The following, which appeared in the London _Daily Mail_ in reply to an article in that paper, throws some further light on the points elaborated in this chapter. The _Daily Mail_ critic had placed Alsace-Lorraine as an asset in the German conquest worth $330,000,000 "cash value," and added: "If Alsace-Lorraine had remained French, it would have yielded, at the present rate of French taxation, a revenue of $40,000,000 a year to the State. That revenue is lost to France, and is placed at the disposal of Germany."
Thus, if we take the interest of the "cash value" at the present price of money in Germany, Alsace-Lorraine should be worth to the Germans about $15,000,000 a year. If we take the other figure, $40,000,000. Suppose we split the difference, and take, say, 20. Now, if the Germans are enriched by 20 millions a year--if Alsace-Lorraine is really worth that income to the German people--how much should the English people draw from their "possessions"? On the basis of population, somewhere in the region of $5,000,000,000; on the basis of area, still more--enough not only to pay all English taxes, wipe out the National Debt, support the army and navy, but give every family in the land a fat income into the bargain. There is evidently something wrong.
Does not my critic really see that this whole notion of national possessions benefiting the individual is founded on mystification, upon an illusion? Germany conquered France and annexed Alsace-Lorraine. The "Germans" consequently "own" it, and enrich themselves with this newly acquired wealth. That is my critic's view, as it is the view of most European statesmen; and it is all false. Alsace-Lorraine is owned by its inhabitants, and nobody else; and Germany, with all her ruthlessness, has not been able to dispossess them, as is proved by the fact that the matricular contribution (_matrikularbeitrag_) of the newly acquired State to the Imperial treasury (which incidentally is neither 15 millions nor 40, but just over five) is fixed on exactly the same scale as that of the other States of the Empire. Prussia, the conqueror, pays _per capita_ just as much as and no less than Alsace, the conquered, who, if she were not paying this $5,600,000 to Germany, would be paying it--or, according to my critic, a much larger sum--to France; and if Germany did not "own" Alsace-Lorraine, she would be relieved of charges that amount not to five but many more millions. The change of "ownership" does not therefore of itself change the money position (which is what we are now discussing) of either owner or owned.