TROUBLES OF FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 January 1921, Page 7

TROUBLES OF FRANCE.

THE DEVASTATED REGIONS . PRIVATIONS OF VILLAGERS. PATIENCE IN ADVERSITY. A lady who has just returned from a visit to the devastated regions of France gave the following vivid account of the conditions existing there to the London Morning Post. “The things that impressed me most,” she said, “are. the patience, industry, and cheerfulness of the French folk in those parts. I am convinced that the really effective way England can help the French is by doing all they can to make the Germans pay for the reparations. “The French Government are giving grants for rebuilding, but they cannot do it all. They are helping the people to •buy furniture, cattle, etc.; they are running dispensaries, and even providing midwives, who sometimes have as many as 17 villages in their district, but when all is said and done these measures constitute only a tithe of the relief and help that are necessary. When a town or village asks the Government for a grant it usually gets it at once. It then proceeds to build, but the money is soon swallowed up, because the masons’ wages are very high, to meet the high prices for the necessities of life. The town then asks for a second grant, which they only get after great delay and difficulty. When it comes to a third grant they have scarcely any hope of getting that at all, so that building operations have to cease. x The rain comes down on the half-finishes houses, and matters are soon in a worse state than if building had never been begun.”

-NOTHING BUT HUTS. “There are a large number of English and French huts available, and the villages apparently can get these without trouble. At Lassigny, for instance, there is nothing but huts. There is not one stone left upon another of the permanent buildings. Not one of the original houses remains in many of the villages. Many of the peasants hesitate to ask for huts, although they would be more comfortable living in them than in their half-ruined houses, but their love for their old home is so great that they are’ afraid that if they accept a hut they will not get their house rebuilt. They cling, in sheer misery, to one tiny habitable room, in the hope that sooner or later their home will'be put right. “I went into three or four of the houses, and it is difficult to describe the condition of them. The people, said to me: ‘Well, what do you think of our beautiful country? Isn’t i-t fine?’ The best house I saw in Passel was the Mayor’s house. That. had only one room, but it was scrupulously clean dnd neat, and everything that could possibly be made use of had been utilised. There were all sorts of odds and ends which had been picked out of the ruins, and it was pathetic -to see how much use had been made of apparently worthless objects. Little shelves had been fitted, and they had managed to buy a small cupboard, of which they were frightfully proud. This room was the Mairie. In this room was a partition, and behind the partition was the bedroom. CROWDED ROOMS.

“I asked to be shown the worst house, and they showed me one where there lived an old grandfather, a mother, and father, who were no longer young, and a young man of 18. One room did duty as their bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen. I went to another house where there were a man and his wife and two young men, all living in one room also. The man looked very, very ill, and was just recovering from tetanus. The place was unspeakably dirty. Just round the corner of the house was a cow, which was kept in a kind of wooden cupboard. I should think it would speedily die. “The thing that goes most of all to the hearts of the people is the loss of their linen. They can bear almost anything but that. INDUSTRY OF THE PEOPLE. “I was deeply impressed with the general industry and pertinacity of the people. They are working very hard at agriculture. The Germans have given up a certain amount of rolling stock and cat-tie (many of the cattle, by the way, were found to be suffering from foot and mouth disease), but more remains to be done than the French Government is capable of doing for a long tim£ to come. Thn really important thing is that we as a nation ought to bring pressure -to bear on Germany to force her to pay in money or kind or labor for the destruction she has wrought. It is two years since the armistice. Are the French people in the devastated areas to wait for ever? Their chateaux, their farms, their town houses and cottages are in ruins, the French Government, burdened with debts, cannot and ought not to pay compensation for wrong done by the foul aggression of a barbarous and ruth, less foe. As it is, the French, whose own coalfields have been destroyed, are having to buy coal from Germany. Besides this they have to pay high wages to thousand's of Poles, Spaniards and Italians who have come to repair the country. Why should not Germany, who slew two million Frenchmen, be made to work for France without payment?”