France has turned fearful eyes to the north in recent months and watched German heavy industry--the life-blood of the Wehrmacht--blossom under careful tending of new American policy. But France's worries are not all founded in emotion, for sound Gallic sense recognizes the need for 19 million tons of coal this year while only 5 million tons are available. German heavy industry not only holds fears for the Frenchman in remembrance of things past, but also is the smelting furnace consuming the coal and coke needed for French recovery.

More than half of Europe's coal was hauled up from the mine-shafts of the Ruhr before the war, and Germany dominated Europe as a result. The Big Three recognized this when they met at Potsdam in August, 1945 and planned to refuel the European industrial machine with German coal. Heavy industry no longer would threaten Europe under the Potsdam proposals, for Allied nations had first call on Ruhr coal and would receive in addition 1,557 factories in reparations. Germany was to receive food in return for the coal and could maintain a not-too-proud existence as an agricultural and light industrial nation. But the Potsdam proposals never saw much action. Just as other parts of the agreement stalled before the ideological clashes of the great powers, so reparations and levelling of German industry melted in the heat of the East-West conflict; by February, 1947, only six of the 1,557 plants slated for reparation had been wholly removed.

Then Herbert Hoover set forth a plan that completely about-faced the American program for Germany. Heavy industries are no longer the scape-goat of post-war planning but receive the coal with which Potsdam had intended to bolster Allied countries, French recovery receives a staggering set-back under the new plan, for Germany now retains 79 percent of its own mined coal and the Saar mines fall far short of the production needed to smelt down Alsace Lorraine ore. France must either pay $22 per ton for American coal or do without the fourteen million tons her industries lack this year. Meanwhile the wisdom of building up German industry at this time becomes increasingly doubtful as each new report comes in from Europe. Ruhr miners, on a 4,000 calorie per day diet, are only producing half their pre-war output, though Saar miners on 3,800 calories maintain an 80 percent production rate. The fact that many of the heads of the coal as well as the iron and steel industries are known Nazis may account for this, and at the same time point up the dangers of a return of the Junker cartels that held power between the wars. Though the one ton of coal needed to refine three tons of ore might more easily be moved from the Ruhr to the Lorraine, announcement last Thursday that 682 plants have been removed from the reparations list indicates that traffic is still following in the other direction.