France not only needed this coal, she had a strong claim to it. The chief French mines, those of Lens and Valenciennes on the Belgian border, had been in German hands for more than four years and had been deliberately flooded and rendered unworkable by the occupying armies. The period of restoration was variously estimated; it has since been fixed by German engineers at eight years at the least, and the total property loss has been estimated at eighty per cent. For this definite reparation in kind could be exacted in the Saar field. But that was not all. Germany had agreed to compensate for all damage done to the civilian population and their property, yet conservative estimates of the bill for general reparation in northern France far exceeded any available means of payment on Germany’s part, even when the payment was spread over a long series of years and thus reduced in actual restorative power. Proposals to take over German enterprises like railroads or factories were impracticable, not only because of the political difficulties of operating them on German territory but because this would interfere with Germany’s ability to earn her annual payments of indemnity. The Saar mines, on the contrary, lay on the outer edge of Germany; they were already linked with the industries of Lorraine, henceforth French; they were, with two exceptions (Frankenholz and Hostenbach), the property of the Prussian and Bavarian states. Always supposing that they were properly credited on the reparation account, no better means of payment could be found for a debt which Germany had agreed to pay. Accordingly, it was agreed in principle, late in March 1919, that the full ownership of the coal mines of the Saar basin should pass to France, to be credited on her claims against Germany for reparation. With full and unencumbered property in the mines the treaty gave the fullest economic facilities for their exploitation, including the acquisition of all subsidiaries and dependencies, freedom of transportation and sale, exemption from other than local taxes, and full mobility of labor. The mines were placed within the French customs union, and payment in connection with their operation might be made in French money. The elementary justice of this transfer of the mines to France has become increasingly clear in the past few months. Out of the crumbling uncertainties of reparation for war damage, France secures one solid asset, and she secures it in a form absolutely essential for the revival of her wrecked industries. Those who have urged that she ought to have been satisfied with a coal contract instead, a claim for delivery rather than mines to be worked, have been refuted by the decreasing production of coal in Germany and the growing unwillingness of the Germans to make the deliveries of coal to which they obligated themselves in the treaty. A mine in hand is worth many contracts to deliver.