A consultative council has been provisionally instituted in connexion with the High Commission of the Republic. It com- prises 35 members, of whom 3 are senators, 6 deputies, 21 loca! councillors, and 5 named by the decision of the prime minister This body deliberates and pronounces upon all questions which fall outside the limits of any one public department, and are submitted to it by the Commissioner-General. It is comp; sorily consulted on the budget of revenue and expenditure in Alsace-Lorraine and on all proposed modifications of the fiscal system in force; as also on all administrative or economic bills and regulations affecting the combined populations of the three departments. The consultative council is convoked by the Com- missioner-General at least four times a year. Thus the Com- missioner-General has at hand a body in which the representa- tives of the different populations can show forth the interests of these latter and, by expert advice, can facilitate the study and solution of questions common to the Haut-Rhin, the Bas- Rhin, and the Moselle. But this body is purely consultative. The Government of the Republic keeps its power of initiative and its responsibilities; Parliament remains the sovereign power.
Population. -The recovered departments are administered like the other French departments. The department of the Bas-Rhin (prefecture Strasbourg) includes 8 arrondissements: Strasbourg-Ville; Strasbourg-Campagne; Erstein; Haguenau; Molsheim; Selestat; Wissembourg; Saverne. Its superficial area is 4786-37 square kilometres. There are 561 communes. The pop. numbers 608,116. The department of the Haut-Rhin (prefecture Colmar) includes 6 arrondissements: Altkirch; Col- mar; Guebwiller; Mulhouse; Ribeauville; Thann. Area 3,507-7 sq. km.; 386 communes; pop. 430,988. The department of the Moselle (prefecture Metz) includes 9 arrondissements: Moselle- Ville; Moselle-Campagne; Boulay; Chateau-Salins; Forbach; Sarrebourg; Sarreguemines; Thionville-Ouest; Thionvillc-Est. Area 6,227-8 sq. km.; 758 communes; pop. 554,445. The com- bined population according to the census of March 6 1921 is, therefore, 1,593,549, as against 1,874,014 at the time of the last German census in 1910.
The falling-off in the number of the population can be attributed in the first place to the war. Alsace and Lorraine had lost in dead and missing about 45,000 men. Moreover, militarist Germany kept in the three departments no less than 82,276 soldiers. The German and Austro-Hungarian subjects domiciled in Alsace and in Lorraine before the war numbered 301,764. The number of German civilians who had left Alsace and Lorraine after the Armistice up to April I 1921 was 76,467. These departures were partly balanced by the fact that many French subjects from the home country settled in the recovered provinces.
Before the war there were in the imperial territory 1,428,343 Catholics, 408,274 Protestants, 30,483 Jews. The percentage of illegitimate births was 7-52. In 1921 in Strasbourg there were 165,- 835 inhabitants; in Mulhouse 98,393; Sarreguemines 14,318; in Thionville 13,410; in Guebwiller 11,520; in Forbach 10,475; in Selestat 9,846; in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines 9,395; and in Sarrebourg 8,290.
Agriculture. -Agricultural production in 1920 amounted to 160,755 tons of wheat, 57,351 tons of rye, 71,829 tons of barley, 126,487 tons of oats, 1,025,424 tons of potatoes, 44,174 tons of sugar-beet. Alsace provided one-eighth of the whole world produc- tion of hops: the crop of 1920 amounted to 3,355 tons. The wines of Alsace are nearly all white wines, of an exquisite flavour and bou- quet, yielding nothing to the German wines of the Moselle and the Rhine. Rich in alcohol, they are very suitable for export. The Moselle produces in particular vins gris and red wine. The vintage of 1920 reached 725,000 hectolitres as against 734,000 in 1919. The value of the 1920 vintage was 124,000,000 frs. The average tobacco crop is 4,000,000 kilograms.
Mineral Wealth. While petroleum and potash are found in Alsace the Moselle is rich in iron ore and coal. The oil lands stretch out to the E. of Woerth (Worth) in the Bas-Rhin, where the Pechelbronn field is situated. Between 1913 and 1921 about 3,000 borings were made and over 500 pumps were installed in this field. The average output during 1918-9 was 49,225 tons. The total yield up to 1921 had been about 900,000 tons, and the available supplies were estimated at 5! million tons. Oil refineries with a treatment capacity of 73,000 tons a year have been built at Pechelbronn. The State acquired these deposits in 1921, and handed over their exploitation to a private company, mainly formed by local interests.
