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Show INDUSTRY MADE BELGIUM A HAPPY NATION BEFORE THF WAR Relgium has but 11.000 squaro jiiles of land, less than the States I of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Her population is ".-500,000, ".-500,000, less than the single State of New York. You could put twenty-two twenty-two Belglums in our single State of Texas Much of her soil is thin; her handicaps are heavy, but the in-l in-l dustry 01 her people has turned the H whole land Into one vast llower and veKvtabio i ii den Tin soil o! Min- nesota and the Dakotas is new soil, and yet our farmers there average tut fifteen bushels of vvneat to tho acre. Belgium's soil has been used for centuries, but it averages thirty-seven bushels of wheat to tho acre. If we grow- twenty-four bushels bush-els of barley on an acre of ground, Belgium grows fifty; she produ - -300 bushels of potatoes, where tho Maine fanner harvests ninety bush-I bush-I els Belgium's average population per square mile has risen to 64 i r peo-M peo-M pl6 If Americans practiced intensive in-tensive farming; If the population of 1 ca were .-is dense as it is III Belgium 100,000.000 of the United States. Canada and Central America Amer-ica could all move to Texas, while I if our entire country was an den:ely populated as Belgium's, everybody in the world could live I comfortably within the limits of our : count r;. . And yet. little Belgium has no ' fold or silver mines, and all the treasures of copper and zinc and load and anthracite and oil have been denied her. The gold Is in the hear! of her people. No other kind holds a race more prudent, industrious and thrifty. It is a land where everybody work-. In tho winter, when the sun does not rise until 7 Z0 o'clock, tho Eelgian cottages cot-tages have liyhts in their windows at E, and the people arc ready for an eleven-hour day. As a rule all children work after 12 years of age. The exquisite pointed lace that has made Belgium famous Is wrought by women who fulfill tho tasks of the household fulfilled by American women, and then begins their task upon the exquisite laces that have sent their name and fame throughout the world. Their wages are low, their work hard, but their life is so peaceful and prosperous pros-perous that few Belgians ever emigrate emi-grate to foreign countries. Of late they have made their education compulsory, their schools free. It is doubtful whether any other country coun-try has made a greater success of their system of transportation. You will pay 50 cents to Journey some twenty odd miles out to Roslyn on our Bong Island Railroad, but in Belgium a commuter journeys twenty miles ii to the factory and back again every night and makes the six double daily Journeys at an entire cost of 37 cents per week, less than the amount that you pay for the journey one way for a liko distance In this country. Out of this has conic Belgium's prosperity. prosper-ity. She has the money to buy goods from other countries, and she has the property to export to foreign for-eign lands. Last year the United States, with lt hundred millions of people, im- ported less than $2,000,000,000, and exported $2,000,000,000. If our people had been as prosperous per capita as Belgium, these amounts would have been enormously Increased. In-creased. So largely have we been dependent depend-ent upon Belgium that many of the engines used In dlggiiiT the Panama Canal came from tho Cockerill works that produce 2,000 of these engines every year in Liege. It is often said that tho Belgians have the best courts in existence. Tho Supreme Court of Little Belgium has but one Justlcev Without waiting wait-ing for an appeal, just as soon as a decision has been reached by a lower low-er court, while the matters are still fresh in mind and all the witnesses and facts readily obtainable, this Supreme Justice reviews all tho objections ob-jections raised on either side and without a motion from anyone annuls an-nuls the decision of tho Inferior court. On the other hand, tho lower low-er courts are open to an Immediate settlement of disputes between the wage earners, and newsboys and fishermen arc almost daily seen going go-ing to the Judge for a decision regarding re-garding a dispute over live or ten cents. When the Judge has cross-questioned both sides, without the presence pres-ence of attorneys, or the necessity of serving a process or raising a dollar dol-lar and a quarter, as here, the poorest poor-est of the poor have their wrongs righted. It la said that not one decision de-cision out of 100 is appealed, thus calling for the existence of an attorney. at-torney. To all other Institutions or- gonlxed in the interest of the wage earner has been added the National Nation-al Savings Bank system, that makes loans to men of small means, that enables the farmer and the working man to buy a little garden and build a house, v. hlle at the same time Insuring In-suring the workingman against accident ac-cident and sickness. Belgium la a poor man's country. It has been wild, because institutions have been administered ad-ministered In the Interest of tho men of small affairs. But the institutions of Belgium and the industrial prosperity of her pcuple alone arc not equal to the explanation of her unique heroism. Long a?o, In his Commentaries. Julius Ju-lius Caesar said that Gaul was inhabited in-habited by three tribes, the Bolgae. the Aqultani. the Celts, ' of whom the PelKae were the bravest," Mirrors Guard Traffic. Tt baa been decided by the municipality munic-ipality of Bombay to make use of road mirrors at danscrou turns or junctions of streets and roads where the traffic Is considerable. It i.-i expected ex-pected that these mirrors will enable motorists when they approach such Junctions to determine whether or not otherwise blind streets are freo from traffic. One of these mirrors, measuring 5x10 feet, is said to be the largest of Its kind In the world. Not Surprising. Teacher Willie, did you know that the map Is constantly changing" chang-ing" Wllllo So's de whole body once In seven years. |
