The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-20
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1 \ 'hENCH newspapers are indignant ana public opinion is stirred by reports from
 the old battlefields areas. It seems that cultivation of some of the areas where heavy fighting took place has been abandoned. The ground is so churned with the smelling of four years of war that the areas have been let out to contractors to get what profit they can by. extracting from the soil any utilizable debris of war material, particularly copper, steel and iron. The contractors employ foreign labor, mostly Chinese, Polish and Moors from North Africa (probably the remnants of the wartime labor units). Naturally skeletons are frequently uncovered. The workmen are supposed to notify the authorities immediately upon making such finds The bonus for find I ing a skeleton is only two francs, while that l of shell fuse is double that amount. The searchers have little respect for the bones Of | the heroes of the Chemin des Danes and the Verdun front and hack off bones and other wise multiplied the dead in order to get at pieces of jewelry and gold teeth. It must I be frightful business, but human beings can grow accustomed to anything, it seems. Some of the battlefield ghoulds have been arrested ! and a search of their hpts has revealed piles of jewelry and xaluables, some of it still attached to the bones. Every soldier knows 1 the names over the graves signify very little. Men were often buried in great numbers and in haste. Though they lie in common graves and their names appear elsewhere on the field, their glory is none the less. But this barbaric method of dealing with the dead is little too raw, even where it concerns soldiers.
 French Canada
 A Canadian historical society has been formed in Paris. At the opening meeting there were present men who bear such names as Cartier, Montcalme, Papineau and Cue III s,1k kl,o tcf0 of The Duke of Connaught, former governor general of Canada, presided at the function and from Premier Mackenzie King came | message: "TO Trance, the mother of those who dared all to discover Canada and to re- deem her from the wilderness, Canadians today offer their gratitude and their homage hal lowed by recent comradeship in arms" Can ada owes France indeed great debt. Jacques Cartier was the discoverer and the mission aries sent out by Louix XIV died martyr s death in their efforts to Christianize the sav- age Hurons and Iroquois. It is erroneous to think that the dominion is sort of counter part to the British motherland. Canada has a French population with culture that would do credit to a province in he neighborhood ot Paris. The French spoken in Canada and contained in the literature of that country is purer and less defiled by foreign influences perhaps than that spoken by the average PariSian. When the dean or leCCerS aI the University of Lyons was shown copy of a French Canadian magazine he exclaimed in surprise: But that is real French It is almost classic. It is not spoken like that to- day in France"
 InterIOcking Directorate.
 Anent the letters, supposedly written by M Zinovieff to the British communists, urg- ing them to throw England into the throes of violent revolution, a letter that did it's share course the Moscow government can have no premier of Russia, has this to say: "Of toward the Macdonald downfall, M.Rykoff, responsibility in a matter involving Zinovieff and the third international. The Moscow government and the third international are l two different bodies" That may be true. But to the outside world the two bodies are difficult to distinguish It is a sort of inter- locking directorate. The same men who stand at the helm of affairs in Russia are practically all officers of the international
 revolutionary body. It does not pay to play the innocent by such subtle subterfuge. If the Russian foreign office is responsible for the letter there need be no reluctance on its part to acknowledge. Its contents frankly incite the British masses to revolt. Nothing strange in such advice coming from the Russian gov
 ernment. But it may be that lie at this | time serves the purpose better. And as far | as dissembling and intriguing is concerned,
 the new Russian diplomats have proven them selves apt pupils of some of the diplomats and Michiavelians of other countries.
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