FRANCE TO-DAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2140, 15 June 1920, Page 4

FRANCE TO-DAY.

LIFTS HERSELF FROM RUINS

STRICKEN CITIES

I wish everyone could see Northern France, particularly the Cha-teau-Thierry-Soissons-Rheims urea (writes Eliot Wadsworth, special corespondent of the New York Post). The change from conditions of the past two years is almost unbelievable. In 1918, just before the'great battle of Picardy, this country was tilled .with French troops, batteries, and transport awaiting the expected spring drive of the Huns. In 1919 you could not move half a mile Avithout finding Americans in ones, twos, or hundreds. To-day you can drive miles without seeing a uniform; the only evidence of an army is in the great piles of shells, barbed Avire, and debris along the roads, where they are being gathered up by stpiads of Indo-Chinese workers. Instead of a constant l!ow oi motor transport, open cars, limousines, and motor-cycles and side curs, there is noAv only an occasional peasant cart, Avith its big wheels ami siring of horses, lumbering along the road. The cracking whip of the driver is'the only noise Avhich disturbs the quiet and peace of. the counlryside. You may motor for an hour along the perfect roads Avirhont meeting a car. Shortage ol gasoline and difficulties of railway transportation, which interferes Avith proper distribution, make motoring in France to-day no simple pastime.

In all this territory of the Clm-luau-Thiery salient there is hardly a house untouched by shell fire, and there is hardly a field untouched by the plough'. The people have come hack. They are living in cellars or small wooden barracks —the most

temporary or emergency quarters ans Aver the purpose —and cA - ery hour is given to the land. Houses and

barns will come in future years. They must Avail until the land has done its best.

Shell holes and trenches are filled; barbed Avire by the ton is rolled up. Across the fields, ns far'as the eye can reach, may be seen the lines of big French horses or yokes of four or six oxen steadily plodding along.' Every member of the family is able to help. Guiding the team, the plough, or the harrpAV, is Avithin the capacity of old and young alike.

These people are pioneers once more, Iml in quite a different Avay from the American pioneers. They, come hack to a country with perfect roads, avcll -established boundaries, the roalroad, telegraph, telephone, motov 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 II '0 stock, have gone. All the heirlooms handed down from past generations have been destroyed. The present generation starts again to build for the future. -These people are infinitely better off than the peasants on 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 Hum that which has been wrecked by the German invasion. That they are going to do it, there can be no doubt. In the cities the problem is quite different. Rheims had a population of 120,000 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 lire. A very lunge number arc destroyed. Exposure to the Aveal her for three or four years has added to the damage. Temporary boarding has made some houses and hotels habitable. Aiound the station are many Avooden barracks. Electric lights are again intermittently available. Gavgs of men are stringing Avire for the dilapidated street raihvay not yet in opera tion. Sightseers arc overyAvhcre, and the souvenir vendors are doing a. thriving trade. The 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 tlie future is not as clear as is that of the farmer on his oAvn land. All the complicated details of industry must lie built up. Labour, capital, machinery, markets for product, housing, must slowly fit together to make a city over again. Patching and a tourist trade are not enough. Soissons is more Avrecked than Rheims. Fismes, still Averse, is a souvenir of good American artillery practice, as a French officer expressed it. These cities, and many others in the war area all the avuv to tire Channel, make the complete revival of France a Avork of many years and much saving and hard Avork. This is the cold gray dawn of the morning after. The excitement is OA*er; the music of Avar has died aAvay. There must he many a headache, as Avell as heartache, among these plodding, struggling men and Avomeii, avlio labour from daAvn to dark. There.is little of joy in the ■present, and yet they are steadily at work among the crosses on Avhieh hang the blue helmets in honourable memory of men who saved this land for those avlio have come back to build again.