AMERICAN THOROUGHNESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12483, 23 November 1918, Page 6

AMERICAN THOROUGHNESS.

WAR AS A BUSNIESB. WORK IN FRANCE THAT WILL last a century. The Americans have sob words to 0110 of their bugle calls. “ Wo’vo nob four jcais to do bids job,” they chant ns they march, and the words uro indioativo of tho determination with which they have como into tho war. So writes Coningsby Dawson in his mt CS m "■ ilr : ti,l ‘o Publication, “Out To Win. With tho English war is a. sport, ho asserts; with tho French it 13 a martyrdom, but with the Amcricaiis !t is a job. “ War is a business the Gormans said. Tho Americans, with an ideal sliming in their eyes, have replied, ‘ Very well; wo did'not want to hfi'vt you; but now that you liavo zorccd. us, wo will innlcc wur on you ns a business, for wo arc business men. Wo will crush you coldly, dispassionately, without rancour,” without mercy, fill wo have proved to you that war is not profitable business, hut hell.” “ What has improssocl me most in. my tour of tho American activities in I'tnnco is the businesslike rolcntlessness of her preparations,” ho writes. And then continues:— WHAT THEY ARE DOING- TO A TENTH-RATE HARBOUR. • . ‘ Everything is being done on a titanic scale, and everything is being done to last. Tho ports, tho railroads that arc being constructed, will still bo standing a hundred years from now. thoro s no 1 Home for Christmas ’ optimism about America’s method of making war. One would think she was expecting to bo still fighting when the present generation is dead. She is investing billions of dollars in what can only bo regarded as permanent improvements. . • . “As an example of what America is accomplishing, I will take a sample port in France. It was of tenth-rate importance—little more than a harbour for coastwise vessels and ocean-going tramps—when the Americans took it over. By the time they have finished it will be among the first ports of Europe. It is only one of several that they are enlarging and constructing. ‘The original French town still has tho aspect of a prosperous fishing village. There arc two main streets with shops on them ; there is one out-of-dato hotel; there are a few modern dwellings facing tho sea. For the rest, the town consists of cottages, alleys, and open spaces where the nets were once spread to dry. To-day, in a vast circle, as far as the eye can reach, a city of lints has grown up. In those Imts live men of many nations—Americans, French, Gorman prisoners, negroes. They are all engaged in tho stupendous task of construction. “The capacity of the harbour basin is being mnltinliod fifty times, the berthing capacity trebled, tho unloading facilities multiplied by ten. A railroad vard is being laid that will contain 225 miles of track and 870 switches An immense locomotive works is being erected for tho repairing and assembling of rolling stock from America. It was originally planned to bring over 060 standard locomotives and 30.000 freight cars from the States, all equipped with French couplers ami brakes, so that they could become a permanent part of the French railroad system. Those figures have since been somewhat reduced by tho purchase of rolling stock in Europe. Reservoirs are being built at some distance from tho town which will be able to supply 6,000,000 gallons of purified water a day. In order <o obtain the necessary quantity of pipe, piping will be tom up from various water systems in America, and brought across the Atlantic.”

But tliero’s another side to America’s activities. Nowadays tlioro arc two ways of waging a war—you can fight with artillery and armed men or yon can fight with ambulances and band* ages, and America did not wait two and a half years before pledging herself to this second kind of warfare. America actually committed herself to the Allied cause the day when the first shipment of the supplies of mercy arrived in Paris, declares Coningsby Dawson. “ Belgium would not ho the utterlv defiant and unconquered nation she is to-dnv had it not been for the mercy of Hoover and his disciples. Their voluntary presence made the captured Belirian fee;! that he wns earning the thanks of all time. They were neutrals. but their mere presence condemned the cause that had brought them there. Their compassion waged war against the Hun.” The same is true, the author continues, of the American Ambulance Units, of the women in the American hospitals who nursed the broken bodies their brothers had carried in from the battlefield, of Miss Holt's Lighthouse for the training of blinded soldiers. Bv the time Ambassador Gerard requested his passports of the Kaiser there were no less than oighty-siv separate organisations of mercy that'had been ODomting in France for the best part of two rears. A TYPICAL ARRIVAL AT DVT AN--1 LES-BAINS. As another example of what the author terms ‘‘ministering not to the wounded armies, but to the wounded of nations,’’ the following picture is given of the arrival at Evinn-les-Bains, on Lake Geneva, of French repatriates, about 13,000 a day, returning from their Gorman bondage:— “I was on the platform when the train pulled into the station. It mignti have been a funeral cortege, only there wns a horrible difference—the corpses pretended,, to be alive. The American ambulance men wore there in force. They climbed into the carriages and commenced to help the infirm to alight. The exiles were all so stiff with travel that they could scarcely move at first. The windows of the train were gray with faces, all of them old, even the little children’s. The Boche makes a present to France of only such human wreckage as is uuuseful for his purposes. Ho is an acute man of business. The convoy consisted of two classes—the very ancient and the very juvenile. You can’t set a man of eighty to cig trenches and you can’t make a .>rosti* tuto out of a girl-child of ten. The only boys were of the malnourished variety. Men, women and children—they all had the appearance of being half-witted-

“As they were herded on the platform a low, strangled kind of moaning went up. I watched individual lips to see where the sound came from. I caught no movement. The noiso was like the sighing of tired animals. . . “ We came to the Casino, where endless formalities were necessary. First of all, in the_ big hall, formerly devoted to gambling, the repatriates were fed at long tables. As I passed, odd groups, seeing my uniform, hnrriedlv dropped whatever they were doing and, removing thnr caps, stood humblv at attention. There was fear in their promptness. Where they came from an officer exacted respect with the flat of his sword. . . . THEY COMB FROM LIVING IN CELLARS. " And now the formalities commenced. They all had to bo medically examined, Questions of every description were asked them. They were drifted from bureau to bureau, where people sat filling up official blanks. The Americans see to the children. They come from living in cellars, from con-! ditions which are insanitary, from cities in the army zones where they were under-fed. The fear is that they may spread contagion all over France. When infectious cases arc found the remnants of families have to bo broken up afresh. The mothers collapse on benches, sobbing their hearts out, as their children arc led away. For three and a half years everything they have kSfilhs wUhsj*.

believe that these Americans mean only mercy? “Twice a day, summer and winter, the same tragedy is enacted at Evinn. It is a continuous, never-endibng performance.” And what of these repatriates thrust hack, paupers, into strange and halfruined villages? Their condition is pitiable, and here again the American Rqd Cross stops forward and reconstruction work begins. “Ouvriers,” or small groups of workers, settle in a village and an attempt is made to restore it to something approaching normal life.