many, though immensely rich in coal, is likely to exhaust her other main mineral resources in fifty years. Hence the temptation presented by the rich deposits of Briey and Luxemburg.

In a nutshell, the essential facts are these. If France could at the beginning of the war have occupied and held the minefields of Lorraine, Germany, docked of her ordinary imports, would not have been able to continue the war: and if this result can be produced by the terms of peace, it will make a resumption of aggression infinitely more difficult. Conversely, if Germany could have obtained permanent possession of the Briey and Longwy districts, France would have sunk into complete economic vassalage. No peace will be really satisfactory which does not provide France with absolute guaranties in the economic field.

As M. Paulin points out, France is not likely to be in a position after the war to supply Germany with anything like her pre-war exports of iron (in 1913 she sent 3,811,000 tons from France itself and 617,000 from Algeria and Tunis). The territorial changes of the war will transform the whole economic position of the two countries: for the iron produced by Germany in 1913 fell into the following categories:

and conditions which at present seem intolerable to her. This is more easily understood if we realize that the situation of the mining industry will be radically transformed in all countries. Being no longer able to count much on her former suppliers Spain, whose deposits are getting exhausted; Sweden who shows signs of reserving for the iron industry which she has herself created, and is still creating, the four or five million tons which she used to send every year to Germany - the latter will have to turn to her enemies of to-day, above all to France, whose iron production will have risen considerably owing to the exploitation of her western deposits, and perhaps also those of French Guinea. This perspective, which would turn Germany, despite her coal, into the humbled client of France, explains the zeal with which Germany's rulers would fain eliminate from the peace discussion the return of the Thionville basin to France.' The restitution of Alsace-Lorraine has the further important economic effect of transferring from Germany to France large deposits of potash, estimated at 700,000,000 square metres of utilizable salts and 300,000,000 square metres of pure potash.

But M. Paulin goes on to argue that all this does not by any means suffice to redress the balance in favor of France. The coal problem for France is one of immense difficulty, and is complicated by the systematic destruction of industries perpetrated by the Germans in the invaded districts and in Belgium. Before the war her consumption of coal was as follows:

Her coal deficit was made good by importing from England 11,442,000 tons, from Germany 6,072,000, and from Belgium 4,859,000.

It will obviously be a considerable time before the output of the French coal trade reverts to pre-war standards, and the shortage will tend to be all the greater because the factories of the two redeemed provinces will now no longer depend upon Germany for their coal. Nor would it be safe to rely too much upon England for the importation of coal, since the latter, quite apart from her own needs, will be bound to help Belgium to her feet by prompt supplies, and to guarantee to neutrals, such as Holland and Switzerland, their independence against Germany. He then proceeds to discuss the Sarre basin in terms of minerals. With a total area of 155,500 hectares, it yielded 17,013,014 tons of coal, or 8 per cent of the total output of Germany. Its share in the iron industries of Germany is shown by the following table:

It is obvious that the author would like to see the annexation of the Sarre basin to France, but that he is conscious of the objections to such a course, With the two conditions which he lays down as essential that Germany must be made to supply French industry with such coal as it may require to make good the systematic injuries of the last four years, and that the Allied supply of mineral products to Germany must be limited to what is needed for maintaining German industries, 'to the exclusion of factories devoted to the manufacture of engines and munitions of war'- no one is likely to disagree. British opinion is not likely to accept willingly the idea of annexing the Sarre Basin to France; but it is probable that a satisfactory compromise can be found by which the Sarre can be held as a gauge for the indemnification of French industry during a certain period of years. It is becoming more and more obvious that the problem of security cannot be solved, and may even be aggravated or endangered, by mere transfers of territory, and that in many cases and notably in that of the Sarrethe key is to be sought in economic arrangements.

