Professor Max Muller puts forward an idea which he thinks
will relieve conquest of much of its harshness. He would allow all Alsatians who desire to remain Frenchmen to live in Alsace as Frenchmen do in Berlin ; that is, as foreign residents, protected by the laws, but not entitled to the rights of citizens, and not obliged -to resign the citizenship of their own country. This would exempt one generation at least from the obligation of serving against France ; but it would exempt them at the price of destroying their 4 civic individuality," as Mr. Gladstone calls it, altogether. To become citizens again they must emigrate. Even while they remain, they must give up all control of municipal affairs to Ger- man hands, or those of the minority who Germanized themselves. The proposal seems to us much harsher than the alternative recently suggested, to include Alsace as a separate Dukedom, with -autonomy like that of Baden, in the Confederation. Of course, 'Strasburg would be garrisoned, like Rastadt, with Federal troops.
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