The Manchester Guardian of Thursday is to be heartily congratulated
upon its journalistic enterprise in being able to publish the full text of the report presented recently to the French Government (and not yet pub- lished in France) by M. Dariac, who was sent by M. Poincare as a Commissioner to report on the conditions and industry of the Rhine Province.
" The report (according to the Guardian's summary) urges that the French must keep a hold on the Rhine industries—' we cannot dream of abandoning this pledge,'—and that the province must be set up as an autonomous State under French and Belgian protection. The report claims that while the German State is unable to pay its debt the German industrialists are perfectly well able to, and can be made to by suitable pressure. We can cut them in two . . . and utterly disorganise their industry.' For this the continued occupation of the Rhineland, including Dussel- dorf, &c., is essential. So long as we maintain our present position on the Rhine we shall constitute a constant menace for the ten or twelve masters . . . of Germany.' The report concludes with proposals for the financial organisation of the Rhineland, the dismissal of the Prussian officials, and the convocation of an elected Rhenish assembly."
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