MURDERED INDUSTRIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 182, 28 April 1919, Page 8

MURDERED INDUSTRIES

SCENES AT ROUBAIX AND. TOURCOING

i WHY THE GERMANS MUSE/ ! PAY i . ;• (By/a Special , Correspondent of the I ■■•".';' ; "Morning Post") ; The "German" treatment' ■of.', the. 'cotton j end. woollen spinners ofTourcoing and [ Eoubak has been;' when compared with i their treatment of other industries; coini paratively mild. They merely .''requi.si- ! tioned" their, motors, such machinery as t they wanted and their bolting and theft'"brass, and. their copper. .To strip a spinning, machine of the brass bearings jin -which,tlie spindles work maybe.done jlα several ways. It may be done patii entlv and slowly by a skilled workman \ or it may be' done ruthlessly and swifti.ly by■ a'German soldier with-a , hammer. ! It , is , the difference, let us say; between J seduction an/ia - npe. in some cases the j Germans eeduced the spinning-jennies of ; Tourcoing, butin most cases the method' j wari more biutal and more violent. I The first factory I vieited—andl visit- ! Ed at random—belonged to a M. Robbe, J who was a wool-spinner, and had 6000 ! .spindles. Some of the machines were [ mere masses -of broken nnd lasting ! metal; the spindles of others were lying ;in heaps upon the floor, it seemed to I me that little or, nothing could be .done J with such'mao'hihery'as remained'." Ger- ; man soldiers had been in occupation, i and had wrenohed the wood from the floors for their fires, so that in some of the rooms the framework of the machines j rested on tho naked rafters.

1 , . The caretaker, a pathehcCfigure in his ; blue wept as he showed us the I damage they had done. Tho carding ; machines had possessed rollers of wood, ! end these rollers the soldiers tad hacked Ito pieces for their fires. For 30 kilos j of wood thfly had 1 destroyed a machine i vprth thousands of francs, He had of- ;, fered to carry in wood for "them if they ■ would only leave his beloved machines.' i Ibr answer they had thrown him i through, tho door into the yard. He i told ua his story piecemeal as we went • f'.om room to room of his factory. Ho i-had had fonr sons: three of them had I been killed in the war; the fourth, a i topple, was oleaning up the yard. How I .was he crippled? The Boehe had tried ito ■ force him to work. The boy had j tried to hide, and had crawled under a , wagon on a , little tramway line near by. I Hie pursuers had deliberately drawn the I wagon-over his foot, and broken ■ it. j "£ee sales.Bflches!" '■...■ ; 'Snoh was the state of M. Eobbe's faoi tones that they will have to bo renewed i from floor-7-in some cases there are-no ! floors left—to ceiling. And he had lost, ! 'besides, half a million kilos of wool ! which the Germans had taken from his i storehouses, i

j J . The Brewer and his Barrels. I ■ -Wβ next looked in upon a brewer of ; ffourcoing. This brewer—the ghost of a ! wry jolly fellow—was resourcefully patch- :' ing'together what'was left of his stockI in-trade. ■ The Germans had taken away ! his strainers, cooking pans, worms, and ! rpipes of copper and brass. But not all. j He chuckled as he showed us' he&ps of I. yerdigrised copper piping which he had i dugout of his-garden, and-a false pari tition behind which he had hidden a ■• good deal more. He showed us. also I several holes in his walls and floors ! where the 'Germans had searched. The ; fools had gone to the wrong place, he : explained; laughing ■ over it, as if it : were the best joke in the world. I Mountaigne, I think ibis,' warns the ; narrator that he should never tell an improbable story, .even if it happens to ,be true. The brewer disregarded this eagaoious iwxim, and.l must venture to : repeat his indiscretion. The occasion of (jit was his remark that the Germans had ! taken a large number of his barrels. I ■■ asked him-idly enough—what they did ; ,-vrith them, and he replied-in all sorious- : ness—that they were taken to the iriilii tary hospitals and filled with the ampui tated arms and legs and bloody dressings ■ of the wounded, and weTe then sent to : Germany. Why?- He did not know: ! he only kney that that was what the ! Germans did with some of his barrels. : Who told Mm? The men who took them 1 away. Did he ask us to, believe it? : Certainly, for women who worked in ' the hospitals also had told him,of .it: i they had seen thei barrels filled. ' : But to return. On the road between : Tourcoing and Roubaix. overlooking the ' ruined locks of a large canal, stood a : handsome factory with an English' name ' on it—the name of '.Richardson. ■■ I : thought I ought to see if Miy Richardson. had been given preferential , treatment.. ' It. was a largeplace/ which, had' employ- : ed 500 hands. It made draperies-.and '■ staffs , for covering furniture, -and treat- '■ ed wool and cottim from thread to cloth. ' The caretaker/took us over the place. Hβ showed us where the dynamos Had ' Jjaen;,they have, all been.taken away; !. Si- the belting ands electric ■'fixtures : were gone; .the.Moather.,had. .been ! pipped frotn,;tK rollers of the -carding ;• macYinesrrfoTir carding machines,' eight ; looms, two ■"effilancheuses;':;and"'.one ! "melangeu?V had, been, cameo , off to ■ : Germany, and all spare part? had been : taken with them; from. thb :. washing ! .. machines all the'copper had:been taken, : and he showed me the empty, tock soo- ' "ket of an enormous copper vat-that .must i have made bands for .many, a berman : shell. The Germans, being- short ot ! brushes, had stripped the brushing maJ Ss. As in the brewery, .there were ! holes in-tho brick .floor where the Geri mans had searched for,hidden parts. . ; I also looked in upon' a bleacheryin ■ Tourcoing. The owner told me he had '■■ lost besides' 45,000 kilos of copper and i all belting, 100,000 kilos of iron machinery .The machines" and , parts:,.-had , .been i wrenched from their places in the most j brutal fashion. The. who o interior was, sin fact, almost, a ruin. He told me that ! one of the many returns sentout by : the Germans invied him o say how tho I requisitions had been made. Some of 1 his neighbours had not dared to tell the '■■ truth but he had not minced matter He had received, in consequence, a visit '• from a German official-who had .been ' compelled to admit by the evidence ot, : liis senses that the. return was true. ' This list of inquisitions begins : to be--1 some wearisome. Let me end .them.,with '■ only one more, the cotton nulls, tlie 1 Motte Bo3sut cotton, mills of Eoubaix, ! a considerable factory of 50,000 spindles, ; which had employed seven hundred ' hands., The Germans had taken a boo : horse-power dynamo, and had thrown all ' its'complementary' machinery down into A the pit' below. ' One great hall on the ; ground floor they had been-forced to '■ clear of all its looms "within 24 hours' ' 'in order to make room for a German gar- ; oge They had succeeded m doing it, ! and had stored and jsaved the looms.

