some of my colleagues was that the great industrial regions
of Germany known as the Saar and the Ruhr with their very-
important deposits of coal and ore should be totally transformed 
into a non-industrialized area of agricultural land.
 
 
 I cannot conceive of such a proposition being
either possible or effective and I can see enormous general
evils coming from an attempt to so treat it. During the
past eighty years of European history this portion of Germany
was one of the most important sources of the raw materials
upon which the industrial and economic livelihood of Europe
was based. Upon the production which came from the raw           
materials of this region during those years, the commerce of      
Europe was very largely predicated, Upon that production
Germany became the largest sources of supply to no less than
ten European countries, ,viz: Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,      
Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Romania, and
Bulgaria; and the second largest source of supply to Great
Britain, Belgium, and France. By the same commerce, which
in large part arose from this production, Germany also became     
the best buyer or customer of Russia, Norway, Holland, Belgium,
Switzerland, Italy, and Austria,Hungary; and the second best