The prohibition of American plants for the replacing of the destroyed vines, in execution of the law concerning the fight against the blight of the vine, was dictated by a sentiment of protection for the German vine-culture against the vine-culture of Alsace-Lorraine. Often also, the administration took arbitrary measure against certain trades and industries to injure their interests for the profit of their competitors, or for some determined political end. The illegal prohibition made to the French Insurance companies of Assurances to continue business in Alsace-Lorraine, by which a blow was given to a number of agents in their enterprises, and the threat made to the Alsatian Society of Mechanical Construction of Grafenstaden to countermand the orders from Prussia if the Society refused to dismiss a director suspected of French sympathy, are convincing proofs of the antagonism of the government. We mention the flagrant injustice with which the German interests were always advanced to the detriment of Alsace-Lorraine in the distribution of contracts for public works. But, if Alsace-Lorraine in general could prosper economically, notwithstanding a detestable policy, hated by its population, in what way, we ask ourselves, could that prosperity be compromised by the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France? Above all, as France is a Republic, a form of government which was welcomed with joy by the people September 4, 1870, and which answers in the best manner to their time-honoured worldly aspirations. The loss of the market which Alsace-Lorraine has made for herself in Germany will find a rapid offset in the reopening of its business relations with France. Certain great industries, such as the iron mines of Lorraine and those of potash in Alsace, would certainly increase. But that is not at all the question. We have to do with a great moral issue for transcending the material considerations which the German thinks so important and which in his mind are all-conclusive. Evidence of this is the following quotation from the _Gazette de Voss_ published July, 1917: "The act of yielding Alsace would involve giving up valuable beds of potash and this would be disastrous to German agriculture of which it is an absolutely necessary ingredient." One sees by this kind of reasoning the nature of the affection of Germany for Alsace-Lorraine. ALSACE-LORRAINE UNDER GERMAN RULE 1871 It would take volumes to describe in detail the martyrdom of Alsace-Lorraine under the domination of Germany. I can enumerate only a few of the acts and methods that have characterized German rule. The impartial reader will easily conclude that Alsatians are not made to live with Germans and that the return of their province to the mother country of France is the only possible solution of the Alsatian question with justice and equity.