I Saving the Spindles. I But while all this had happened on the ! ground floor the owners had contrived to • save thespinning machinery above. 1 hey. '' told us with justifiable pnde something i of how they had done it. They hr.d con- • trived oven to save the brass bearings of ; their spindles, and <hey had kept all i ■ these 50,000 spindles, not. only clean but i lubricated during four years. How did i they get the lubricating oil? lho faer- ■ mans were accustomed to ijend round rei quisitions for 'oil r.t frequent intervals, ! and even took the oil cut of the lubrieat--1 ing chambers; but the management lmd : a secret .store of several barrels witn : which they replenished tlieir machinery. ' Besides tho.ren.uisition purties, maraud- ■' ing bands of German soldiers used to \ rove round the factories in search of hid- ' den belting and copper, and a watch ■ had to he kept day and night. Onco at least a-band of these thieves was prevented from entering by the sturdy night watchmen. The windows wero covered : with paper to prevent rny chance of ob- ■ eervation, and the Tnanngcment. worked stealthily at this vitnl task of cleaning and oiling heir acrdihg and spinning ■ machines. ' It whs no small thin? to have done, I thought, as I. looked over the two great • linils full of beautiful machinery nil ■ ehinin" and spotless, and covered with slu'ets of cotton. They hnd snved not '■ only their machinery; they had helped ! to save their workmen and their toivn i fri'ii iinivowsl ruin. They toid me that they had also saved their looms at their weaving factory at lira. .The Germans,-had, requisitioned ' the"fartor'v to make sacks, and had taken : d%vay 30,000 pieces from their storehouse. 1 They had also taken their dynamos, ; their shafting, their belts, and their copi per. But the looms remain. Orders had actually como for the looms to be taken i away; but they were not taken.—probably I tm waotjof time.

.How many, of the looms of Eoubai: have been taken I was not ablo to die cover; but it is certain that an ordoi was given to remove them all, and thai a large num'bor have been removed. Whei we consider also the destruction by nisi duo to idloness and the lack of oil, th( wrenching away of all leather and coppei parts, much of tha steel shafting and tin dynamos, wo may arrive at some con. coption of the prtsont state of thest mule of Eoubak-and Tourcoing. Onlj a comparative, few have been tqtallj destroyed, but all havo been so injured and mutilated that it must be_ some years beforo these towns resume in any measure of fullness their old busy indus trial life. The Summing Up. Let me now sum up the injuries done to the industries of Mile, Eoiibaix, and Totircoing as far as I was able to judge fjfim observation and reliable witnesses: The chemical industry: The Kallmann factories were t'iree in number, employing IJOO men in all. Their buildini? Slid machinery were worth a'bout ?5 million francs, their raw material IS millions. All the raw material wns taken, and oi tho three factories, tho Madoleine—covering 23 hectares of ground—the most important, was utterly destroyed. The Loos,factory was destined for destruction, and 100 mines were planted all over it; but in the hurry of evacuation thoy were not exploded. In tho Wattrelos factory, all lead, copper, bras.? ,n.nd a good deal of wooc was set on fire when the Germans loft, but the fire was put out More, the "building was entirely destroyed. I might add that tho company's factory near Ghent has been burnt. Tho other chemical, soap, and bleaching works round Lille have.been mostly destroyed. . . - Heavy engineering and machinery-mak-ing—all destroyed. Linen and Lisle thread industry—totally destroyed. ' Sugar industry-all factories dismantled. Browing—all copper fittings taken away and considerably injured. Woollen industry—all motors, all braes anl copper and belting and many loome taken. Cotton industry-all motors, all brass and copper, all belting .taken away. _ A considerable amount of other destruction. There are hardly any electric motors or engines left in and around those cities. Tha motora of tho Lille Tramway Company were taken «way. All stocks of raw material and of manufactured' goods were taken. A- great part of the capital of the mercantile oommunity was extracted by fines and levies. Many of the workmen, male , and female, were taken as prisoners into Germany, and many will never return. Such is the state in whiqli Germany ha 3 left the industries of 'this gieat Department of the North—once the busy hive of French industry.