The Ruhr

Action and Counter-Action, Politics and Pressure

Policy. The French and Belgian Prime Ministers, M. Poincare and M. Theunis, met at Paris. They did not, as was generally reported, decide to discountenance Loucheur's efforts at an agreement with Britain. The absence of any allusion to his recent visit to England in communiques is taken to be indicative of the French and Belgian Governments' desire to supress peace talk until such a time as Germany has made an offer of settlement or has admitted defeat and stopped passive resistance. For these reasons both France and Belgium decided to increase pressure in the Ruhr and to refrain from publishing their terms to Germany.

Poincare. In the Chamber of Deputies, attempts were made to make Premier Poincare a political scapegoat. The Right charged him with weakening because he appeared to agree to Loucheur's plan to effect an agreement with Britain. The Moderate Part, in which Loucheur and the industrial interests are represented, pressed him for an immediate move toward an understanding with Great Britain. The Left, of course, has always been antagonistic to the Government's policy in the Ruhr. There is no doubt that Poincare's position is in danger.

Germany. The Germans met the Franco-Belgian decision to tighten their hold on the Ruhr with a counter policy of increased passive resistance. Reports from the front show that the workers are still determined to resist the French and threatened openly to cease work in the mines and let the blame fall on the French for the damage. Sabotage increased considerably, the Germans indulging themselves in a perfect orgy of blowing up railway track and destroying several other ways of communication, notably the Rhine-Herne canal and the Buer railway bridge. The temporary incarceration of Herr Stinnes at Scharnhorst was greeted at first with some alarm, but when it became known that he had been released, the whole matter was treated as a great joke.

A speech of Baron von Rosenberg in the Reichstag was the most spectacular event of the week, but it failed to show a flaw in the German armor.