The Connecticut labor press., 1919-04-12
Has New Ideals Undreamed of in 1914-Fure of the Country Turned From Agriculture to Industriaism-WhIe Distant Future Is Bright Problems to Be
 Solved Are Mighty.

keep the exchange rate from mount
 ing higher against France.
 1 Mere f1uctuation of exchange was
 not the primary reason for barring out
 the American automobiles.
 | AS it happened, a well-known | French concern operated by Andre Citroen, whose name is as well known in France as the name of the leading manufacturer of cheap automobiles is known in America, had turned his fac tory over to intuition production dur 1 ing the war. While the peace con- ference was starting, Citroen was converting his works into a plant for manufacturing small and fairly cheap car which would take it's place as the cheapest car in France as soon as. production could be gotten under way. B. In the meantime Citroen was pro- tected. The lot of American cars was not to be thrown on to a market that the French considered to be legitimate ly Citroen's..
 Close to Industrial Paralysis. Americans in Paris did not appreci- ate the French situation as revealed in cold figures of the statisticians, ! namely, that France was on the very verge of absolute industrial paralysis that the country, with only one or two false moves, might easily go into that vicious circle of industrial mis- fortune that had already hit Austria where the whole economic fabric had degenerated to point that brought | H. ,f population.
 While France was enacting laws that prohibited the importation of Ameri- can manufactured articles and thereby hoped to protect her own disrupted factories while they got back from a war basis to a peace footing Amer fca, as she had every right to do, shut. out one of the principal commodities the French have to sell abroad: wines,' brandies and liquors. Our national prohibition amendment cut off at one stroke one of the leading products the French had hoped to sell in the United States. There was of course no spirit of retaliation on the part of America in tllis-it was simply the working out of strictly national prob lem. .-sz 4 .,ss,t4a-l American officials here in Paris who were watching the strained relations between the Americans and certain cliques of the French used to point out that America must make due all lowanees for the critical problems of reconstruction days in France and re- member that any unjust commercial discrimination ordered by the French government would right itself quickly enough because of the inequalities such rulings made in France itself.
 In other words, it was regarded as only matter of time before pressure brought to bear by the French busi ness houses, who were unfavorably af- fected by the embargo against Ameri- can factory stuff. would cause the gov i ernment to let down the bars in many instances and permit the flow of trade to resume. 9~6, -..s sA .1{e.+s
 French Industries Ruined.
 To illustrate: The country around Lille in the north of France. was a great spinning center before the war. It was also the center of some of the worst fighting. And the spinning mills were destroyed by shell fire and by, willful robbery by the Germans. Of the 570OOO bobbins spinning linen thread before the war 2SO,OO0 were destroyed and 8O,OO0 stolen. In the wool spinning business in this section 100000 bobbi1s out of 2,500.00O were destroyed or stolen, according to the French minister of reconstruction.
 Something like five hundred cotton IL m complete the job of paralyzing the