New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1918-10-19


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represented by the Krupps, Rattle
haus and Thyssons, was to be one of
the richest prizes of contest
When her grasp upon this region
was more secure than at present
Germany spoke with arrogant conf
donce Of the mines of Briey and
LongWy, and Of the wealth of miner
al Which was to come from Belgium
and Luxembourg. after the restora-
ton Of peace" wrote Prof. Eberhard
Gothein, a Privy Counsellor and one
of the foremost OF German authori-
ties on mining, iron will be our best
article of expectation, enabling us to
gain those foreign markets which we
have lost for the time being" This
assertion was made in the face of the
fact that the mines of upper Silcsia
were rapidly becoming exhausted and
that IN other fields there was no new
discovery of iron ore.
The exhaustion of the Silesian de-
post was fOreseen years ago by the
German financiers and accounts in a
large measure for the establishment in
western Germany Of such important
establishments as the Krupps and the
development in comparatively recent
years of the Rhine Valley into what
Germany considers 1.-The great center
of the European iron industry" The
various iron deposits in this western
portion of the empire, in the Ruhr
and the Siegerland districts, have all
been connected with the Rhine Val
ley furnaces by railways or canals.
Looking forward to the possession Of
p~io r oin
ial Secretary of the Treasury said
that products of the mines could be
transported without great difficulty or
cost of freight. The situation in this
regard, he declared, would be still
more favorable after the MOselle rlv-
er will have been improved, as we
ought to have done before, as the les
sons of the waF are teaching us"
Another lesson Of the war to Ger
many is the vital importance to her
of iron. r is, in fact, one of the
acute economic questions that she
must face. She has been importing
a large amount of iron from Spain
and also q considerable quantity of
purer ore from Sweden. Maurice AL
fasse, in his recent work upon the
mineral resources of the French Ior-
raine district, says that up to the war
the steel produced in Germany was
100000 tons a year, but that it is
now 100000 tons, of which 21,OOO,-
900 tons come from the invaded ter
ritorv of Lorraine.
Germany is looking back with re-
gret that she let France off so easy in
the settlement of 1871. Prof Gothein
says in his statement that nobody un-
derstood the great Importance of the
Lorraine low grade ore when Ger
many annexed part Of the iron dis
trict "otherwise the frontier would
have been fixed differently" M. AL
fasse brings out his point in making
his estimates upon the German pro-
auctions. He says that the Lorraine
ores are mixed containing lime and
phosphorus, which are of supreme
Importance in modern steel produce
ton What the ores Of this section
mean to Germany is summed up in
the manifesto Of the six great Teuton-
ic steel associations:
eff the production of pig iron and
of steel had not been doubled since
August 1914. the continuation of the
war would be impossible while if the
Lorraine supply had been interfered
with the war would virtually be lost"
French Lorraine, with it's deposits
of 5000 900, 900 tons of rich ore so
necessary to German Industries, was
an a11uring bit of loot for German
conquest. It was the most cOnven-
lent prize that Berlin could dangle,
for it seemed to supply an economic
need and at the same time to salts
fv the demands of the military party.
For this reason Germany is evidently
stalking heavily upon the retention
of this territory and will abandon her
claims to it either on the field of bat
tie or diplomacy withpoor grace and
only after a hard fight.