Evening star., 1925-08-09

those war burdens" we have
heard so much about. There is here
no army of the unemployed. There
are no signs of Il people underfed and
undernourished. There is poverty, of
course, as there always is in any
great population, but there was pow
erty in France before the war and 1
am assured it is relatively no greater
today than it was in 1914 or. any other
pre-War year.
On the contrary, France is prosper
ous-far more prosperous, both SEEM
angly and actually. than any other
great European nation. This state
Tnent is supported both by visible evil
dence and by official government sta
tistics. Take the case of the wage
earners. Figures obtained from the
Ministry of Labor show that the mar
gin between income and necessary
4 Outgo is greater than it was before
the war. The increased margin for
q. savings is estimated at 10 per cent
! for Il married wage worker with a
! family. A part of this increase un-
doubtedly is taken up by a higher
| standard of living, but not all of it.
'The French still are a thrifty people.
T Busy and Making Money.
} What is true of the wage Garner
! is true of the agricultural classes, of
7
trade. Everybody is busy, everybody
is making money and has a margin
for saving and investment.
Why, then, it will be asked, is the
French government seemingly so hard
up? Why is there such difficulty in
balancing the budget and SO much
talk about inability to pay debts?
Simply and solely because no French
government has dared impose on the
French people the necessary taxation.
If the French people were taxed as
heavily as the British people are there
would be no budget deficit, despite the
enormous cost of Frances huge mill
tary establishment and the loans she
has made and is continuing to make
to her continental allies. When Gail
laux came back to power there was
talk that at last France had a finance
minister with the courage to lay on
the taxes. Caillaux's program, as now
disclosed, is more severe than that of
his immediate predecessors, but it still
lacks lot of being drastic when
compared with taxation in Great
Britain.
The only large class in France suf-
fering from postwar conditions is the
same class that is suffering from like
conditions all over the world. 1t con-
Ststs of those persons whose incomes
are derived from fixed investments
Such persons have been hit hard in
France because of the depreciation of
the franc, but no harder than they
have been hit in Italy, and not so
hard as in Germany, where such in
vestments were practically wiped out
in the debacle of the mark. But there
is suffering in France on this ac-
count, suffering that is widespread, be-
cause the thrifty French were a ma
ton of investors. That, however, has
little bearing on the ability of the
government to gather taxes Taxes, in
the main, must come from new wealth
as it is created, and France is creating
new wealth as never before.
Bears on the War Debt.
This discussion of taxation is a nee
essary preface to consideration of the
third part of the question of the debt
owed by the French government to
the Government of the United States
In previous articles I discussed the
willingness of France to pay and the
intention to pay. Now we come to
ability to pay. A lot is going to be
heard about this matter of ability to
pay when the commissioners repre-
senting the French government arrive
in Washington to discuss with the
American commission the matter of
funding the French debt. There
will be lot of propaganda put out
to show that France is hard up and
that many years must elapSe before
France can begin payments. But the
French commissioners are going to
talk to American commissioners who
are well informed as to conditions in
France and over whose eyes it will
be difficult to pull any wool. 1t is not
probable the American commission
will insist, in view of the situation
of the French government, that
France shall begin payments imme-
diately, but it is likely the American
commission will insist that France
agree upon time when France will
begin such payments. In other words,
France can have a moratorium and
probably concessions as to interest
rates. with a long period of years in
which to pay, but the principal sum of
the debt must be recognized and pro-
vision made for it's liquidation.
Inquiry and observation here con-
vince me that that is all the well
informed section of French public
opinion expects in the way of con-
cessions; that all this talk about off
setting claims and about the poverty
of France is merely a smoke screen.
Those F'renchmen who are intelligent
are too intelligent to think they can
make the world believe that the
French nation and people are bank
treasury may find itself in as the
result of political timidity on the part
of successive French governments.
Prosperity Cannot Be Hidden.
Intelligent Frenchmen know that
the major facts about conditions in
France cannot be hidden from the
world. They know that the world
knows that as result of the war
France has larger and more efficient
industrial plant than ever before.
That part of the industrial area of
France which was destroyed by the
German armies has now almost COM
pletely been restored, and it has been
restored in a manner to make pro-
duction possible on a larger scale and
at lower costs. With Lorraine iron
added to Saar coal, and with produc
ton at her restored mines almost if
not quite back to pre-war levels, the
iron and steel industry is in a strong
position and is offering serious COM
petition both to England and Ger
many. So the story runs throughout
the French industrial areas. The
woolen mills of Alsace-Lorraine are
prosperous and already have found
markets outside Germany for 40 per
cent of their surplus products,
although Germany was almost their
sole market before the war The COM
petition of these mills is felt so,
strongly in England that there is
serious agitation for a British export
duty on wool.
French cotton spinners also are
prosperous, their improved plant
equipment enabling them to compete
in the world markets. The Lyon silk
industry, of course, was not injured
by the war and now finds itself in a
highly satisfactory situation. The ag-
1icnltural industry has hean almost