question of Alsace-Lorraine is one which they cannot treat as being of interest only to France and Germany. In its nature and from the fact that it is the corner-stone of the first claim to be made by France, it concerns right and justice.

It is consequently opportune that even those who up to the present time have had no special reason for interest in Alsace-Lorraine should come to know certain facts about this little country in order to be able to form for themselves a just and trustworthy opinion of the disputed question.

TERRITORY

Alsace-Lorraine is bounded on the north by Bavaria, Prussia, Luxembourg, and France; on the south by Switzerland and France, on the east by the Grand Duchy of Baden, and on the west by France. It is entirely made up of territory surrendered by France to Germany by the Treaty of Frankfort. This included the following parts of France: the Department of the Lower Rhine, the Department of the Upper Rhine with the exception of Belfort, three quarters of the Department of Moselle, a third of the Department of Meurthe, and two cantons of the Vosges. The area is about 14,500 square kilometres.

POPULATION

German official statistics give on the 1st of December, 1871, a population of 1,554,738 inhabitants. The last Census of 1910 gives 1,874,014 souls (967,625 men, 906,389 women). This population includes about 1,500,000 Alsaces-Lorraines of French descent, who themselves or their parents were born in Alsace-Lorraine before the 1st of May, 1871, and who, except for the Treaty of Frankfort, would have been French. The aliens (notably the Italians, French, Swiss, and the people of Luxembourg) make up a contingent of about 75,000. The rest, 300,000 in all, are German immigrants since the War of 1870-71, and their descendants, including the military and government officials with their families.

The original French people of the ceded territories were allowed to preserve their French nationality on condition of making an express declaration before October 1, 1872, and to transfer, within the same extension of time, their domicile outside of Alsace-Lorraine. From the official German reports, there were about 160,000 options declared in Alsace-Lorraine, of which only 50,000 were valid. The options given in France amounted to about 380,000. The statistics of emigration and immigration for 1871-1910 give an excess of emigration of 267,639 souls. The result of the migration of the population in August, 1914, can thus be characterized: some hundred thousand Alsatians left the country, the greater part of whom settled in France. The number of the native population has remained stationary; 300,000 Germans and 75,000 foreigners must be added. The German population is almost entirely concentrated in the cities. In Metz, the immigrants make up the majority; in Strasbourg, they are a third of the population. In the country, one finds in general only a few officials.

Concerning the language, distinction must be made between Alsace and Lorraine. In most parts of Lorraine, French is spoken exclusively, whereas, in the greater part of Alsace, we find a German patois mixed up with many French words and expressions; and so entirely distinct is it from the hochdeutsch of the Germans, that after forty-seven years they are not able to understand it. Everyone who is at all educated speaks French, in spite of the obstacles the Germans are always putting in the way of teaching the French tongue. All who know French speak it from preference, and no one who speaks good German, and they have all learned it in the schools, ever use it in private life. The official language is of course German.

As to religion: after the Census of 1910, there were found to be 85% Catholics, 13% Protestants, 1½% Jews, and a ½% miscellaneous. The professional Census of 1907 gives the following results: about one fourth of the population are in agriculture, half are occupied in commerce and industry, and a quarter enter the liberal professions or follow no trade at all.

As to the ethnological origin of the aboriginal people, the Germans at once declare that Alsace was settled by the Teutons. About Lorraine they prefer to be silent. But while it is certain that Alsace after the migration of the tribes presents a mixed population composed of Celtic and Germanic elements, it would be very difficult to analyse today such an amalgamation. Do not let us forget that Julius Cæsar in his famous work, De Bello Gallico, has said that the country of the Celts which he calls Galli (Gaul) was bounded by the "flumen Rhenum" (the Rhine), and Tacitus, the illustrious historian, declares: "Germania omnis a Gallis Rheno separatur" (the whole of Germany is separated from Gaul by the Rhine).

The invasion of Alsace by Ariovistus was victoriously repulsed at the battle of Ochsenfeld 58 B.C., and a new attempt of the Germanic tribes to invade Alsace in 357 A.D. failed before the army of Julian the Philosopher. During the centuries of Roman domination, which have left deep traces on the country (building of cities, construction of roads, commercial and industrial development of all kinds), Alsace enjoyed great prosperity. Moreover, a recent authoritative work, Wohin gehoert Elsass-Lothringen, shows that from the last scientific researches, the shape of the German skull, which the Germans love to indicate as the sign of the superiority of the German race, is represented in Alsace only in the proportion of one to three, and the so-called Germanic type (blue eyes and yellow hair) is nowhere predominant.

Alsace is in fact a conclusive example of the fact that the use of a dialect of German origin does not necessarily indicate the race of those who speak it and certainly does not prove a community of sentiments or ideas. This applies also to the German names of the Alsatian communes.

Let us remember on this subject, that very recently German names have been officially given to French localities in Lorraine. When the Germans wish to accomplish a master stroke of policy they are careful to quote the Herren Professoren in justification of the establishment of an historic precedent. Renan, in a mildly bantering spirit, complimented them on their extraordinary talent in these ridiculous attempts. "With the philosophy of history," says he, "as practised by the Germans, there are no legal rights in the world but those of the ourang-outangs, unjustly deprived of these by the perfidy of civilized man."

In the main, it matters little to whom Alsace-Lorraine has belonged during the vicissitudes of history. That only which is important from the point of view of modern history is the act of 1871 by which Germany tore Alsace-Lorraine from France when all the inhabitants of the ceded territories were thoroughly French and wished so to remain. This is the truth, and it is confirmed by an authority little suspected by the Germans. Professor Theobald Ziegler, who up to the present moment was Professor of Science at the University of Strasbourg, and a liberal democrat, has changed to a pan-Germanist of the most pronounced type. Here is what the Herr Professor Ziegler acknowledges, writing in the review Die Grenzboten, March 31, 1915: "What makes a nation? Not the feeling of race nor the consciousness of belonging to the same stock which is often lost in the uncertainty and obscurity of history; not the soil, which may be transferred from one people to another as in the case of Alsace; not the language—one has only