Evening star., 1923-10-02
FRANCE IS ALMOST
BACK 10 NORMALCY
Nation Which Lost Most in
War Making Greatest
Gains in Prosperity.
By Cable TO The Star and New York Tribune
coDyriglt 1923

Copyright 1928
PARIS. October .. = OF all the
paANauxes In Europe, France un-
doub.s@@ly presents the most remark
able one ~ the present moment. With
Germany economically battered and
helpless, casNrulating at the end OF
eight months Of useless resistance in
the Ruhr, anu, England, by virtue of
the loss of a great part of her Ger
man trade. staggering under the bur-
den of idle -actories and nearly
100000 unenn oloyed. France, the
nation which -ffered most during
the war, is now almost back to
normalcy.
No first rank nation on the conti-
nent is so close to pre-war times as
France. The Frenchmen themselves
did not realize it fully until this week.
when Count De Lasteyrie, minister of
finance, addressing a relatively un-
important agricultural meeting in the
department of Tarn, pulled from his
portfolio compilation of figures
which have not been generally known
and certainly not emphasized in Paris.
Naturally there was political mo-
tive behind the minister's speech. He
was interested in winning rural votes
for the nationalistic bloc in the cham
Der of deputies at the coming national
elections. For obvious reasons, how
ever, 1t was not in the interest of the
country to talk too enthusiastically
regarding the flourishing condition of
France, at least not for world con-
sumption.
Lauds Small Farmers.
The necessity of collecting repara-
nd
best terms on other war debts would
make an advertisement inadvisable.
But within the small agricultural
area of southeastern France the
finance minister did not hesitate to
give the greatest credit to Frances
millions of small farmers and trades
people, who went quietly back to
work to restore the country to its
To actual observers, Frances evo-
luton since 1918 from a country like
almost all the others in Europe with
its social foundations badly. cracked.
and suffering from hundreds or
symptoms of the terrible aftermath
of the war, to a nation which has re-
gained it's economic and, to some ex-
tent, its financial status, was an evo-
luton in which the credit was really
due to the farmers and tradespeople
who De Lasteyrie complimented.
All classes of Frenchmen settled
down to hard work as soon as the
armistice was sounded. Like the
Israelites who followed the counsel
of Moses to rise before sunup and
go abroad to receive mama from
heaven, the Frenchman followed his
instincts, The mama has fallen
abundantly, but it literally required
getting out before sunrise to gather
il. The French peasant farmers have
done more than that. They have
Germany, choking herself nationally
with a fruitless struggle to escape
reparations, and unlike England. de-
pending on extensive foreign trade to
keep the wheels of industry whir-
ring, Frances restricted industrial
machinery and labor have been fully
needed for turning out materials to
be used in domestic reconstruction.
Steady Grind of Work.
Industrially. as we'll as agricul-
turally, therefore, the country thrived
throughout the period. The entire
steady grind of work necessary both
for moral and material gain. De
Lasteyrie announced. that Frances
unemployed had dwindled to prac--
tically nothing at the beginning of
the year, and since then the country
faced such labor shortage that she
was compelled to admit foreign work
men. The greater part of those lands
destroyed in the war are again under
cultivation. with specially large
WHEAT acreage anu d large ChlIlS III
crease since 1919.
France is today in full agricul-
turaI regeneration said De Lastey-
rie, "and is not only self-supporting
in the matter of food supply, but is
clearly on the road to becoming a
great exporting nation. From the
Industrial point of view France has
recuperated from the effects of the
war with stupendous rapidity.
THE unfavorable balance of trade
during the first eight months of 1923
had fallen to S10.000.000 francs as
against 1,750.O00.000 francs in 1919.
Railway and port traffic has increas-
cd by leaps and bounds while coal
production for the first eight months
of the year exceeds the production of
last year for the same period by
100000 tons
Financially, the speaker assured his
listeners, France has her ordinary
budget well balanced. A survey of
Europe today finds several other ma
tions which have overcome the moral
shock of the war by hard work and
have profited thereby. but France, ac-
cording to all comparative figures
arose the earliest before sunrise and
the mama has fallen with greater
abundance to her lot than to any
other of the tribes in Europe.