TROUBLES OF FRANCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18073, 11 January 1921, Page 5

TROUBLES OF FRANCE.

THE DEVASTATED REGIONS. PRIVATIONS OF VILLAGERS. PATIENCE IN ADVERSITY. A lady who has just returned from a visit to the devastated regions of France gave the following vivid account of the conditions existing there to the London Morning Post. “The things that impressed me most,” she said, “are the patience, industry, and cheerfulness of the French folk in these parts. I am convinced that the really effective way England can help the French is by doing all they can to make the Germans pay for the reparations. “The French Government are giving grants for rebu’lding, but they cannot do it all. They are helping the people to buy furniture, cattle, etc., they are running dispensaries, and even providing midwives, who rometiines have as many as 17 villages in their district, but when all is said and done these measures constitute only a tithe of the relief and help that are necessary. When a town or village asks the Government tor a grant it usually gets it at onee. It then proceeds to build, but the money is soon swallowed up, because the masons’ wages are very high, to meet the high prices for the necessities of life. The town then asks for a second grant, which they only get after great delay and difficult'Whin it comes to a third grant they have scarcely any hone of getting that at all. so that building operations have to cease. The rain conies down on the half-finished houses, and matters are soon in a worse state than if building had never been begun.” NOTHING BUT HUTS.

“There are a large number of English and French huts available, and the village apparently can get these without trouble. At Lassigny, for insiance, there is nothing but huts. There is not one stone, left upon another of the permanent buildings. Not one of the original houses remains in many of the villages. Many of the peasants hesitate to ask for huts, although they would be more comfortable living in them ■ ban in their half-ruined houses, but their love for their old home is so great that they are afraid that if they accept a hut they will not get their house re-built. They cling, in shear misery, to one tiny habitable room, in the hope that sooner or later their home will be put right. “I went into three or four of the houses, and it is difficult to describe the condition of them. The people said Io me: ‘Well, what do you think cf our beautiful country? Isn't it line?’ The best house I saw in Passel was the Mayor’s house. That had only one room, but it was scrupulously clean and neat, and everything that could be possibly made use of had been utilised. There were all sorts of odds and ends which haul been picked out of the ruins, and it was pathetic to see how much use ■laij been made of apparently worthless objects. Little shelves had been fitted, and they had managed to buy a small cupboard, of which thev were frightfully proud. This room was the Mairie. In the room was a partition, and behind the partition was the bedroom.

CROWDED ROOMS. “I asked to be shown the worst house, ano they showed me one where there lived the old grandlatiier, a mother and father, who were no longer young, and a young man of 18. One room did duty as their bedroom, sitting-room, and kitcnen. I went to another house where 'here were a man and his wife and two young men, all living in one room , also. The man looked very, very ill, and was just recovering ft cm tetanus. The place was unspeakably dirty. Just round the corner of the house was a cow, which was kept in a kind of wooden cupboard. I should think it would speedily die.

The thing that goes most of all to the hearts of the people is the loss of their linen. They can bear almost anything but that. INDUSTRY OF THE PEOPLE. “I was deeply impressed with the general industry and pertinacity of the people. They are working very hard at agriculture. The Germans have given up a certain amount of roiling slock and cattle (many of the cattle, by the way, were found to be suffering from foot and mouth disease), but more remains to be doie than the French Government is capable of doing for a long time to come. The really important thing is that we as a nation ouj.ht to brin ; pressure to bear on Germany to force them to pay in money or kind or labour for the destruff'on they haze wrought. It is two years since the armistice. Are the French people ;u Ihe devastated areas to wait for ever? Their chateaux, their farms, their town houses and cctiages, ire in ruins, the French Government burdened with debts, onnot and ought not to pay compensation for wrong done by the foul aggression cf a barbarous and ruthless foe. As it 's the French, whose own coalfields have heen destroyed, are having to buy coal from Germany. Besides this they have to pay high wages to thousands of Poles, Spaniards, and Italians who have come to repair the country. Why should not Germany, who slew without cause two million Frenchmen, be made to work for France without payment?”