NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE situation on the Ruhr is full of doubt and difficulty.. In their new " civil " struggle the French and Germans seem to have reached a stage of dead- lock comparable to that of the trench-warfare after the battles of the Marne and Aisne in the late " military " war. We may believe that the first round is over. The French have occupied almost the whole of the great industrial zone and the Germans have certainly not succeeded in making their position untenable. On the other hand, the Germans have apparently succeeded beyond expectation in denying to the French either goods or cash—the avowed objects of the French invasion. No general strike has been attempted, but sporadic outbreaks in protest against particular French actions have been continuous and usually successful. For example, the employees of Dortmund South Railway Station who struck on Monday night returned to work only after obtaining the most remarkable conditions from the Freneh, including the prohibition of the posting of French troops on the line, the detraining of troops in the station and the arrest of German station officials. Most remarkable of all, they exacted the specific promise that the French would not divert coal trains. If this is typical of conditions in the Ruhr, what can the French be obtaining except a stoppage of those coal supplies they were already receiving ? Indeed, the German Government, we do not know with what truth, claim that this is so, and that the coal situation in Germany has been actually eased by the cessation of reparation deliveries.
