FRENCH BATTLESHIPS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3660, 23 December 1920, Page 4

FRENCH BATTLESHIPS

* j EESTOEATION WOEK. While he was in the Old World, Mr C. L. Duinan paid a visit . some of the war ' devastated dis» tricts of France. In the course of an interview with the Wanganui Herald, ho said that the area so affected was put down, by the French "'"at 7,500,000 acres, region of which he saw most wrasthat near Eheirns. He was favour, ably impressed; by the work done by the French Government in reinstating the country The problem was being vigorously grappled with, and wonderful result's had already (been obtained. The process of restoration was much further forward than he had expected to find it. A consider-* able proportion of the battlefields was back into cultivation, and ‘lab., our battalions w r ere converting most of what remained. Eight motor tractors were ploughing on the outskirts of Eheims at the time he was there. The business portion of the city was in a shocking state of ruin' from the German incendiary shells. One portion of the countrywide so blasted by the war that it seemed beyond hope of reclamation was the: Chemin des Dames, where the land had been so-Closely entrenched and churned up by artillery fire, and so much barbed wire and other debris had become mingled with the (soil, that to rehabilitate it for cultivation would cost more than the land was worth.

While he was in Franee the German Government had just eommen. ced to send cows to the devastated area which they stripped of animals during the war. This restoration wa's, of course, in compliance , with the Treaty. The French bitterly complained that many of these animals died immediately on arrival. It was declared that they had 'Ween fed on hay with which had foeertmixed steel spikes. In the devastated district the restoration of the villages and towns: destroyed during the lighting was; going to foe a problem^

The housing question was .now one of the most difficult to deal with, and .to repair the damage would take years, if it is ever completed at all. Some of the towns and villages have been. absolutely destroyed, wiM probably never be rebuilt.