Solved at Last

Ever since the division of Charlemagne's empire, France and Germany have quarreled over the tiny but valuable Saar. Last week, without fanfare, West Germany's Konrad Adenauer and France's Guy Mollet solved the problem to the satisfaction of all concerned, including the 987,650 German-speaking, German-thinking Saarlanders themselves. The Germans gained politically, the French economically. The terms:

P: By Jan. 1, 1957 the Saar will be politically integrated into Germany though the French will have diminishing economic rights until 1960.

P: During the next 25 years the French will get 90 million tons of coal from the Saar's richest field at Warndt; 66 million tons they will mine themselves, the remainder will be mined by the Saarlanders, delivered to France and paid for at cost in French francs.

P: At a cost of some $130 million the German government, the RheinischWestfalisches Power Co., and France will build a canal on the Moselle connecting France's Lorraine mines and mills with the Ruhr and export markets.

In Germany everyone, including Adenauer's opposition, was happy. For the French, concluded Le Monde, it was "the only reasonable solution."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.