The New York herald., 1922-04-23
Much Has Been Done.

Much Has been DOhes
Apart from these comparative fig
ures by 1921 we find such new items
as III provisional wooden bridges
erected and 126 permanent iron
bridges; 1928 dead trees removed
from the roadsides and $3.50 planted
in their places; APP tons of mac
adam road repairing material pro-
vided and 679,544 tons laid down.
Peronne is, of course, the center o.
only a small district; In the Somme
Department as a whole, to take one
suggestive detail alone, 7O,00o,0OO Gu
bic meters of shell holes and the IKE
have been filled in and more than 30,-
900 provisional dwelling places OF one
kind or another set up. Tho figures
take on a new interest when one real
ICES that the work done in shifting
those 10000, 900 cubic meters OF earth
represents the digging Of a trench
yard deep and a yard across twice
round the circumference OF the world
Or again the number of shelters
erected in 1921 average 1900 houses
or hutments a month. Taking twenty
five working days a month at eight
hours n day and you find that In tho
Somme Department seven houses were
put up every hour. or one every eight
minutes, while the total is a consider
ably larger city than Amiens itself,
which has about 10000 inhabitants.
These striking figures for one de.
partment are paralleled in the others.
Everywhere along the shifting battle
line. from the Vosges to the sea, there
Is the same statistical evidence that II
much remains to do very much has
been done: II normal life has not re-
turned. there is at least supernormal
activity. The tin hats and broken
rifles and cartridge cases and shat
tered tanks and bully beef tins and
what not-all the military disjecfd
membra left by the armies when they
marched away for good and all-has
almost everywhere been cleared away.
Trenches and dugouts and she'll
holes and mine craters have been
filed in, and already the leveled
soil is bearing crops on 80 per cent.
OF the once ravaged earth. The deadly
"dud" shells which caused so many
casualties when first the plows began
to turn over the battleficlds have been
cleared altogether from the surface
and for several feet beneath 1t, though
some that plowed their way still
leeper are yet to be sought for and
remain a source OF permanent danger
until they are found and removed.
Roads Have been Rcmnde.
Roads have been remadc and re-
paired. either temporarily or perma-
nently. until they are within meas
urable distance of being in as good
shape as before the war. The military
narrow gauge railways that zigzagged
over so many miles of man made
desert have been adapted for purposes
OF restoration work or cleared away
altogether: bridges. temporary or
permanent. again span the streams
that have been pent back in their
former courses; canals once more are
ready. or nearly so. for their earlier
duties: the floods wantonly let loose
by the invading Germans have been
curbed and bitted again.
In the villages human beings are
at work: the villages are rebuilt or
on the way to IL: agricultural build
ings, stables, barns, even pigstics are
in some departments, such as the
Meurthe-et- Mosellc. practically com
pleted. The railroads. with their depots
and warehouses once again in work.
ing order, carry every day an increase
of tho traffic. already difficult TO cope
with by the depleted stats. rendered
even less capable because of the APP
plication OF the eight hour day. Where
not so long ago the gaurt ruins OF
factories showed only as heaps OF
tortured iron. aptly described by a
French engineer as Colossal dishes OF
iron spaghetti" not only is the clean
ing up" process finished but the CHM
-ncys are smoking. new buildings have
been completed and within them the
machinery is working with more than
prewar energy.
All this, be it said, has not been
easily accomplished nor by private
industry" alone. Many mistakes have
been made and many energies diverted
along useless directions: but in the
main one broad line has been every
where followed out and, in the main,
everywhere successfully, though not
always equally so.
The broad lines may be said TO have
been laid down at tho very beginning,
when NJ. Lochour took Office as Min