NEW ZEALAND HIGH COMMISSIONER.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1920, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND HIGH COMMISSIONER.

A yiSIT TO FRANCE, THE DESOLATED REGIONS. GRAVES OP NEW ZEALANDERS. (By Sir Thomas Mackenzie, High Commissioner for New Zealand). PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. Oil September 9„ I, left London for Paris, in order to sign there the- peace treaty, with Austria. After-landing at Boulogne, we had a very pleasant run by train to the .French-capital, and saw on the way traces of defences which had been put up against the Germans, and several villages which had Buffered front bombs. ' .

. Next., morning-we proceeded fa Si. Germain. „A number of. people were on , Jook-out, aoid) at certain intervals, soldiers were stationed) some mounted Ml.fitffers;, on .foot.. v The Eala.cft.of St. Germain, is, a famou3,..o)d building, and it was Bere that Raines it. .of England made his home after the revolution of "14538i-Itr is now ns'ed as a niti'se.um. -Tie delegates-who had been appointed io sign the treaty gathered together ,ÜBderv,the ; Monsieur Clem- : enceajj, sujd Dr., Rennei, .the Austrian ,4?leg?rte ?W<Utaft entered- the room last. ;He seemed to be a good;natured man and smiled very pleasantly, Aifter a brief .speech by Monsieur Cieitienceau, !we -proceeded to Sign' in the following Qrdexc United .States, Great Britain, i-Eranco/,ltaly,. Japan, Be]gium,and the othe.rTowers,inalphabetical order. Rul.mania,and .Serbia, did npt sign.. At. the l.csnclußion pf the .ceremony^which,.lasted from 10 o'clock to 11.15,1 motored .back to Paris, and after lupch visited Versailles, the- palace of which cost something I like £2<l > Qoo;QoQ.ih money at that time, I and- which, of course, represents a very I much, larger, amount in present-day wealth.

GRAVES 6F NEW ZEALANDERS. . As I am a. memher of the Graves Commission, I, thought my visit to France .would afford me th& opportunity of seeing something of the condition of the soldiers' graves, and. especially of the graves of New Zealanders, as a great deal had been said as to the slowness of operations. On September 12, therefore, I took train for Amiens, and, on arriving there, met a representatives of the War, Graves Commission. With him I proceeded to Bapaume by car, passing through Albert, in .which.not one building had been left. standing, and the country whicS formed the British: line in 1916, After visiting a number of cemeteries in, the neighbourhood, we motored to St. Omer, which was to be our headquarters during the visit, through Arras, St. Pol, and Aire. On- the- subsequent day we. visited, practically the whole of the British front as.it was until March 1918, including Bethune, Lens, the Vimy Badge,. Souchez, -Bailleul, Locre, Kemmel Hill, Messines, Ypres, St. Eloi, Hill 60, Gheluvelt, Hooge; Passchendaele, Poperinghe, and FohlogneFrom every prominent hill a scene of desolation presents itself as far as the eye can reach. In some part's not a single tree is left, and, indeed, on areas covering, something like 100,000 acres. The,cities ate a mass of debris, where irpnwork, furniture, woodwork, and remnants of every form, of material, are churned through each other. In many towns and villages huts and restaurants are being erected, and men, women, and children are to be seen. The wooden buildings which have been put up, and tha.oharred and dead forests are, in some respects, not unlike- the newer settlements of the bush districts of the ftorth Island' of New Zealand, where railway i works are in progress, and forests have !been destroyed by fire, only the earth |is not rent and torn to pieces. ; On some of the battlefields there are ■stifl great quantities of ammunition, such, as shelis, cartridges, portions of guns, etc., mixed with every kind of rubbish, and in some-places ammunition is being fired off. Quite a number of tanks put out of action are lying about and many bi? guns. The curio hunter, were he on the scene, and had wfliripTit wagons to carry them away, would find no end of treasures. The Bosche does not, seem to have had the slightest respect for either churches or cemeteries, for all came within his bombing mania. In almost every town and village the church is in ruins, or most seriously damaged. In the civil cemetery at Bethune, -wliere there had been many fine monuments, bombs had. fallen, amongst the tombs, leaving in their wake great holes and, ruins, and. here and there bones were lying. The contrast between' tSe soldiers' cemetery at Bailleul and the civilian cemetery was very marked, as no attempt at restoration had been-made by the French'. people, but the grave? of the soldiers,, numbering about 4000, are in good order, covered with a nice grassy sward, and here and ther,e bright flowers. Most of the soldiers lying in this cemetery died from wounds received in action.

