed. Two temporary agreements, whereby Franco-Saar trade had already been reduced to 6 per cent, of its former volume, expired on October 1, 1935, and have not been renewed. The Saar industries and trades have to find new outlets for their products in Germany and through German channels, in order to safeguard the existence of its working' population. It is a formidable task. On the French side the agricultural and textile markets are now glutted with products formerly sold in the Saar. The Saar iron and steel industry, in which there are still substantial French interests, has survived the crisis best, its products now being sold through the German organisations within the international cartels. REPAIRING THE MINES. Labour schemes and_ rearmament have supplied the Saar industry with good orders, but the Saar as a whole, lying along the frontier, is not being used as a centre for the production of any kind of war equipment, machinery, or munitions. The steel industry has occasional difficulties with its supplies of ore from Lorraine, not because of any malicious stoppage by France, but because of Germany’s scarcity of foreign exchange. Coal, the chief economic asset and provider of work in the territory, remains unblessed. Instead of the annual 4,500,000 to 6,500,000 tons delivered annually before the plebiscite, France is now taking, and that free of charge, only 2,T00,000 tons in part payment for the repurchase of the Saar mines. The introduction of Saar coal is unpopular in Germany, as it is different and inferior and requires special furnaces. The first task of the industry since it passed bade into German hands is to repair the mines, which the French, according to German assertions, disgracefully neglected, and on this 6,000 men are said to be employed. The mines are thus running at a loss; prices cannot be lowered or wages increased. Another result of the reconditioning has been a fall in the coal output from 11,317,000 tons under the French administration in 1934 to 10,613,740 tons in 1935. Simultaneously the sales of Saar coal have dropped by roughly 700,000 tons, but in recent months Italy has been taking increased quantities. The new and smaller finished goods industries find it extremely difficult to shift their foothold from the French to the German market, where they are up against keen competition. REARMAMENT FIRST. The German authorities have done their utmost to prevent a wholesale dismissal of workers in the Saar and to create labour on lines similar to those in the Reich, for which a sum of about £8,300,000 was said to have been authorised. Unemployment in the Saar was—it is claimed—reduced from between 50,000 and 60,000 at the time of the plebiscite to 28,085 at the close of April, but it is still above the average for the whole Reich. The work is in municipal expansion, public utility undertakings, house-building, and repairs, and highways, including a bold road from Saarbrucken to Mannheim and Frankfurt. The _ work of reconditioning the mines is reckoned to provide work for from three to five years at a cost of 74,000,000 marks (about £6,000,000), and in order to utilise the surplus gaa of the Saar coking plants there is a plan for supplying gas from Homburg (Saar) to the Bavarian Palatinate. But the much-discussed Saar-Palati-nate canal, to connect Saarbrucken with Mannheixn-Ludwigshafen, and give employment to some 25,000 men for five years at an estimated total cost of £25,000,000 has been postponed indefinitely for financial reasons. The postponement betrays a financial affinity to the Reich. The impression gained is that all must stand back for German rearmament, and few funds are available for any other section of public and private economy. Everywhere in the Saar capital and credits are scarce, nor have they been brought nearer by the emigration of roughly 5,000 Jews and ■ several thousand status quo voters,' who, under the Rome Protocol, were _ allowed to take all their property with them up to the end or last February. The total sum of which Saar economy has_ thus been deprived since the plebiscite is estimated in Saar banking and commercial circles at between £2,000,000 and £2,500,000, and including the sums taken out by emigrants before the plebiscite at about £4,000,000, This loss is weighing heavily on the little territory with its 812,000 inhabitants. Not only have the Jews withdrawn their credit balances from the banks; the “ Aryans ” had to act likewise to buy the Jewish property taken over by them. The purchasing power of the average Saarlander has also deteriorated. Commodity prices, which are gradually being adjusted to those of the Reich, have gone up 25 to 50 per cent. Sugar has nearly doubled. But wages, and salaries have only increased 7 to 15 per cent, at best. There has been this year the introduction and rigorous collection of Reich taxes, hitherto not levied,- in the Saar, including the export subsidy, now payable by industries, trades, and commerce, and the customary deductions are made for the nation and the Party. Many Saarlanders, when casting their patriotic vote in favour of Germany had reckoned with, and were willing to put up. with some disadvantages, but their expectations have been exceeded.