RESTORING EUROPE.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 April 1921, Page 10

RESTORING EUROPE.

BELGIUM MAKES MOST PROGRESS. GERMANS’NOT HOSTILE TO THE BRITISH. First-hand information of the manner in which the people of France and Belgium are rebuilding their citjes, and of life in Germany, was given by Mr. D. R. Hall, formerly New South Wales Minister for Housing, who returned to Australia by the Orsova (says th & Herald). “During my tour the opportunity presented itself,” Mr. Hall said, “to meet representative men in various parts of Europe and discuss social an<l industrial problems which immediately face each State. But the whole result was very depressing. The men handling public affairs in the debt-burdened countries, which have meweH from the war, have an unenviable task during the next five years. Belgium seems to have made the best recovery. Her people are working with a will, and have the task of rebuilding the devastated areas well in hand. They are, in fact, much -farther advanced than France, which, of course, suffered immeasurably greater damage. Labor is fairly plentiful in Belgium. The Belgians would find it difficult to appreciate the Australian viewpoint about trading with Germany. Whilst I was in Brussels there was general, rejoicing because of the fact that the Belgian Government had made arrangements with German working men to build some hundreds of railway trucks for use on the Belgian railways. The cost of German labor was less, and this left the Belgian workmen free to perform other necessary tasks in their own country.

“Generally, the people on the Continent relish the idea of Germans doing their work. I honestly believe that the French, sitting in front of a fire which is burning German coal, enjoy the experience more than they would if they knew that their fellow Frenchmen had labored to produce the fuel.” In August last Mr. Hall and his family were in Germany. They saw Australian meats, jams, and other products for sale; also French soaps and other manufactured articles. Whilst on every hand at least one of the Shakespearean plays was being produced at the theatres.

“In Germany,” Mr. Hall said, “there is some hostility against France, but none whatever against England or Aus. tralia. I would say that a man could go about Germany with a greater degree of safety and freedom from insult that in any other country in Europe. The industrial and economic conditions in Germany are, however, very bad indeed. With us, by buying marks for about Id each, living was cheaper in Germany than in any other part of Europe. Food was plentiful for those who could pay for it, the menus were good, and the charges considerably less than in London. Of course, there was evidence of a shortage of commodities in some directions, while some of the hotels were sadly in need of painting and brightening up. We never saw tablecloths all the time we were in Germany. Substitutes of paper were used for tablecloths, serviettes, and towels. “The German people seemed depressed by the heavy load of taxation they had been called on to bear—this being the penalty for war started by their own rulers—and they see no hope of relief for the next ten years. They also fear the Spartacist movement, which«is the equivalent of the Soviet movement, and they are more thaii ordinarily cowrteong towards the British. All who have anything to protect feel the more secure under British occupation, because they see in the British soldiers a duplication of the police force which saved the occupied territory from the ruinous effects of the Spartacist rising in Berlin.

“No doubt there is a black time ahead of Germany” went on Mr. Hall, “but they are still a powerful people. Their workmen are industrious, and are probably working harder than any other body of employees in Europe. Further, the birth-rate in Germany is big. The women struck me as being of a healthy, robust type, capable of doing their share towards retrieving a measure of national greatuess lost during the war/