The Disillusionment of Lorraine
DISILLUSIONMENT OF LORRAINE 'T^HERE is a considerable difference between the •*• drums of victory and the summonses of government. For the Third Republic, contemporary affairs are an almost...
...It was undoubtedly in M. Briand's mind to use the Locarno treaties as a barrier to any possible efforts which might be made by Alsatians to promote a re-affiliation with Germany...
...For the Third Republic, contemporary affairs are an almost perpetual reminder of this difference...
...He envisages the problem from three points of view: the anger of Alsace-Lorraine, as reflected in the press, individual comment, and political organization...
...On the other hand, the French senator, Frederic Eccard, has sounded an alarm in two recent and well-documented articles...
...Nor have French students of political affairs been slow to see that a crisis imperils domestic peace and the tranquillity of Europe...
...uWe need stability, authority, and competence," he says, urging the need for a distinct secretariat able to deal with Alsatian affairs from a first-hand knowledge of what they are...
...Perhaps this missing tradition and training would also have suggested that the hope for France lies in a steadily widened decentralization...
...Even the most partisan of governments ought to realize that religious peace is indispensable to amity between France and Alsace...
...and the dilatory policy of the Paris government which deals with local problems in a stand-offish manner...
...The review Notre Droit, published in Strasbourg to promote cooperation between the Catholics of AlsaceLorraine and those of France generally, is obliged to concede in its most recent issue that the force of a powerful public opinion is endangering this cooperation...
...Yet the stupid palaver continues in the mouths of men whom neither tradition nor training has prepared for the government of a nation...
...Observers have long been conscious of profound disaffection throughout the recovered provinces, growing out of antagonism to the French system of government and to the Herriot effort to laicize the schools...
...It is not merely a question of finance, of party leadership, or even of changing regimes: it is, considering the acute problem of Alsace-Lorraine, a question of the national life and honor...
...Nothing disturbing to that peace ought to be tolerated even in the interests of civic success...
...But, as was pointed out by Herr Koch in the Reichstag session which considered the adoption of these treaties, the Reich, while renouncing the conquest of lost territories by "arms," does not surrender the chance to "enter by peaceful means...
...Though the school question is no longer the topic of furious controversy, many feel that calm is merely temporary and that renewed efforts will be made to abolish the existing concordat with Rome...
...This situation is just another result of the lamentable deshabille of the French moral and political mind...
...the eagerness of Germany to promote her interests in provinces which undoubtedly owe her much for good government and industrial prosperity...
Vol. 3 • February 1926 • No. 15