The New Europe

formed bankers that they could only have a small fraction of the sterling they required, and later they were bluntly told that there was no more sterling available for commercial payments. M. Klotz by his declarations as to levying a 20 per cent tax on capital had already caused grave uneasiness. The sudden withdrawal of a continuance of the credits in England knocked the bottom out of the French exchange market, and the British pound rose by as much as 1f. 50c. It is certainly unfortunate that effective steps were not taken to produce a steadying effect. The present situation of France is one that must cause considerable anxiety, and it may perhaps be of interest to indicate other reasons which are involved. Firstly, there is the loss of population and factory disorganization; secondly, there is the ruin of the northern territories of the country; thirdly, the vast debt and the greatly inflated paper issue; fourthly, the French Government has as yet not established a Budget that will meet its liabilities; fifthly, even the taxes that have been imposed have in many cases not been collected; sixthly, owing to fear of attacks on capital and the consequent feeling of insecurity, there is a renewed tendency to hoard money, and a consequent falling off in investment and in the restarting of industrial and commercial enterprise; and, lastly, a very harassing policy, harassing both to British exporters and French consumers, has been adopted as regards imports. The

latter four of these factors are to some extent remediable, but at present France is looking to a somewhat disquieting extent to an indemnity from Germany to meet the claims of her Budget. Neither England nor the United States, to whom France is a heavy debtor, are budgeting with their eyes on a German indemnity. As the situation stands at present it seems, therefore, natural that further credits should not be granted until some determined effort has been made by France to meet the situation. The French press not unnaturally is pointing out the deplorable result of the action taken by Great Britain, and suggests that it will force France to turn to America for financial aid, and that America will become the great exporting country to France. What I have learned by inquiry in American business circles here is that in their view it is impossible for American firms to deal on a large scale with France, as the same policy of restricting imports has been followed with both countries. Nor does there seem any reason to believe that America will be prepared to open credits to France on other terms than those which would commend themselves to Great Britain. It is conceivable that the solution may be found in the eventual floating of a consolidating loan guaranteed both by Great Britain and America, who, as creditor countries, have every object in aiding the return of France to a more normal condition financially.

The Economist

A CONRAD PLAY

'VICTORY,' a Dramatization in Three Acts, by B. Macdonald Hastings, of Joseph Conrad's novel. Produced at the Globe Theatre, London, on Wednesday evening, March 26, 26, 1919.

"This island is getting on my nerves,' complained Ricardo. The island is the lonely home of Heyst, to which he has brought the unhappy Lena, the one pure girl of the ladies' orchestra with which the infamous Zangiacomo is touring the South Seas. Lena.is in love with Heyst, and the problem is how he is to be brought to love her. His reason for carrying her off with him is that she is exposed to the odious attentions of the German hotel keeper Schomberg, and to the ruffianly embraces of Ricardo, the Caliban-like Secretary of a curious person called Jones, to say nothing of other minor scoundrels of whom we only hear.

It was not till the third act that Ricardo made the above remark. The play had been getting on the audience's nerves long before that, and was to get on them still worse before the evening was out. For Jones is indeed the cadaverous bird of prey he looks. He is mad, and resolved to avenge himself on his fellow men with cards, revolvers, or anything else that comes handy. But he cannot bear the sight of a woman. His secretary prefers to settle his little accounts with the knife that he keeps in his boot and is not the sort of fellow any girl should care to meet in a dark lane. He, too, is insane, but on more 'democratic' lines than his master, who has traces of breeding. The Jones party is completed by Pedro, who is less a man than a monkey of a low order of simian intelligence.

Heyst is reputed to have a hoard of gold on his island, and the Jones party follow him thither from Java that they may possess themselves of it. But while Ricardo smacks his foul lips as he thinks of Lena, Jones is not told of her existence. He thinks

almost kindly of Heyst since he takes him to be a woman hater like himself. Hence when the three arrive, while Jones is thinking of Heyst, Ricardo's mind is running on the abduction of the girl. The result is a story too complicated to be told, but involving both blood and thunder. It is not till Jones has been shot dead by Heyst's inscrutable Chinese servant, and his two accomplices are also weltering in their gore, that a happy ending is attained, and Heyst discovers that he is now in love with Lena who, in the play, appears to be none the worse for all she has gone through.

