The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-11-22
MAKE BELGIAN REFUGEES
 SETTLERS IN ENGLAND
By JOHN $. STEELE

London, November l2.--(Special Corre-
 spondence)-,"Never since the days of the faHsof Jerusalem have i've seen such Spectacle of a nation without home The
 i3elgians are wanderers on the face of the
 sarth.'' This statement was made to me he other day by leading Belgian news
 paper man who is one of the half million
 Ir so refugees who are now enjoying the
 hospitality of England, and it is fully jus
 tiffed by the facts. A colleague who was
 with him ampiifed it little. We are
 better off than the Jews" he said flor
 wen If we have no home, we are still a
 nation. We have an army and king.
 Not till the war is over and Belgium
 s re-established again in our own home
 will anyone know accurately the extent
 of the disaster which has overtaken the
 sallant little country. At the beginning
 f the war she had a population of 7,50O,-
 )Oo. little more than the total population
 of Greater London or Greater New York
 Today no one knows how many Belgians are left in Belgium. It is certain, how ever, that only those are left who have been unable to get away, for so great is
 the terror of the Germans that the mere rumor that they are coming Is enough tC CihPtJ lOWI OT village. AS they nave overrun the whole country except the little corner around Ostend it is almost a eorollary that the country is depopu- lated.
 It is estimated that there are now near ly 2;OO0.O0 Belgians in Holland and about 5OoOOo in England. This with the 100000 or 30O,0OO who have fled to France ac- counts for about half the population of the country. Refugees are still arriving England z fq Qf n 1, hoo otc them, and it is quite likely that England will arrange with Holland, to relieve her of large proportion of the Belgians now sheltering there. England feels herself in special sense responsible for the care of this people whose country has been sacrified for the general interest of the allies and she Is doing everything in her power to help the stricken people.
 Far be 1t from me to suggest that Eng
 land has any hopes of ultimate gain from this influx of strangers. 1 am sure she has not. but I am equally sure that she will benefit in the long run from the in- troduction of so fine an element in her national life as the Belgians. for there can be no doubt that many thousands of | those who have sought the shores of Britain as refugees will remain and be- come citizenssIn fact, Belgium before has contributed to British stock and indus try, for the weaving industry was intro. duced by the F1emings imported by Ed ward III for that purpose. Centuries later French Huguenot refugees introduced the silk industry fntos England, and now il seems likely that the Beigians will re- peat this history. hTa
 One of the great problems now con- fronting British statesmen Is how to deal with this vast immigration. At first the policy was adopted of simply entertain
 ing the Belgians as guests, the idea being that they would soon be repatriated, but now 1t is recognized that the war may be long one and that even when it is over
 1t may not, be possible for many months,
 or even years. to restore the full popula-
 tion to the devastated country Evidently
 then work must be provided for the refu- gees to enable them to become self-sup- porting. and it must be work that would | not displace native English labor.
 The government has tackled the prob- | lem with will. and while 1t Is too early
 to say yet that a plan has been worked | out I may say that one is we'll on the