Evening star., 1934-09-09
BY FRANK Fl. SIMONDS.

| i NLEnO0 Gil ueC6lN6s ID6
storm center in Europe has
for the time being shifted
! ~ from Austria to the Saar That
was the significance of the
recent speech of Hitler at Ehrenbreit-
stein, which was the opening gun in
the battle for the Saar which will end
in a plebiscite in January. Then the
100000 people Of this industrial re-
gion will decide whether they will re-
main as they are, under League su-
pervision. or unite with Germany or
| with France.
| OF the three possibilities, union with
France is out of the question, for
the Saar people are Overwhelmingly
! German. Until the National Socialist
revolution in the Reich it had been as
sumed everywhere, in Paris as in
Berlin, that there would be an over
whelming majority for reunion with
the Fatherland. But the population
of this region is Catholic as well as
Teutonic and the quarrel of the
National Socialists with Rome has
raised a new issue and awakened a
measure of doubt as to the outcome
of the vote.
! At Ehrenbreitstein Hitler renewed
to France that proposal of peace which
both he and his lieutenants have
made on many occasions in the past
year and a half The Saar, he re-
peated, is the sole bone of contention
between the two countries. That
dispute settled, there is no reason,
the Reichsfuehrer asserted, why the
! should honnr1nn ssynnd
neighbors." And this, Of course. con-
stitutes a direct invitation to the
J French to abandon their policy of
status quo in the East and Danubian
regions in return for a German ac-
ceptance of the status quo in the
West.
Economic Features.
But the response of Paris to this
gesture indicated profound diStrust
of the sincerity of Hitler and at the
same time a clear purpose to wage
a fight in the Saar, not for the union
of this territory with France but for
the perpetuation of the present situa-
ton, with the League administering
the region politically and the current
tariff union with France continuing.
Economically, the French have a very
large interest at stake in the struggle
and the material interests of the
Saar itself are also bound up with
| France
Actually the situation is this: BY
the terms OF the treaty Of Versailles
the French acquired title to the coal
mines of the Saar outright and for
Is years France and the Saar were to
have a common tariff system. In this
way. not only did the French acquire
a source of coal to supplement their
own insufficient supplies, but there
was preserved for Alsace-Lorraine its
most profitable market. The Saar
thus found prosperity by selling coal
to France and AlSace-Lorraine prof1ted
by monopoly of the Saar for its own
agricultural products.
This combination had developed as
a consequence of the German annexa-
ton of Alsace-Lorraine after the
Franco-PrusSian War. Economically
the two regions were complementary.
To separate them by a tariff barrier
now must prove equally disastrous, for
in Germany the coal of the Saar can
not compete with that of the Ruhr,
while in France. once a tariff wall is
erected, 1t will have to face the COM
petition of the better English coal.
And the exports of Alsace to the Saar
will thus be similarly hampered.
The natural solution of all the prob
| lens incident to the Saar would be
the prolongation of the present tariff
situation combined with the restora-
tion of the political association of the
region with the Reich. Such a Solu-
tion would, too, have been not merely
possible, but even probable had the
National Socialist revolution not
taken place. But that upheaval raised
French hopes and fears equally; hopes
Of victory for maintenance of the
status quo in the plebiscite, fears of
any form of an agreement with the
NaziS.
Hitler's Dilemma.
For Hitler the battle of the Saar
must be decisive. All his other un-
dertakings have come to grief. He
has been defeated in Austria and the
July putsch transformed a friendly
Mussolini into an angry foe. His ma
Jor calculation, an Anglo-Ge un-
derstanding, has crashed with the dec
laration of Stanley Baldwin that the
British frontier is at the Rhine. Po-
litical disappointment has been accom-
panied by economic depression and the
material situation Of the Reich is to-
day deplorable.
If in January in the middle of what
must be the worst Winter for Ger
many since the war there should be
fresh disaster, this time in the Saar.
the consequences would be incalcu-
liable. On the other hand victory might
just suffice to carry Hitler safely
through the crisis of the cold months.
Accordingly every resource of the
present regime in the Reich is certain
to be mobilized for battle in the Saar
during the next few months.
Meantime the situation in Austria
can be left to ripen. Unless some eco
nomic recovery can be staged time
must in the end work against the
present control. For, politically. hard
times always help the opposition and
the NaziS are the opposition. Con-
comitantly, too, Hitler can seek to
widen the breach that has opened in
the walls of the Little Entente. He
has already won Poland away from
France; if he can now detach Yugo-
slavia the results may be considerable.
And Yugoslavia, aroused by the Ital-
ian policy in respect of Austria, is
visibly looking toward Rerlin.
If Hitler can break up the Little |
Entente as he has smashed the !
Franco-Polish alliance then there is
little question as to the result. The |
whole French system of alliances in
Central Europe will crash. In its |
place there will be both a German |
and an Italian system. To the former |
will belong Poland and Yugoslavia, to |
the latter Austria and Hungary |
Thereafter the battle will turn on the |
direction which Cezchoslovakia and |
Rumania may take. But although |
Austria is today bound to Italy, sue
cess of the Nazis within the Austrian |
republic would change its orientation
automatically.