TO RESTORE FRANCE

Thames Star, Volume LII, Issue 13940, 19 July 1919, Page 4

TO RESTORE FRANCE

£3,000,000,000 NEEI>£D.

M. Loucheur, the French Mimister for Industrial Reconstruction, gave a painful account of the situation in the Deparaaent dv Nord and of the Pas de Calais during a Senate discussion, says a French wireless message. "With regard to these regions," he said, "we find ourselves con-fronted-Trith a task more formidable than the world ha® ever yet seen. We; shall be oKßged to spend 75 milliard* <£3,000,000,000). Mine' •pita to the number of 101 liaive been, completely demolished, but I hope that, with extreme good luck and hard worfk, we shall be able to extract from them.' 300Q tons ot coal, by the end 1 of 1-919 (instead of ; j 75,000 ton« which were formerly ■ extracted). j "The reparation of the mines will cost more than two milliards (over ! £80,000,000). Ib will require at lea«t, ten, years. A* to the factorj ies, there are no raw: materials, ; and theMnachines hare been demolished. The task is superhuman. ; In the matter alone of the machine.* which have 'been carried away by the Germans and dispersed' throughout Germany it has been, necessary to) miake 100,000 dossiers. Forty ! thousand waggon s a year at least will be needed to bring back the machines. It has taken, generations to create what has been destroyed. It will require years to build up all these ruins again.—Wireless Press. Mr. Hoover, the American, Food Controller, speaking at a dinner in his honour, gave a moving, pictureof the (pitiable situation ot the French, population, in the regions recently in, the German occupation. Women and children were going about in the German camps searching refuse heaps for food. The Germans carried away Srom the French . and Belgians all the cattle, and Cor four years the children had •to be 1 nourished on. imported condensed milk.

It would take years, he saiid>, to replace the cattle, and the Germain to be made to give to Northern France and Belgium a full reckoning on this head. "It ia not sufficient to pay ;n money," he added. "You can:t feed children on "money. U tne 70,000,00Q Germans, like Niobe, shed tears for a thousand years, they could not dispel *ke Human misery they caused to Fmnce an«t Belgium- alone. "-^Exchamge.