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About Independence enterprise. (Independence, Or.) 1908-1969 | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1919)
THE INDEPENDENCE ENTERPRISE, .NDEPENCENCE, OReQON PAGE TWO 1 YEARS OF WAR CHANGES WHOLE CHARACTER OF FRANCE A3 A If 10 Through the Looking Glass J Bv EVELYN NESD1T I v i Sill ' fisr M Have you ever n 'l;l)'' fl"i Has New Ideals Undreamed of in 1914 Future of the Country Turned From Agriculture to Industrialism While Distant Future Is Bright, Problems to Be Solved Are Mighty. By LLOYD ALLEN. Western Newspaper Union Staff Cor respondent (CopvrlKht, 1919, by Western Newspaper Union.) Paris. Four years of war absolute ly changed the character of France as a nation, changed her economic situa ' tion, altered her outlook on the world and turned the whole future of the country toward industrialism rather than agriculture. The France of today has new Ideals that were undreamed of in 1914. Only one big cnaracteristic of the pre-war days remnins, and that is the unalter able and deep-rooted fear of Germany, a fear bred by generations of worry that started long before 1870 and that ihas Imprinted itself on French char acter as a mark that will endure for decades to come. Dread of the German will not pre vent the French from embarking on a national career of prosperity and will not prevent France from' trading with Germany they must trade with 'their old enemy, it is a vital neces sity; it cannot be arranged otherwise for the simple reason that Germany BtiU holds her supremacy as the big coal producing nation of Europe. While France has some coal she must still depend on Germany for some thing like 23,000,000 tons a year even after the supposedly .rich coal fields !of Alsace-Lorraine go to France, as they undoubtedly, will In the peace treaty.' It's going to be a rather strange situation between the French and Ger mans. France will lack coal and the Germans will lack iron. France will sell iron to the Germans and get coal In return. Immediate Problems Mighty. ' While the somewhat distant future 'is very bright for France the imme 'diate problems she must solve are mighty. She has the beginning of her new industrial system in the form of a series of factories that made mu nitions during the war. Her former industries are smashed. i'At the first German invasion France lost 80 per cent of her woolen indus try, 90 per cent of her sugar mills, four fifths of her coal production, four fifths of her iron and steel output and four-fifths of her coke. The Germans struck France right through the heart of her industrial region. Today this section Is for the most part a waste. With the beginning of the peace con ference France was out of essential raw materials. She was in a situa tion altogether different from England and America. She had no chance of starting out to build up foreign trade and for that reason was anxious to have the allies maintain their blockade against the neutrals and the central powers as long as possible. America and England on the other hand knew that the peace of the world must de ipend as much on the resumption of normal trade as upon any strictly po litical action. Germany Needs Raw Materials. Unless raw materials are pushed in to Germany the German factories can not run and Germany cannot pay the indemnity the peace conference will place on her shoulders. Unless the factories of Germany are permitted to operate the German civilians will not have work and if a large problem of unemployment develops, the revolu tionary elements that is the very rad ical revolutionists will overthrow whatever government the Germans now have set up and the German sig 'nature oh the peace treaty will be null and void. Out of these conditions the French government's policies were naturally vamped along entirely different lines from the American and British pol icies. It was impossible for France to plan for the future as America and England would. As a consequence there was a great divergence of ideas during the early. days of the peace conference that was more or less mis understood by Americans in France and caused an undue amount of crit icism to be launched against French methods and French statesmen. The French for instance passed a governmental resolution about the middle of January that practically stopped the Importation of American, English, and other foreign . manufac tured articles into the country, this at a time when the average American was thinking and talking of the closer trade relations that would spring up between France and America as a re sult of the two nations having fought side by side in the war. American Firm Hit. , One of the first American firms hit by the resolution was the manufactur er of a well-known automobile. This firm had several thousand cars in France ordered for war purposes by the French government. It was im possible to sell the cars to civilians, jsince such a move would be the cause "-of French money leaving the country. !If money, left the country the French financial situation suffered according to the amount spent abroad. The rate of exchange was already against the 'French. It was thought desirable to keep the exehnnge rate from mount ing higher against France. More fluctuation of exchange was not the primary reason for barring out the American automobiles. As it happened, a well-known French concern operated by Andre Citroen, whose name is as well known in France as the name of the leading manufacturer-of cheap automobiles is known in America, had turned his fac tory over to munition production dur ing 'the war. While the peace con ference was starting, Citroen was converting his works into a plant for manufacturing a small and fairly cheap car which would take its place