HAPPY GERMANS.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1280, 12 August 1922, Page 3

HAPPY GERMANS.

CONTENTMENT IN RHINELAND.

SYDNEY WOMAN’S VIEW,

“Did the Aliks win the war?” Survey the desolation of the battlefield areas of France and Belgium, with ithe'ir still '•uineci towns and broken dwellings, barren fields, homeless men and women and children, and then the peace and'contentment of the Rhineland, where cheerful Germans do their daily tasks, well fed and clothed, and apparently none the worse for the havoc of the war, and you wil have your doubts.” A Visit ir Cologne.

This is the view of Mrs D. F. Isles, a V.A.D. commardant, who did work in Sydney during the war, and whio has just returned from m tour through Great Britain and the Continent. “ I went no further >‘nto Germany than Cologne,” said Mrs lies, “ because I read in the papers that every bed-room door had to be left unlocked to the police day and night, <ar.d travelling alone I did not fancy that. In Cologne she staved at tie Hotel Du North, a palatial establishment which has housed roval Visitors, and the amount of her weekly bill was 30s. When she visited the opera she occupied a reserved seat in the dress circle for Is 6d, anu paid nothing extra for a book of the words in English. For Is 9d a large bottle she was supplied with the mist delightful white wine.

No roverijr. She saw no poverty, but everywhere slhe met happy, well-dressed and well-fed Germans. The place was full of magnificent cafes, with good music and food, and they were crowded from morning to night. “ I had just coiue from the stricken fields of France and Belgium,” said Mrs Isles, “ and my first thought was, ‘Did we really win che war?’ The Rhine is still a beautiful landscape, and the buildings arj magnificent,but the contrast with the devastation of the battlefield count y is so awful that I got no enjoyment from the spectacle.” “ One thing above all grieved me in Germany—the majority of the men in the British Army of occupation have taken German wiv c s, and many of the other Allied soldiers have done so, but not to the same extent. How Belgium I ergot. Mrs Isles is the wufe of the chief engineer on a Commonwealth Line steamer and she traveled to Antwerp to meet him. It vas ArmisUre Day, and American flags were flying everywhere ; but ibe saw only two British flags—one on the British Consulate and the other on an ice cream cart.

When the visitor asked the reason for the disproportionate display, the answer she received somewhat staggered her. “ Amerid i has done so much for our country,” said a Belgian. Mrs Isles mentione i a few of the things which Great Britain had done. “ Do you kmow flat away in Australia. Sydney in one day collected £BO,000 for Belgium ?’ sh~ added. A shrug of the shoulders wrns the only response.

“ I told them I would let Australia know' how Belgium had remembered,” she said. “ France i? different. She does not forget, and the French people are louxl in their praise and theii thanks.”