The play has distinction; there is no doubt of that. But it is not the kind of distinction one wants in a theatre. The subtle analysis of the lovers' feelings eludes the rough grasp of the stage, and what does come through of them is shouted down by the terrifying happenings. These happenings, again in the book attractively eerie, are brutalized by translation into the terms of flesh and blood. And so in Ricardo's words the island gets on our nerves and neither heart nor head has much of a look in. For assuming that nerves are a fair objective in the theatre it is best to avoid long attacks on them, as the Grand Guignol well knows.

Good is made, not better, but worse not only by Mr. Macdonald Hastings, but by Miss Marie Löhr, whose agonies as Lena are most distressing. The feature of the performance is the sympathetic Heyst of Mr. Murray Carrington, an Old Bensonian, who unites much of the mild grace of Mr. Owen Nares with some of the fervor of Mr. Henry Ainley. Mr. W. Gayer Mackay makes a fascinatingly horrible creature of Jones, compared with whom Sherlock Holmes is robust and floridly genial, Mr. Sam Livesey as Ricardo is as ugly a customer as the stage has seen for years, while Mr. George Elton is clever as the impassive Chinaman. The reception was favorable, and would have been more so but that the play had got on one's nerves.

THE POPE AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE

THE Corriere d'Italia published recently the following note on the Holy Father and the Peace Conference:

An authoritative' political personage, who, however, prefers to remain anonymous, has written at some length in the Tribuna on the subject of the Italian Popular Party. Regarding one part of what he has to say a correction is necessary. The anonymous writer states: "The Pope aspired to enter into the Peace Conference and it was not his fault that he did not succeed.' We have no hesitation in saying that that is utterly untrue. After the first months of war the Vatican considered very seriously the action it might have to take when it became necessary for the powers to treat of peace. The line of conduct which, after mature deliberation, it laid down for itself was the following. In case of a peace by agreement it would have intervened willingly, if invited, with the intention of contributing to the work of reconciliation between the contending powers. On the other hand, in the case of absolute victory of one of the two sides, and, therefore, of the imposition of peace by the conqueror on the conquered, inasmuch as this, whatever concrete form it might take, would necessarily be hateful (odiosa) to the side which had yielded, it determined that even if it was invited it would decline the invitation. This determination, the exactitude of which we are in a position to guarantee, dates, as we have said, from the early days of the war, that is, the time when there seemed to be the greatest probability of an absolute victory of the Central Empires. The Pope, then, was reluctant to take any part in an eventual humiliation of the nations of the Entente. The Holy See, it is true, was very grieved by Article XV of the London Agreement because, being formulated exclusively against it, it thereby carried an injustice. But as far as the intentions of that clause are concerned, it is evident from what we have said above that they had no actual effect whatever. As to the existing facts, we are able to add that as the Paris Conference never intended to admit powers that have not taken part in the war, the intervention of

COMPILERS of year books and reference books have been sorely tried by the kaleidoscopic changes of the past twelve months. The editors of the Almanach de Gotha for 1919, however, must be given a place apart among the victims of unstable circumstances. Their difficulties are but mildly expressed in their apologetic statement that 'The dismemberment of Austria and the transformation of twenty-two German States into as many Republics interrupted our labors as we were going to press.' Now the least of these difficulties has been the choice of designations for the fallen potentates, which should not offend foreign susceptibilities. Thus in the French edition, Ci-devant has been found a blessed phrase, and Gallic prejudices are further considered in the case of the All-Highest and his first begotten by laying stress on their subsidiary qualifications. The ex-Kaiser is referred to as Doctor of Law, Medicine, and Science, and only in conclusion as Grand Admiral and Field Marshal: while the ex-Crown Prince is given a claim to distinction as a Veterinary Surgeon. After all, things might have been worse. Frederick William Victor August Ernst of Prussia might, for instance, have been awarded a diploma for household removals.

A NEW ABBEY THEATRE PLAY

THERE are signs that the same spirit of criticism which applied itself to the methods of the old Parliamentary party begins now to bite on Sinn Fein. At the Abbey Theatre, which under Mr. Yeats's guidance has become the home of unregimented thought, a play was produced recently, called The