as the cheapest car in France as soon as production could be gotten under, way. In the meantime Citroen was pro tected. The lot of American cars was not to be thrown on to a market that the French considered to be legitimate ly Citroen's. Close to Industrial Paralysis. " Americans in Paris did not appreci ate the French situation as revealed In cold figures of the statisticians, namely, that France was on the very verge of absolute industrial paralysis that the country, with only one or two false moves, might easily go into that vicious circle of industrial mis fortune that had already hit Austria where the whole economic fabric had degenerated to a point that brought rank ruin to the greater portion of the population. While France was enacting laws that prohibited the importation of Ameri can manufactured articles and thereby hoped to protect her own disrupted factories while they got back from a war basis to a peace footing Amer ica, as she had every right to do, shut out one of the principal commodities the French have to sell abroad: wines, brandies and liquors. Our national prohibition amendment cut off at one stroke one of the leading products the French had hoped to. sell in the United States. There was of course no spirit of .retaliation on the part of America in this it was simply the working out of a strictly national prob lem. American officials here in Paris who were watching the strained relations between the Americans and certain cliques of the French used to point out that America must make due al lowances for the critical problems of reconstruction days in France and re member that any unjust commercial discrimination ordered by the French government would right itself quickly enough because of the inequalities such rulings made in France itself. In other words, it was regarded as only a matter of time before pressure brought to, bear by the French busi ness houses who were unfavorably af fected by the embargo against Ameri can factory stuff, would cause the gov ernment to let down the bars in many instances and permit the flow of trade to resume. French Industries Ruined. To illustrate: The country around Lille in the north of France was a great spinning center before the war. It was also the center of some of the worst fighting. And the spinning mills were destroyed by shell fire and by willful robbery by the Germans. Of the 570,000 bobbins spinning linen thread before the war 280,000 were destroyed and 80,000 stolen. In the wool spinning business in this section 1,000,000 bobbins out of 2,500,000 were destroyed or stolen, according to the French minister of reconstruction. Something like five hundred cotton bobbins were put out of business. To complete the job of paralyzing the YANK HELPING RUSSIAN 41 m k -114: f if 15 Dressed in his 'special, arctic uni form, the above soldier of the United States is giving a few coins to the poor unfortunate woman on the steps of the church at Archangel, Russia. $ GERMAN OFFICER SELLS tj RED PARK OF AIRPLANES $ London Lieutenant Porten, X former ollicer in the German K aviation service, has boon tried "J by court-martial, according to .. . . - ..i, ........ A $ Berlin advices, on n charge ot A ft having sold an entire park of airplanes at Vllna to the bolshe- y r. -.11. 1 . . niuuu ui tiini :a I MM J airplanes wore valued at 10,000,- ft ft 000 marks, Porten fled to Koe- $ $ nigsberg and headed a con- ft K splracy in the local working- $ men's council against the com- ft J mander of the German garrison J T.-,.r, ,t,ir WI1SS (liSCOV- K -UL J.Vl'li ered and Porten arrested. French textile Industry, the Germans, when they did not steal the machin ery, broke some of the vital parts and took away all electrical fittings and every scrap of copper. What happened then after, the war had ceased? The" French government made It im possible for the Lille factory owners to replace the stolen and destroyed spindles by buying them in America and England, and France could not re place them. It was pointed out to the men of Lille who wished to buy, and who had the money to buy, that It was Illegal to send money out of France. If the spindle buyer happened to have a fund handy in England or America, with which to pay for his stuff there was a slim chance of being able to put through the deal, but it was by no means a certainty. Back of this seemingly suicidal pol icy was the French government plan to make France as nearly self-sustaining as possible, to keep French money at home and to keep the rate of ex change as favorable as possible to France.. It did not occur to the French offi cials that reconstruction problems could be solved more easily if the Lille people and others in the same predica ment were permitted to buy factory machinery abroad and thereby hasten the day when the textile mills would resume production. Would Help Labor. With production started, even with factory reconstruction started, the French economic system would be benefited, because such an outcome would give employment to French workmen. And exportation of tex tileswhich have to be manufactured before they are shipped would auto matically push the French exchange rate into a position favoring France. Yet the whole chain of reconstruc tion was blocked by the prohibition on importing foreign spindles and the French textile people themselves were obliged to oppose a government policy that hurt their business. American business men in France during the peace conference shook their heads when they were asked about the possibility of immediate trade between France and America, and the optimistic ones took the view that tight government control of trade as put Into effect by the French in January as a reconstruction measure could not last long. .What happened to the