INDUSTRY IN PEACE RECONSTRUCTION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 162, 3 April 1919, Page 5

INDUSTRY IN PEACE RECONSTRUCTION

THE OUTLOOK REVIVED

PROCESS OF RECOVERY

Considerable attention has been paid to tho destruction by Germany of industrial plants in Northern France and Belgium. It is li remarkable testimony to Flench industrial leadership and to the persevering qualities of the French people (says tho bulletin of the New York Guarantee Trust Company) that thev were able to build a now industrial plant, with a larger capacity in some lines than before the war, in suuthern and central Franco.

hi July, 1917, the Department of Livl.our of France made an investigation of labour conditions. The figures published by the bureau do not include mines, quarries, railroads, tramways, and those establishments which were under the supervision of the Minister of War and Marine., Out of 52,278 establishments, which made reports, only 77 per cent., or HiMl, were in operation in July, 1917, while the total number of employees at work in July, 1917, wos j,559,393, as compared with 1,534,959 before the war. In August, 1914, only 34 per cent, of pre-war employees were at work, which shows the extent to which mobilisation at Kl'st affected industries. But since then material improvements havo been made. To what extent changes have been made since July, 1917, it is impossible to ascertain at present. In addition. Alsace and Lorraine have important industrial plants, particularly in iron and textile lines, which were not impaired by the war, and which will now be adjied to the existing plant of France.

Except in the matter of supplying certain raw materials and some machinery, this industrial capacity of 'France will largely care for her immediate reconstruction demands. Many students are inclined to believe that the destroyed industrial plants will not be rebuilt to pre-war capa.ci.ty, at least not until some period of time has elapsed and the trade of France has expanded so that there will ba need for additional industrial capacity. Belgium from an industrial standpoint is not in as favourable a position as France because the major portion of the country wiu under the control of the Germans. She his need for replenishing the material equipment of her factories and to rebuild them before she can be in a position to produce those materials that will be needed for further reconstruction. Fortunately, her rich African possession in the Congo region gives her an important source of raw materials. It is remarkable that development work should have been continued, during tho war to such an extent that last, year the Belgian Congo produced 40,030 tons of copper. The Germans will be required undoubtedly to rebuild as much of Belgium as practicable. England and the United States, however, will share in the rebuilding of the heroic little

kingdom. Tho results of the American Civil War, as contrasted with the Napoleonic wars, point the way to safe mpthods in making the readjustment from a war to a peace basis. The returning soldiers of 186.5 instead of constituting a surplus labour supply on the market, settled on the land of ho Middle West, which was being opened by the westward extension of the transcontinental railroads. The <"ivelopment of those new areas created a new market for industrial products, which no* only kept busy the industrial capacity built up during the war, but made, necessary the material expansion of the country's industrial plant. In the fifteenyear period following the close of the war the volume of business more than doubled. This was. in considerable part, due to tho growth of population coincident with the settlement of our undeveloped areas.. But this influence was world-wide in its effect, as indicated by the foot thnt • England's volume of business'increased; 75 per cent, in the period of 1850-1880. ■'".■•.