A RHINE FLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 217, 7 June 1919, Page 9

A RHINE FLIGHT

THE OCCUPIED ZONE SEEN FROM THE AIR. (By a Correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian.") In an hour's flying you can mako a complete air-tour of the British bridgehead on the Rhine. It "is a rich land, sleek, and well-groomed, that slips away beneath the aeroplane—no bald patches or negleoted tangles, but combed carefully. everywhere into furrows of cultivation. Neither hedge nor fence broaks the great stretches of fertile ground that are brown from the plough or gleaming with .the first green of early crops, a patchwork of prosperity. Even, the woods that vary the monotony of tillage are as tamed as any orchard, Rectangles of open space, piled with, neat rows of logs, elipw where tho green-uniformed official foresters have been lately felling, and other patches of light green among the dark woods are made up of wolldrilled saplings of spruce and fir, nothing running wild. The German Government during the last fifty years systematised Nature, just as it classified souls. How well among these wooded heights stand the steel-working towns that lie within our area—"cities set on a hill." Tfcey equal Sheffield in beauty of surroundings, and far surpass her in cleanliness. Flying above tnem one sees quite clearly how the Allies Ijave brought upon themselves some of their local worries in this area, by drawing the boundary of our occupied zone arbitrarily in a. neat geometric ourvo right through tho middle of' this group of sister towns. For these neighbouring manufacturing centres are all interdependent. Solingen makes part of a plough, Elberfeld finishes it. Brit since between theso two lies tho frontier of our area of occupation, out of which no commodities are allowed to pass, the result is .that the collaboration is interrupted, and unemployment, with its accompanying possibilities of trouble, sets in at both places. At' one end of our area you fly over aristocratic, little eigh(*Qstl;-century Bonn, a heirloom of the days when Germany, had tho affection of Europe as a country of poets, thinkers, and composors. At tho other is Dusseldorf, whoso broad streets, heavy stucco buildings, vast railway sidings,' imposing bridges, colossal Kaiser monuments, are tlite expression of tho modern German spirit of bsundless commercial and Imperial ambition,'that has made*her an Ishmael among the nations. Over tho docks- of the Dusseldorf "Rhine-Haven," we turned to fly back up the rivor that has seen more history made on her banks than any other stream. ' The pilot planed ' lower and lower, till the needle of the altimeter dropped below 100 feet. _In| mid-stream the aeroplane skimmed _ just above tho swirling Rhine, mast-high, with the Dutch paddle-tngs plugging up against the current with their long flat barges in tow. Soon tho British Army will have opened another means of communicationl by this way of the Rhino to England;

Then, still at 30 feet, the aeroplane turned oft from the river across country towards tho twin spires of Cologno Cathedral, a flying landmark as unmistakable as tho Eiffel Tower. A German peasant, ploughing in a field, stopped and took off his hat as wo soared i past him. _ Last summer, when tho Ithinolanders lived in dread 'of British aeroplanes, it would have seemed to them indeed a strange prophecy that by the neWyear they would be looking up from their work to salute them. .