IN BELGIUM.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13847, 8 March 1909, Page 3

IN BELGIUM.

"A COUNTRY OF HAPPY HOMES." (By Harold Beglne.) "How do you do itr"' * •; I. asked the"question 5 of every Belgian encountered on my Wherever I turned my steps there was fresh splendour and new beputy to. charm the eye and gratify the mind. Palaces' of white stone were rising from the midst of gardens, immense, spaces' of uneven land were being levelled and brought into symmetry with the city; at this turii there was a new museum, at that a new parlc, and everywhere—in street, in and boulevard exquisite work of sculptor, carver, mason, and smith witnessed to the persistence and glory of art. "Oh, we are heavily taxed," said one; " our windows and our doors have to pay these architects and builders." But tlihe. reply was cheerfully given; the speaker, a workman,: smiled as he complained, and put his cigar to his mouth with , a gesture of pride. "The secret," said another, "is the Government's monopoly -of post, telephone, and railway. The railway is starved to beautify Brussels. We want new rolling stock. We want millions of francs. We can't get fifty centimes. All the profits go to architecture and landscape gardening." " But your railways are very good." "They ought to he better." Yet this critic of the Government confessed that he would not have Brussels stand still. He admitted that the enterprise of the city fathers was an excellent thing for trade. He had not the smallest wish to see the post, telephone, and railway in private hands. No; these things belong to the public; it is just and rational that the public should have the profits. And lie, was proud of Brussels. But he grumbled. The grumbling does not hinder the builders. Every day the capital of Belgium grows in charm. The money earned by the railway passes into the pockets of the working classes , and makes its way over the whole field of commercial enterprise. • Trade flourishes with the increasing splendour of the city. So far as 1 could gather, Belguini has no problem of unemployment.

But while Brussels is so attractive a city that it draws people from all nations to take up their permanent abode within its boundaries, the life ol the surrounding country looks to the Englishman mean and depressing to a degree almost abnormal. The land is flat and monotonous; hedgerows hardly exist'; there is not a glimpse of that arcadian gentleness and that long-es-tablished comfort and prosperity which delight the. traveller in England. It is not'a garden; it is. a market-gar-den. From the train window one sees sad-faced women such as appear in Millet's pictures,' working monotonously on this flat and melancholy expanse of market-garden. " Instead of whistling plough-boy, driving his team of strong horses up the furrows with lark music over his head, one sees on the flat, dun-coloured tillage gaunt peasants urging slow-paced, rib-staring bullocks to •pull harder at the rope traces. Instead of the carter and his waggon on the high road bordered by briar hedges and sweet-smelling woods, one sees a thin girl in wooaen shoes tramping on. a straight, unsheltered roacl beside a dog harnessed to a little ricketty cart. The villages are like soiled nouses picked out of a suburb and dumped down in tiie flattest part of the country. The advertisements on their walls have the faded colours of oddments. Une cannot imagine a convict settlement wearing a more depressing look. Any yet there is no problenV in Belgium of the peasant liocking to the town. Tlie contrast in tms respect between England and Belgium is very striking. Consider it. At home the countryman willingly deserts a beauful and charming namlet to take up las quarters in the vilest habitation known on this earth —an East Loudon slum. In Belgium a peasant sticks to his monotous and hideous village, and will not exchange it for the brightest and happiest city in Europe. On bunday, trains from all quarters bring peasants and their wives into Brussels. They visit tlie picture galleries and museums, they go to concerts, they take their dejeuner in a bright cafe, they walk about the brilliant boulevards, and make excursions to the Bois de la Cambre—but at night they go back to their dull villages, and early next morning resume the hard and miserable lot of what they understand by a country life. One explanation of tliis strange difference between the English and the Belgian peasant lies in tlie important question of Le Clericalisme, a matter to be considered in another chapter. But part of the explanation concerns the place of the family—a subject which embraces more than the peasantry, and which is the keynote of existence in Belgium. The village which looks so dull to the traveller from his train window has no dulness for its inhabitants, is, indeed, the heaven of this earth. The toil of the woman in the fields which seems so hard and cruel, is the ritual of her motherhood. While she bends in the rain, with her wet hoe striking between the turnips, she knows that there is a little mother in the distant cottage teaching her sister to knit mittens and her brothers to learn their lessons, perhaps to work cardboard book-markers in gaudy wool. Father and mother Will return in their wet clothes, to be greeted by children who have fed the fire by faggots, prepared the evening meal, and who have their day's work to exhibit proudly to their parents. AVhat joy, what satisfaction, what abiding peace round the rough table, with its dim lamp and humble fare 1

This delight in .the family life is characteristic of all Belgians. One sees, in Brussels and Antwerp, Monsieur promenading in the boulevard or the bois, with a cigar in his mouth, Madame leaning 011 his arm, and the children, hand in hand, walking sedately under the proud eyes of their parents. One finds children in the restaurants and children in the music-halls. The pleasures of father and mother are shared always with the nursery. To go junketing without the children would appear to the Belgian not only selfish, but dull. His happiness is the happiness of his children. He sees the circus half with his own eyes and half with theirs. The toy-shops and bookshops in Brussels tell- of the paramount part played by the child. The happiness of this people is the pleasure of domesticity.

And so one finds the beautiful city of Brussels free of many of those sad things which throw a gloom over other cities. Instead of the poor painted housemaid in restaurant and music-halls one finds beautiful and radiant children. There arc cafes where the courtesan goes at night, but by day you forget her existence, and 011 Sunday she is not allowed to enter any restaurant at all. The lady walks unmolested in the streets and arcades. The city belongs to Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe. Disreputable people must keep out of their way. Even the King goes to Paris

° Of late years, among the middle and upper classes in Brussels, there has been a diminution in the number of children; but the domestic spirit has not been affected by this change. The home is still the chief place in the Belgian's affections. He still loves above all public entertainments and diver-

the peace, seclusion, thehappy comfort of his own homo. Ami iie makes cheerfully a hundred sacrifices for the pleasures of his children. The charm of the Belgian woman, her bright intelligence, and her thorough knowledge of the art of housekeeping are the foundations of Belgian domesticity. lu politics, the Belgian is not so hot as the Frenchman. He speaks with annoyance of King Leopold, who has given Belgium a bad name over their business of the Congo, and whom he describes indulgently as "a business man, not a King." Leopold, 011 the rare occasions when he is not in Paris, may be seen tramping over the scaffolding of his new palace like a foreman of works. He does nothing to create an aristocracy of taste and righteousness; he has been villainous in his treatment of his children; his Majesty., 111 fact, is very little more ' than one of those old gentlemen who creep to and fro in the Burlington Arcade l'ubbing their ancient, !dim eyes, in the sickly direction of rouge and patchouli.

The Belgian .is not proud of his King, but he is too tolerant, too little interested in public affairs, to bother about such matters. "The King:'"' he exclanms, laughing, " why he is always in Paris!" He treats the thing as a jest, rather a bad jest, not to be laboured.

Enough for the happy Belgian that he has his home, liis wife, and his children. Gambling is scarcely known, ostentation has no part in the scheme of his daily life. He knows the value of money. Good food and good wine, a summer visit to Ostend or the Ardennes, a jaunt to the Foret de Sciignes, a loge at music-hall and circus, a bicycle race meeting, a constant interest in the growth and development of his children —these things keep the Belgian happy, and preserve his country from vice and upheaval.