The return of the department of the Upper Rhine to France de- prives German industry of the monopoly of potash. Potash was discovered in large quantities in 1904 in Alsace by the Alsatian
Vogt. The area concerned covers about 200 sq. km. of country and is to the N. of Mulhouse. The output for 1919 was 512.000 tons and for 1920 1.222,609 tons. This represents an increase of 249% over the last pre-war figures. An annual yield of between five and six million tons was expected before long.
By the liberation of Alsace-Lorraine France became the largest European producer of iron ore, with an annual yield of 42 million tons. There are 50 mines in Lorraine. Output reached its height in 1913 with 21,133,676 tons, a downward curve being shown by later figures, which are as follows :
Year I9H 1915 1916
1917 1918 1919
Tons 14,014,137
13,286,302 13,614,139 10,477.673 7,137.206
After the Armistice there was a steady drop in output, due to post-war difficulties of all kinds: the year 1919 was for the whole field a period of reconstruction. Output between Jan. and Sept. 1920 amounted to six million tons. The mines employed 17,237 men in 1913 as compared with 9,523 in 1919. In 1913 German labour was 60% of the total. In 1920 it was 32-2%.
The output of coal also reached its maximum in 1913, the figures being :
Year Tons
1913 ........ 3,795,262
I9H . . ...... 2,856,752
1915 ........ 1,960,963
1916 ........ 2,027,684
1917 . . . . . . . . 2,636,802
1918 . ....... 2,662,046
1919 ........ 2,310,589
The fresh fall in 1919 was due to strikes and the reduction in working hours. Seven-tenths of the coal is consumed by local in- dustry. The Lorraine salt mines produced 28,822 tons in 1919 as compared with 59,091 tons in 1913.
Public Instruction. Strasbourg University was opened by President Poincare on Nov. 22 1919. By the end of 1920 the six faculties and the Pharmaceutical School had 1,889 students. The lectures are given in French.
Secondary education is provided by the many lycees created throughout the country. French naturally is the chief language, but German has been allowed to have the place which is its due in view of the special situation of the provinces.
The language question has been more difficult to solve in primary schools. Before 1870 France had neglected the importance of teach- ing French in the primary schools of Alsace. Since 1920 the teaching has been in French throughout the country. An exception is however made for religious teaching (4 hours a week) which is given in German in those districts where the Alsatian dialect is the mother-tongue of the inhabitants. The religious character of schools has been re- spected. In view of the bilingual character of the country a large amount of time is given to the study of German in schools. The population is very well educated. Before the war there were only eight illiterates among the contingent of army recruits (97,694).
Industry. After 1880 Alsace-Lorraine had been turned indus- trially towards Germany. In 1914 Alsace-Lorraine exported 1,576,- ooo tons of goods, 908,000 tons of which went to Germany. In 1909 eight out of ten and a half million tons of exports went to Germany, while nearly five-sixths of Alsace-Lorraine imports came from Germany. The preponderant part of Germany is naturally explained by the fact that while trade was free with Germany it was impeded with France by the customs wall. It is not possible by a stroke of the pen to change the commercial orientation of a country nor to find at once new markets for its products. Therefore the Treaty of Versailles laid down that for a period of five years nothing should be changed from the customs point of view in the relations between the recovered provinces and Germany.
In Alsace the textile industry is by far the most' important, especially in spinning, weaving and printing. France, thanks to the restoration of the province, finds her productive power increased by 26 % in spinning and by 30 % in weaving. Large quantities of sewing and embroidery thread are also produced.
In Lorraine iron and steel industries are at the head. There are 68 furnaces with an annual capacity of 3,800,000 tons of pig-iron. The production fell from 3,460,000 tons in 1913 to 1,129,000 tons in 1919. The steel output in 1913 was 22,260,000 tons and in 1919 it lad fallen to 871,000 tons. This drop is to be attributed entirely to coal and coke shortage. There were 22,000 workmen employed by the industry.
Communications. The railway system is excellent and had been
developed greatly by the Germans, mainly from a strategic point of
view. The railways have preserved their autonomy and constitute
a special system attached to the Ministry of Public Works. In 1920
he traffic amounted to 2,253,000,000 tons of goods.
The canal system is good, but the great waterway is naturally the ihine. The port of Strasbourg with its modern equipment is the
