BELGIUM IS RECOVERING.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3138, 9 October 1922, Page 7

BELGIUM IS RECOVERING.

"Belgium will stay together. She will solve her problems with that indomitable industry displayed in repair- ' ing the damage of 100 other wars. Fifty years from now you will find her still prospering. There may be other wars in which Belgium will figuro between now and then, but after each war in the future as in the past, she will.repair the damage done her,'' said Professor T. Tl. Bead, of the University of California, lately returned from that country to America. "In peace and in war Belgium will always bo the centre of Belgian activity," ho said. ''ln war she has been the cockpit of European bloodshed Cor centuries. In peace she is the state for all commercial trading in northern Europe.'' Professor Bead emphasised the strategic position of the country. impressing upon his audience that upon Belgium depended the balance of power in Europe. He pointed to the recently completed alliances between Great Britain, Franco and Belgium, which called for no obligation from King Albert's plucky little country, and promised assistance to her if attacked. "Until the bitter August days of 1914 Belgium was for most Americans a incognita. We know in a vague way that there was a belfry at Bruges, and that a scandalous old monarch had endowed her with rich African possessions. We had heard of Flanders horses •Mid Brussels laces. We remembered faintly a Van. Artevelde, doughty burger who lorded it with kings, and Charles the Bold, as he blustered through the pages of Scott's romance. If well up in geography, wo remembered that tho star of Napoleon went down iu blood, but a few miles from the gates of Brussels. Otherwise, Belgium was but a name.' "Then the clarion note of her defiance to Germany brought us cheering to our feet. Here was a David among nations, we admitted. As we watched the struggle against overwhelming odd's, saw her overrun by the invader, her king an exile, her people starving, pity mingled with admiration made her the darling of our sentimental hearts. Yet it is to be doubted if we understood' her better than before. A glance at Belgian history would have told' us that holding the Germans at Liege was but natural in the descendant® of those raw burgher heroes who piled the French chivalry in win rows at Cowrtrai, and that suffering, nobly borne. was no new thing with a people whose land from 1599 to 1795 was the cockpit of Europe. We were too busy sobbing over Belgium to take any real interest in her history or institutions. It is time now that we did, for no country in the world has better material to offer the student of society and politics." Professor Read said Belgium to-day is not a piteous corpse, but a creature tremendously alive, having found in the ravages of this war, as of 100 others, the motive of an indomitable industry. "A year ago Belgium experienced a brief crisis of unemployment, but to-day everybody is at work," he sriid. "She has pushed further along the road of reconstruction than has her great neighbor to the south. Her complete recovery is only a matter of time, and not uUch a long time either. This does not mean that the scars of war are not still visable; the stark walls of the old university library at Louvain still cry their message to heaven. The devastated fields of West Flanders are only gradually coming back into cultivation, and in the orphanages there you will find the record of war written indelibly in little faces that wrythe in pain, and in tender little hearts that yearn to love. Nor do I mean that the Belgian Government, like the French, does not face imminent bankruptcy. There is one aspect of the reparations question too littlo understood in this country. France and Belgium have both advanced for reconstruction purposes vast sums of money, expecting to recoup their treasuries from the reparation payments. Their budgets balance only by reason of the fiction that these expenditure for reconstruction are not really expenditures at all. If Germany fails to pay more loans, more paper money will ho the only recourse. I do mean, however, that Belgian productive effort will, in a few years, solve all its material problems. It" is the very vitality of the Belgian institutions which will reconstruct Belgium before other stronger and better placed countries are reconstructed."

Belgium, according to Professor Bead, has the oldest written constitution in Europe, dating from 1830. It extends a high degree of individual liberty to the people, "The Belgian ie an individualist, who understands the art of co-operation," Professor Bend said. "He has worked out a tradition or independent government. Oppression at various times has proved the value of the local governments, which demonstrates' the soundness of their democratic organisation. Even during the Avar when the established central government was forced to evacuate, the local governments continued to function. The ultimate test of amv governmet in the world lies in the effieiecv of its local autonomy."

In Belgium there is universal sufrage for all, men and women, but no woman may hold an office without the ciiwent of her husband. Voting is compulsory, and if a person fails to vote lor lour times, he or she will lose the fight to vote for, 10 years. The result is that Belgium averages a 94 per cent. on te - wh,]e '" Africa, if we get an K0 per cent, vote, we wonder what lias happened. In the Belgian election of 1921. there were three great issues before the public—socialism, national defence, and languages l . The great point of controversy in Belgium to-day is the language question. Two elements, the French and the Flemish, have constant friction over this question. The Dutch element in Belgium is threatening to secede. and is suggesting annexation to Holland.