FRANCE TO-DAY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 196, 14 May 1920, Page 7

FRANCE TO-DAY

LIFTS HERSELF FROM ftJJINS STRICKEN CITIES ! L wish everyone could see Northern France, particularly the Chateau-Thierry-Soissons-Rheims area (writes Eliot Wadsworth, special correspondent of the "New York Post"). The change'from conditions of the past two years ia almost unbelievable. In 1918, just before the great battle of PHcaruy, this country was filled: with Trenoh troops, batteries, and transport awaiting the expected spring drive of the Huns. In 1919 you could not move half a nine without finding Americans in ones, twos, or hundreds. To-day you can drive miles without seeing a, uniform; the only evidence of an array ie in the great' piles of shells, barbed'wire, and debris along the roads, where they are being gathered uj> by squads of Indo ; Cliinese workers. ■.( Instead of a constant flow of motor transport, open cars, staff limousines, motor-cycle side cars, there is now only an occasional peasant cart, with its big wheels and string of horses, lumbering along the road. The cracking whip of tSe driver is the. only noise which disturbs the quiet and peace of the countryside. You may motor for an hour along the perfect roads without meeting a car. Shortage of gasolene and difficulties of xailroad transportation, which interferes wUh jiropor distribution, make motoring Tn Prance to-day no simple .pastime. - ■ ■ In all this'territory of the ChateauTlfierry 6alient thero is hardly a houso. untouched by shell fire and thero is hardly a field untouched by the plough. The people have coiSt) back. They are living in cellars or small wooden bar-racks-the most 'temporary or emergency quarters answer..the purpose—and every hour is given to tho land. Houses and barns will come in future years. They must wait until tho land has dons its best.' Shell holes and trenches arc filled; barbed wire, by the ton is rolled up. Across tho fields, as far as the eye can reach, may bo seen the lines of big French horses or yokes of four or six oxen steadily plodding along. Every member of the family is ablo to help. Guiding the team, the plough,'or tho harrow is within the capacity of old and young alike. . These people are pioneers once more, but in quite a different way from the American pioneers. They come back to a country with perfect roads, wellestablished boundaries, the railroad, telegraph,' telephone; motor truck and many other facilities. Their lot is not, that of the American pioneer. It is the comparison with what they have lost that hurts.' Houses, capital, much of their live stock have gone. • All the heirlooms handed down from past' generations have been destroyed. The prosent generation staife again to build for the future. These people are infinitely better off thin the peasants en this land of one hundred or even fifty years ago. It will not take long to build up from the soil a civilisation equal to or better than that Which has been wrecked by tho German invasion. That they are going to do it, there can be no doubt. In the cities the problem is quite different. Reims had a population of 120,M0 before the war. Now it, is estimated that 00,000 people find lodging and a living in the ruins. Practically not a house or building is untouched by shell fire., A very large number hro destroyed. Exposure 'to tho weather for three or ' four years has added to the damage. Temporary feeding has made some houses and hotels habitable. Around the station are many wooden barracks. Electrio lights are again intermittently available. Gangs of men are stringing wire for the dilapidated street railway not jet in operation. . Sightseers aTO everywhere and the souvenir vendors are doing a thriving trade. Tho cathedral in its majestic ruin is photographed hundreds of times a day. But there is not a true beginning for the rehabilitation of a splendid prosperous' city, and the future is not as deal- ns is that of the farmer on Iris own land. All the complicated dotails of industry must be built up. Labour, capital, machinery, markets for produot, housing must slowly lit together to malco a, city over again. Patching and a tourist trade are not enough. Soisrons is uioro wrecked than Reims. Fisincs, still worse, is a souvenir of good American artillery practice, as a French officer expressed it. These cities i:vd. many others in the war area all tha way ,Jo the Channel make the complete revival of France a work of many years and much saving and hard work. This is tho coM gray dawn of Ine morning after. The excitement :s over; the inn'sic of war has dud away. Thero must bo many a headache, as veil as heartache, among ~ these plodding, (struggling men nd women, who labour from dawn to dark. There is littlo of joy in. the present, and yet they are steadily at work among the crosses on which hung tho blue helmets in honourable memory of men who saved this land for "those who have come back to build again.