The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1921. RECONSTRUCTION IN FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 131, 26 February 1921, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1921. RECONSTRUCTION IN FRANCE

Most countries battling with problems of reconstruction and after-war readjustment have something to learn from France. Indeed, it seems well within the facte to say that- in this respect I’ran.e is setting the world as fine an example as when she took her stand against the onrush of the German armies in 1914. Comparatively little is heard about tho wonderful strides the French people have already made in repairing the hav-oc of war. Much greater prominence is given to political and other events, which often enough bear little reference to the main currents of national life. The instability of French politics is notorious, and tho country has its share of the extremists who consider that violent revolution is of all things most to be desired, but those who speak from a standpoint of intimate knowledge declare that the nation as a nation is acquitting itself splendidly in the tremendous task of reconstruction. In considering what has been accomplished it of course has to be remembered that when the Armistice was declared France found herself in a position that might almost have been regarded as desperate. A million and a half men, the flower of her manhood, had been sacrificed, and ten of her richest industrial and agricultural departments had been systematically devastated by a barbarous enemy intent on achieving her permanent ruin. These facts, it has been well said, provide an answer to the charge sometimes made even in Britain and other friendly countries that France is unduly insistent upon exacting the letter of her bond from Germany where reparation is concerned. Against this background the progress already made by the people of France in the work of restoration stands out as in every way worthy of respect and admiration. The salient facts are detailed bv Mr. John Bell in tho course of an interesting article in the Fortnightly lieview. In- the most hopeful estimate decades will pass before France recovers completely from the effects of the German invasion—M. Millerand, now President of the Republic, puts the period of recovery at from twenty-live to thirty years —but already in the devastated areas railways have been reconstructed, half of the land that was mined with shell-holes and craters has been brought baqk k> cultivation, and three-fourths of the demolished factories have been rebuilt. “Of nearly three million acres of land devastated, 66 per cent, have been prepared for crops and 50 per cent, sown, and of four thousand and ninety-six factories and workshops destroyed, over three thousand were at work, wholly or partially, by August of last year, employing 42.9 per cent, of their hands, which in 1914 numbered 757,385. Germany is expected to repair the ravages caused by her lust of war, but for the moment the French taxpayers, and private initiative in the form of co-operative and individual effort, are footing the bill.” Up to July last year, more than twenty milliards of francs (eight hundred millions sterling l/v the normal rate of exchange) had been spent out of tho public funds on reconstruction. In some sections of the work results are far distant. Germany robbed France of two-thirds of her coal supplies by destroying mines in the Pas do Calais' and the Nord, and though the work of repair is proceeding apace, it cannot bo completed in less than five years. Even then the output will be millions of tons below that of’the pre-jvar period. With such tasks in hand it is no cause- for wonder that the French people arc resolutely intent on exacting the fullest possible reparation from the nation which as a matter of deliberate policy ravaged and wasted their territory. A full answer to all that German spokesmen have recently advanced m the hope of whittling down the reparation terms imposed by the Allies is to be- found in a comparison of tho relative circumstances of Germany and France. Labouring heroically to restore her ruined departments, France is demanding no more than her bare due. Germany, with her industrial organisation a’’-d equipment intact, is in no position to nlcad poverty or inability to pay the compensation which justice demands. It is a matter of agreement between the Allies that Germany should be helped back to her place in the economic field, as it is in the interest of creditors that their debtors should do good b/usiness. “Only,” as M Millerand said some time ago, “in wishing tn help the beaten aggressor, do not let us lose sight of the victims.” The insincerity of German protests against the Allied terms appears in many ways, but nowhere more clcarlv than in the current scale of French and German taxation. According to the latest available figures, published in the Fconom-ixt, taxation per head amounts to nearly three times as much in France as in Germany. Reniemberine- the vast amount- of devastation still to be made good in France, and Germany’s relatively easy circumstances, this comparison of taxation burdens in itself demonstrates that Germany as yet is not seriously attempting to meet her obligations to France and other Allied nations. No doubt this aspect of the matter will ho f J u lv emphasised by the Allied representatives at the London Conference.