textile indus try during the war was only a repe tition of the sad fate of the brewing business and the mining industry, as well as the sugar business. All of this wreckage cost the French something like $300,000,000 that's the first official estimate. Dream of Prosperity. In the midst of this despoliation France has a dream of future indus trial prosperity to be realized only by protecting all national Industry against foreign competition. Never before has she thought seriously of taking the German's place in Europe, and now she believes that with only a comparatively small amount of fa voritism she can compete for many of the German markets. From the despairing days of July, 1018, when it seemed certain the Ger mans would take Paris and that French public opinion would not stand behind a continuation of the war, to the exaltation France feels today In the joy of victory is a far cry, to say the least. The tables are completely turned. Politically and economically the French have made tremendous gains and they can only be expected to make the most of their bettered position in the world. If they happened to work at cross purposes to England and America, we can expect some compromise measures and some heated headlines perhaps In case the censor gets off the job some time In 1919, but scarcely anything more' serious. Pickled for Life. Jackson, Miss. "Pickled for life," mumbled a courtroom wag as Henry Pickle listened to the supreme court's decision affirming the lower court's verdict of life imprisonment. Some Dog. Oklahoma City, Okla. Oliver C. Blacki lawyer, is the only man in the state with a dog valued as highly as all his household goods, Assessor Beaty says. Each is listed at $100. OOlv lOIIKiHK'J Fr.h Dread, Pie?, Snails, Doughnuts Daily Light Lunches Served at all Hour?. H (Home) THE CITY BAKERY. (Home) Or a wiKldllng (l.n to the sky and tvy her wings? Try n thoy may. they cannot reach the cUhmK They cannot do what every saucy sparrow und ev ery hh'Ck crow can do. All of which goes to prove that if you are a chicken don't try to be a sparrow. And if you are a duck, don't try to be a crow. A chicken cannot even he a duck. Thu Hilcken litis iif fniTiMv to una iv:i. inv.i.'b every time It tries to fwIiii. t to n.wi tn lmve ambitions, nature lias Imposed certain limitations on every human being. You cannot have Mary Jones' nose, tm mutter hoV much you despise your own button of a nose. You console yourself with tho fact that Mary Jones could not liuvo your beautiful curls and your sweet disposition if sbe angled aft them for a century.' It is waste of time for a woman to If she Is a duck. tkeiSSri The: Independence National Bank sparrow anyvuy. Be as ambitious ns you can be. Am bition is the axle grease that makes the world go round'. But misdirected ambition is like pride it "goeth be fore a fall." It fills the wfrld with grumpy, discontented fools, who do not realize how well oft they are. 5 mind but OFFICERS. II. HIRSCHUERG, PrcB. D. W. SEARS, Vict-h; IRA V, MIX, Cashier. LINEN TEA CLOTHS CHARMING Table Soread Combined With Filet Crochet on Quaint Mahogany Fur niture Is Greatly Admired. A linen tea cloth combined with filet crochet on a quaint old mahogany table was recently the subject of com ment and praise at an afternoon tea and the hostess said: "My store o( linen was small Just a roll or two but it was homespun by my two grand mothers. Both these dear ladles loved to tell tales of their curly duys. One had spun her linen in New England and the other la Old England, and l determined to enhance my heirlooms with my own handiwork. "This tea table cover has only a 12 inch square of linen In Its center, but the filet lace Is broad enough to make It seem of considerable size. The lace motif Is the crown and scepter In honor of my British ancestry. Another cover I value Is made from the ends of an old homespun sheet. I re-enforced it on the under side with fine stitching before I made it into a dinner cloth. It has some insets of filet and wherever it had to be cut or punched I strengthened the linen by running a little embroidery stitch around It. Tbla made-over linen has been re-created in odd moments and is n treasure to me, and I know my daughters will ap preciate it and add to it as 1 have done." INCORPORATED 18. Transact a General Hanking Bujlnri Interest Paid on Tinw Dfjt DIRECTORS H. Uirschberg, W. H. Walker, D. W. Scan, l AX OtiB D. Butler. ft? BEAUTIFUL AFTERNOON FROCKj A Grocery That Never Disappoints Customep Groceries' ChSaDCSlTvi) Not Best Because Bigg ... , ......... v;-v,-- .. ss' v LargeQuanMIs But Biggest Because No Order Too Large To f! No Orter Too Small To h This Store Aims to Serve the Public Pleasantly anil Well-13 Goods We Sell are Just as Represented and When Drdert are Give". we M'AhR DUPLICATE. We Send You Just What You 0 Never Send the "Just ns Good" Kind. Calbreath & Jones Sit V, . feu i i!'A f n (. I MVH?'' Best tor the W Y?;kw Hsxi h U WW H r r 1 .vV--j - vJLUiu) , WfittMi KiI,,.,ln.,..i..L vn mm This Is a dainty afternoon frock of gray chiffon with chenille striped 6atin of same shade used as banding Furniture r.i. To save time and labor wbiie flolni houseceaning try putting so,,,, , Z oil in a pan of lukewarm water wh c pure soap. Use this to wash fnmit ,. then polish with a dry tff L' Woodwork, leather and ul tm "ke new, for the olive oil vuS the soapy water cleans, and ti -1 nolnjurlous c!tZ"Z7 rani.. o . Corn "Golden Bantam" Exceptionally early and in flavor and tendernefes not equalled by any other variety. The ears "Vlort,and comPa and the kernels piumn and creamy. This and a thousand other veg. Plan e Kc-4 l . s. . " , lur w west, i av be selected from J!S2 catalog and found ;il vrmi- rt..,l Write Seattle or Portland for CatalogJ