THE DEVASTATED REGION—AWFUL DESOLATION.

Descriptions have already been published of the fearful havoc wrought by the Germans, and, in my opinion, neither letterpress nor photographs can give the remotest idea of the terrible desolation in France and Belgium, - It is a combination of worked out goldfield3 and the Tarawera eruption, and the result of the earthquake at San {Francisco; but even that conveys but slight impression of the condition of things. HUGE CRATERS AT MESSINES.

Whilst at Messines we saw one of the great craters'made by the explosion of the mines which preceded the battle of early June, 1917. The crater was originally 150 yds wide and 80ft deep. In this neighbourhood there are innumerable pill boxes, the majority of which have been smashed up by our guns. They are very strong structures, many having walls of three to four feet thick, composed of reinforced concrete with bar 3 of iron every few inches. The attack at Passchendaele, where so many of our men fell, must have been a fearful one, for they had always these pill boxes facing them. But now all is changed. In one of the pill boxes I noticed a Chinaman living, and a starling was hanging in a cage at the entrance. INTERMINGLING OP RACES. There are many races still on the battle front, and as the Colonel who [kindly took me around said, "There will be an intermingling of blood in consequence." There are Indians, Arabs, and Chinese, and we saw a great number of German prisoners who are a good-look-,ing lot of men with qualities to test the

powers of our soldiers. I am told that many of them are Bolshevik in opinion, and various views have been expressed as to what they will do on returning to Germany. Some say they still like the Kaiser, but hate military service, and ffo not consider there is anything, disgraceful in the part of itus. Kaiser running away at the time he did- Others say they intend to return home only for ft couple of months to see their relatives and then to return to France or to go Jfcp another country, because of their hatred of the military system. There is satisfaction in seeing,these.men put to repairing the damage done by the war. The German Government .wishes to withdraw prisoner, labor., and to substitute free iabor in its place.

IDENTIFYING OUR SOMttERS. We saw a great,number; of ceme.te.rjes of all .descriptions and,,BJ3e9 l: aJMl l th,e last we visited, near Boulogne, contained 17,r 000 graves, and jaahy Few .Zealand graves . amongst them Occasionally I saw the naines of sons of friends.and of my own friends. Speaking generally, the work of, the..cem<sterie.s ia progressing steadily, and, sontrol are very earnest in ..doing jsve^ythijig,possible to quicken operations, especially whilst the weather is good'. Those bodies wfiich have to be transferred to cemeteries are treated most reverently. Wlfeji .tK"e original burial took place, the[body was, iii most cases, buried in uniforms, over which was an oil-sheet, When a body is exhumed it is placed in another oil sheet awL, round, that is» WTSpped the' Union Jack, In nqne of the,cemeteries di<|, j see a grave not cared for... Of course, weeds will growr, but there, were very few weeds anywhere. It will take ! a Jong. tiraaJa the.cemetfixies all the isolated bodies. The greatest care is taken in endeavoring to identify those bodies which are exhumed. At Easschendaele. many foodies have been discovered and. identified through disc 9 and papers. Fully 50 per cent, of idenI tificatioiis have been established, and when one considers the awful conditions which prevailed when i the Passchendaele Operations were in progress, and the number of dead that lie in the vicinity, the. results attained may be considered distinctly good. At one place I was told that the dead numbered something like 1000. to fifty, yards 'square of., country. When the designs for the cemeteries •are-carried out they, will be very beautiful.. I saw quite a number of -plans of works that were being executed. Every cemetery will contain, besides headstones, a central monument, and, in addition, a building to hold records. Nor have horticultural designs been forgotten. Various beautiful monuments and i cairns have been erected on the battlefields in memory of the-actions fought. On one monument erected in memory of the Canadians I saw scratched on a shell which supported the railing these words: "A tribute from- a wee Scottic from Perth." The Highlanders were much feared by the Germans, who called them "The mad wbmen from Hell."

FRENCH AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM. Much could be aaj(i about France, and her agricultural system. In travelling through, the peasant holdings,one. "Ib .forcibly reminded of Arthur Young's description of what a freehold means to those who cultivate it, and to the country generally in,, which, they live, There does not seem to be a bit of culturahle land; which is not used. There areLtto fences. The crops are tended almost like gardens. The people appear to be exceedingly happy. Along nearly all the roads in France trees are planted, We passed some beautiful fruit trees with great crops of apples and pears on the road lines. There is not much stock about, hut.what is.there is of excellent quajitY—l refer only to horses and pows —1 did not see a single sheep during the whole journey. "