RAPID PROGRESS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 12 February 1921, Page 4

RAPID PROGRESS

FRENCH RECONSTRUCTION

Manufacturing industries are rapiul v » ve&uiuing operations in tne aevasvateu district (says a message from Pans, aated 25th December). .This is snown by a report of the Office of Industrial Reconstruction, which has been envesgatmg the restoration of factories and workshops which, before the war, employed more than 20 workmen.

Of the 4321 establishments m which inquiries have been made, 3392 have resumed1 work in whole or part. A classification of the various trades concerned shows that 88.4 per cent, oi metal works are again active; 81.5 of the potteries, stone, and brick works; 80.4 jper cent, of the chemical industries^ and 70.8 of the textile industries. The relatively slow rate of progress of the textile industries is said by the Bureau to be due to the fact that the looms were deliberately destroyed .and it is taking some time to replace the delicate machinery. These 4321. establishments employed 778,915 nersons in 1914; in November" .1920, they employed 355,852, or 4.7 per per cent, of their 1914 personnel. While the factories have for the most part been rebuilt much as they were in 1914, the houses which shelter the workers are mere wooden huts, although brick shanties are springing up in the districts where bricklaying is practicable.

fe Thus the proportion of resumption of j activity bears no relation to the recovery of the towns and villages, which it will be impossible to rebuild, as formerly. * BELGIUM'S RECOVERY. . Of all the warring' countries in Europe, America's Consul-General at Brussels reports, none has returned to ios pre-war activities in a measure comparable to Belgium^ When the armistice was signed the country found itself with a third of its factories ruined. In transportation essentials 1250 miles of railroads, 1800 bridges, and 600 kilometres of canals had been destroyed, 60,000 railroad .cars and 2500 locomotives taken by the Germans, and the telegraph and telephone systems ruined.

Progress made towards reconstruction

>; so phenomenal that within the next six- months all pre-war industries, excepting steel plants, will have attained where they do not already exceed, the production of prel war years. Practically all railway trains in the ,country are running on pre-war schedules, the roadbeds and; bridges Jiaving been for the most part repaired or reconstructed. Reconstruction has been but little handicapped -by the few strikes occurring; and there is little or no spirt of Bolshevism among the inhabitants. This phenomenal progress has, however, been seriously affected by the price-cutting wave from yVmerica; the textile industry being among the' first to suffer. Some of the mills are working on reduced time, and a few shut down in the middle of July. The same is true of the shoe industry. Other industries likewise have been affected. Central railroad shops are at present repairing twelve locomotives a week against nineteen in 1914, while in the ns along the lines oroduction is onehalf that of 1914. Circulation of passenger trains (Ist June, 1920) has been restarted to 56.6 per cent, of the 1913 circulation, while freight service' has reached 89.1 per cent. Of telephone subscribers in 1914, 80 per cent, have been refound. It is Ouriau.s to note that at Antwerp, Malinfs, and Turnhout there are now more subscribers than before the war. In Brussels there are 14..700 out of the pre-war 18,400, and at Liege about 400 out of a previous' 5000. .

In 1913 Belgium stood fifth in n-m ber of blast furnaces, being outranked v the United States, England, ; Germany, and France. Fifty-five furnaces were in activity on Ist July, 1913. with i production per 24 hours of 85 tors refining, 280 tons casting, and 7437 toris_ steel. On Ist January, 1920 the number, qf furnaces had been restof^ to 52; with a daily output of 96 tons casting and 1744 tons steel