THE MURDERED INDUSTRIES OF FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 244, 9 July 1919, Page 7

THE MURDERED INDUSTRIES OF FRANCE

A special correspondent of the "Morning Post," who has beeii through the regions of the fighting Una in France, speaks of these lands left as a. wilderness 1)/ the receding tide of German barbarism :—

"If it was awful in war it is even more awful in peace. It has no inhabitants— save, occasional garrisons of soldiers, gangs of prisoners working on tho road?, 'nnd a few returning peasants. You may travel in it for miles without seeing man or beast. The fields are without cattlei tho towns and villages without peojite. Jlflgpies, crows, and' rats seem to be the only creatures that have survived the war in any numbers. Throughout larger stretches of country and m considerable towns I could see no other life. And to those who have memories of this country before the war, the contrast between now and then adds tenfold to the desolation. For this was once amongst the bnsiest, the richest, the happiest, the most pleasant and beautiful countries in Europe.'

. . . How sninll am: petty seem tlio quarrels of Capital and Labour in face of this common interest which both have in, I lie .industry 'by which they oxist. By it they live; if it fails, they can no longer'live. And this was part of Germany's tremendous crime against Franca —that she aimed and struck her blow not at tho armed forces of Franco only, nor even against a single generation; hut against 'the future and the very means fry which tho peoplo of France found their livelihood. Tho capital loss of such a'destruction might bo widely computed; but who shall estimate the loss in terms of usefulness to the world, of happy industrious life, of skill in industry and service to civilisation, destroyed by this act of savage and envy?"