The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-31
WHAT BELGIUM HAS LOST

Out of Ii. 370 square miles of ter rItory occupied by Belgium before
 the present war. less than 800 square
 miles thereof is still held by the Bel gfans and their allies, and the normal
 population of the part of the coun-
 try still held by the Belgians is only
 10o,000. while the peace population
 of the whole country was more than l7,000sO00.' Thus begins a statement
 Just prepared by the National Geo. graphic Society showing what Bel gfuTn has lost of her territory since the present war began. It then con- tinues:
 @A1I of BeIgium's cities, her com { merce. industry and resources of mine
 and timber lands now lie behind the German lines, which sweep from Westende, on the North Sea, to, Basic, where the Rhine leaves Switzerland
 for Germany.
 Independent Belgium to-day is a l thin strip of land wedged into the French department of Pas-de-C Calais
 This area is the sand dune, infertile, 1ow-Iying, sparse1y populated part of ! Belgium Antwerp, Brussels, Lege, | Ghents Charleroi, Louvain, Namur, Ostend, Malines and some score of other important cities of the low country are under German domino ton. In that strip of territory which the allies defend there is not a single city with 10000 population and l there 5are but ten small towns in all
 the section.
 The coal fields of Liege. Mons and Charleroi, with their annual outputs
 in normal times Of 9, ,000,O9o tons 8 year. are in the hands of the invaders. The great steel and iron works of Liege and Charleroi are lost When, in the years before the war, one passed through the busy city of Liege [ Ta-- r-D-- s.I-A l he saw thousands of sp1ashes of fire
 glow in the fieeting shadows, where tthe restless furnaces of foundries trading with every country Iabored.
 The American traveller who watched these fires g1eam by recalled to mind
 a strip of railroad eastward out of Cleveland where factory and foun-
 dry line the way for miles.
 .sTle iron, 5zinc lead and naangan- csc mines Of Belgium lie behind its eneny's lines. Its rich quarr1es of marble, granite and slate are in its northern and eastern provinces. Here also are its forests and it's more inn tions have been in the hands of the invaders from the early days Of the war. Ghent is the capital of the Belgium textile industry, an industry 1 occupies many of the cities and towns of Flanders. whose wooden and cot f lbut the looms all lie behind the Ger man front. So, too, is all of Bel gium s agricultural country lost; and
 a sand-drift and stretches where dairy farming was carried on in peace ! times are all that now remains under 1 the shadow of Be1giumss s battle stand i ards.
 Belgium stood sixth among the nations of the world in the relative value of her commerce before the 1 war broke out. To-day this conn merce has been completely crushed; no free ports remain and there is not even a customs port on all her Dor ders where goods pass through save those ports alone upon the French and German borders were war nnuni- lions and supplies for cpntendfng ar
 mics are pouring in. Belgium $ l trade is no more; her industry is no l more; her mining is no more; her cities are foreign soil; her schools. her four universities at Ghent, Liege, Brussels and Louvain are no more:
 her capital is lost; her farms are
 goneBelgium herself is almost non existent as a concrete thing