The Entente Powers, therefore, refused to consider any revision of the Treaty of 1839 detrimental to Holland as within the province of the treaty to be imposed upon Germany, but left the matter to direct negotiations between the two countries. This, of course, amounted to a refusal to consider the Belgian suggestions at all. The Franco-Belgian frontier was also left to the French and Belgians. The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg was detached from the German customs union, of which it had been a member since 1842, and from the German railway control, which had been exercised since 1870. The political status of the duchy and its future economic connections were to be decided by a referendum to the Luxemburg electorate. The fourteen so-called Walloon cantons of the Rhineland had become thoroughly Germanized during the nineteenth century. Possibly this fact in itself would not have deterred the Paris Conference from giving favorable consideration to Belgian claims. But the British, uncertain of the future affiliations of Belgium, did not want to undertake the burden of defending her against German irredentism, should she become their ally; and they did not want to make Belgium too powerful, should she become the ally of the French. The French, on the other hand, had their own program for the Rhineland. Belgium, therefore, was given only two of the fourteen cantons. The Treaty of Versailles provided that Malmédy and Eupen should be occupied by Belgium, and that the Council of the League of Nations should decide the final disposition of these two border districts. The inhabitants were given a certain time in which to record on registers provided for that purpose their desire to remain with Germany. Few of them dared to risk this step, which would have meant confiscation of their homes and expulsion, although none of them wanted to become Belgians. This farcical scheme for preventing a plebiscite was successful. The council gravely decreed that Malmédy and Eupen, in view of the fact that no serious protestation was offered in the way provided for by the Treaty of Versailles, should be allotted to Belgium “by the will of the inhabitants”! Aside from Malmédy and Eupen, Belgium gained the right to connect Antwerp with the Rhine by canal, and her war debts to the Allies were transferred to Germany’s account. In the reparations payment, a priority of two and a half billion gold marks was granted Belgium, representing the reimbursement of the extortions designated as war taxes that had been exacted by Germany during the four years of military occupation. The Belgians also received admirable help from the Entente Powers in getting back the machinery, railway rolling-stock, cattle, and other booty taken out of the country during the war.