RECONSTRUCTION

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 27 January 1923, Page 11

RECONSTRUCTION

FRANCE HEALING HER WOUNDS

FOUR YEARS' WORK.

There seems to have been very little "go-slow" yin France since the Armistice was signed. The results achieved by the French in reconstructing the devastated regions of their country, as described and illustrated by M. Chauvel, of the French Mission, at the King's Theatre yesterday afternoon, are amazing. There was a large audience, presided over by Mr. L. T. Watkins, president of the Industrial Association.

In his opening remarks, M. Cl'auvel said he was specially proud to be the first member of the mission to address the people of Wellington. They had been profoundly tonched, he said, with the welcome of the people of Wellington, and really felt that they were amongst friends and at home. The most remarkable expression of France's vitality, even after the terrible catastrophe of the war, was the reconstruction that had already taken place. He briefly indicated the vast area despoiled by the ravages of war, and said that when the Germans realised they could not keep the country they had occupied they took to Germany factory machinery, flooded the mines, and cut down the fruit trees, and destroyed every destroyable thing that could be of use to the conquerors. When France had to resume the work of peace she realised her wounds. The people were not discouraged, but calmly set to work. During the war the people had fled. The population of the devastated regions before the war amounted to 4,700,000 people. At the Armistice it had fallen to a little over two millions. On Ist July, 1922, it had reached 4,050,000. He then quoted further figures to show how administrations and manufacturers had returned to work, helping one another. The pictures, which followed, interspersed with statistics, showing how the wasted country had been restored, were most interesting. A total of 741,883 buildings had been destroyed or damaged': 498,721 were reconstructed; 9,----116,383 acres of land were overthrown; 5,070,139 had been re-adapted to culture. 22,900 factories were destroyed; 12,923 were reconstructed. 42,000. miles of roads were destroyed; half of it had been completely reconstructed, and the other, half repaired. Of the 350 schools in the devastated regions before the war, most of them disappeared during the war; 140 had been reopened with 480,000 pupils. M. Chauvel's most interesting remarks have already appeared in "The Post," having bee'm telegraphed from Auckland some days ago. In conclusion, he said that if his remarks had impressed his hearers with the idea that was a courageous nation —a nation at work healing her wounds—he would feel he had done something to increase sympathy between the two nations.'