REVIVAL OF BELGIUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17269, 19 September 1919, Page 10

REVIVAL OF BELGIUM.

*» .—- INDUSTRY OF THE FARMERS. Once again in Brussels. It is a little more than seven months since I last, saw the city, writes a correspondent from the Belgian capital Then it was armistice time, the time of King Albert's triumphant arrival at the head of the allied troops, when the whole population, possessed with the'new sense of freedom, crowded the decorated, illuminated streets and gave itself over to rejoicing. Now it is the fall peace, and Brussels has settled down to & quiet, orderly, workaday mood. The unbounded hope, the illusions perhaps, which the people then cherished have been abandoned. Shops, banks, and commercial offices are busy, and in the evening the town goes early to bed. Men read their papers rather gloomily and cynically—frankly disappointed—for the peace is 'far from what j they had expected. I Nevertheless, an immense change has \ come over the country during the last seven months—a change even more remarkable in Belgium than in France. As one passes along through the villages and fields one marvels at the industry and capacity of the farmers. How difeient from England! The fields everywhere are groaning with rich crops. What manuring; what ceaseless labour with in-1 adequate machinery; and not a square j yard of land wasted ! j A first rough, general, fleeting impression of Belgium, as one speeds over it from one end to the other, stopping at intervals an examining selected objects is that of a hive of energy and eagerness and keenness. * . That I say, *, the first fleeting impree- . ™> It has to be corrected by an understanding of the prodigious handicap from which Belgium, is suffering more than any other country in Western Europe