Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-12-26
PROSPERITY FOUND
SHALLOW IN FRANCE
Tourists Impressions Not
Accurate Index to Real
Sufferings of People.
BY EDWARD PRICE BELL

French people. of their economic and
financial difficulties Notwithstanding
skin-deep glow of prosperity, of
their vast and brilliant postwar re-
constructive work, of the high-gra de
thinking of their economists and of the
ardent national desire for a peaceful
and honorable issue from all the coun-
try's perpeXities, domestic and for
eign.
Any real understanding of the gen.
era1 French point of view is out of
the question unless the student take
account of the sufferings of the
French people in the war. These suf-
ferings quicken and color the whole
of French sentiment and though. 1t
is the French conviction that France
suffered, not for herself alone. but for
all the peoples who were in either
military or merely moral array against
the HohenZollern idea and the mighty
machine which strove to effectuate
this idea
France asks its allies and associates
In the war not to forget these suf
ferings and not to deny them sub
stantially in any question affecting the
position or duty of France relative to
postwar controversies or problems.
Remember our torn land and our
torn hearts, says the typical French
spokesman, land remember that every
rent saved others from similar punish
ment." 1t is this state of mind which
offers the key to the general postwar
standpoint of France.
An Imprint of War.
To greater or less extent the same
thing is true of all the allies. Their
feelings are bruised and tender. None
of them likes to talk about the mat
ter too much, some of them not at all.
But the senSitiveness, always there Is
one of the great realities of Europe.
Consider the case of a certain we'll
known English father who had four
sons killed in the war. There were
scores of thousands of English. as of
French, italian and other European,
fathers who had several sons so killed)
This man was sturdy of body, morale
and mind. His first son killed, he
grieved, but was soon himself again.
His second son killed, he grieved more
and recovered less quickly. His third
son killed, he became a recluse, silent
and haggard. His fourth son killed,
he walked abroad and gibbered in the
streets.
OF the psychology thus illustrated
all who would know or be lust to Eng.
land, France, Italy or any other of the
allied powers must take due note. Peo-
pies bereaved as these peoples have
Deen cannot look at war or postwar
subjects non-sentimentally. To them
no monetary sacrifice appears of great
moment and they are incapable of re-
sfsting repulsion at the thought of
depts incurred in the common defense
ana to establish the common victory.
seeming to any one to be assignable
with any semblance of human emo.
ton or of equity, to the category of
commercial debts. to be collected upon
principle of capacity to pay or charge
upon any other principle.
American statesmen, rightly or
wrongly, have won no respect in Eu-
rope either among the allies or among
our late enemies by their recourse in
the matter of the war debts to the
principle of capacity to pay or charge.
ing what the traffic will bear" In the
nrst place, this principle to the war.
wounded sense of Europeans has an
extensively commercial connotation.
In the second place it is regarded as
a shaky principle upon which to found
a settlement lasting over two genera.
tions.
Future Payments Pulling.
Who, ask Europeans, really can
measure nations capacity to paw
IN this very year of 1926, let along
1910 or 1860 or 1880? That this
query is not without pertinence shows
In the fact of the complete change
Teconstructlvely OF the economic and
financial outlook of Germany. for ex
ample, within the last IL months.
AS to the "skin-deep glow of nros.
perity'. In France, Frenchmen are not
alone in calling the glory only skin
deep. Experts of every nationality
and particularly American experts in
france, SO far as / have talked to
r. them, agree upon the point. They
agree that imitation - forced upon
france py the tempestuous and APP
pailing burdens of the war and its
after effects-first lifts up q. nation
economically and then drops 1t fiat
ana hard. Capital, in other words
capital, the life current of all indus
try and all trade-slowly but surely
dries up, leaving the machinery OF
production and distribution in dead.
lock.
This threatened economic PARALYSIS
is FRANCES supreme danger and prob
lem at present. Poincare is fighting
Tor capital. He is fighting the great
battle OF thrift. of economy in Fra nee
as Mussolini is fighting it in Italv
and as the Reich is fighting it in Ger.
many. Poincare desires not onlv to
eno lnnatlon, but so far as possible to
repair the ravages, material and
moral land the moral ravages of in.
natlon are perhaps the worst of It's
evils, which already have eroded
more or less deeply wide areas of
French life. The great premier bv
1udlclous appreciation of the franc and
ny powerfully supporting processes of
capital renewal through labor and
saving. hopes to put his country back
upon the gold standard with either no
4. resort. or the smallest practicable re-
sort, to foreign credit.
POincare Dramatic Figure.
Poincare, in this struggle, is a dra.
matte figure-a true Gaul, vet dour AS
any scot. lie reminds one of a stout
skipper in a nor'wester, his hands
firmly upon the wheel, his lips tight.
his eyes never shifting from the sea.
words almost fail those who would
express their establishment at and
their admiration of Frances gigantic
repair job in her 10 northeastern
provinces, where the blast of invasion
destroyed everything before It.
Farms, roads and bridges have been
restored. Cities and villages are I'D
again and throbbing with energy. In
the Lens coal region, on Armistice
day an Understandable ruin, science
and resolution have erected an in
dustrial marvel. Lens, al the out
break of the war, was antiuuated.
smoky. ugly; today it is modern,
smokeless, touched with beauty, COM
pletely electrified. Galleries are light.
ed and run by electricity Every
miners cottage has electric light.
Electric lights illumine the towns and
villages and even the rural areas be.
tween. In her large power stations
France is bidding for release from
the necessity of buying foreign coal.
and she has achieved at Lens what
fechnicians pronounce q feat nnna RAJ.