M. Besancon, Deputy for Metz to the German Reichatag, drew
on Monday a pathetic picture of the consequences of annexa- tion to that city. There are 3,000 empty homes, and the value of property has fallen from 90,000,000 marks to 40,000,000 marks, while the failures increase every year, yet the tax assess- ments remain the same. Thousands of " optants " are being ex- pelled, amidst "a despair of which you cannot form an idea.- M. Besancon entreated his hearers not to pass such distress coldly by, and had the courage to propose that Germany should restore Alsace-Loraine, where national sentiment, as the elec- tions showed, remained unchangeable, and thus carry out a great act of national reconciliation. "Then would all the burdensome war preparations cease," and nations cease to distrust one another. No reply was made to this speech, but it is a symptom of a change of feeling in Germany that it could be made at all without cries of treason. Venice had to wait for eighty years.
