Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1919-04-23

Correspondence OF Associated Prcss.1
Paris, March TT am afraid tho
peace conference is. going to let the
bochcs on too easily" said Prof. Louis
Dubois, deputy for the department OF
the Seine. to the Associated Press to-
day. Professor Dubois has made
special study of the economic situa-'
tion In northern France produced by
the destructive ingenuity OF the Ger
mans. He has submitted to the cham"
Der of deputies a detailed report Of his
findings.
"Are the Germans Ia he spared" ;e
asked. with their industries unim-
paired they win have seized the mar
kets long before we are ready to COM
pete with them. II only President Will
son would come and see with his own
eyes what utter ruin and destruction
they have brought upon our unhappy
land.
"One has to see the destruction with
ones own eyes" he went on. much
has been cleaned up already. With
devilish ingenuity the Germans made
speciality OF destroying the essential
things. They even had a machine spe-
cially devised to destroy railway
points. General Gassouin, who COM
mands the northern section. told me
that It will take two years before the
railway system IL In proper working
order again.
Transportation Is interIocked with
all the big difficulties we have to cope
with. There Is the question OF raw
materials and the Question OF labor.
II. by rehabilitation, we get labor We
must transport the men to places
where they are needed. Then we must
house and feed them. There Is neither
food nor housing accommodation. To
provide It, We again need transporta-
ton.
I'VE are asked why we can not make
fuller use Of the canals but these canals
served as lines Of defense for the
enemy. Their banks are battered. they
are full of debris and need dredging.
Many OF the locks are destroyed.
"The pits Of the coal mining district
are flooded TN places. One or two
may he worked partly in six or eight
months but it will be five or six years
before the mines are in proper work
ing condition again. Where are we
to find the miners? The country
around is razed and devastated to a
degree Of which people have not the
faintest idea. There is not a house
left standing in Lens. How are We to
lodge and feed a mining population
and how are we to regain our pre-war
, output of 10000, 900 tons Of coal a year
which even then did not cover our
home needs?"
Asked If France was recovering any
OF the textile. metal manufacturing or
sugar refining machinery stolen by the
Germans. ne replied that it was diff
cult to transport 1t and most of the
French plants were not vet ready to
receive it. Il know cases of Germans
approaching the original owners Of
machinery and offering to sell them
back their own property they had
stolen from them he said.
Then there Is the agricultural
question" he continued. THE arabic
soil in these parts Is only ten inches
deep. Beneath it is a subsoil Of bar
rem chalk. >The good soil that grows
wheat-where Is It? The farmers will
have to begin right from the begin
ming again, as the squattep did in
America: that Is. they will have to
prepare the soil for cultivation. Labor
and transportation again! Not in fif
teen or twenty years will that soil
produce anything in the way OF, food
Grain. ~ kSg7s-