IV

THE REPARATION BILL

107

(6) Out of 2404 kilometres of railway destroyed,practically the whole had been reconstructed.

It seems, therefore, that, apart from refurnishingand from the rebuilding of houses and factories, thegreater part of which had still to be accomplished, thebulk of the devastation was already made good outof the daily labour of France within two years of thePeace Conference, before Germany had paid anything.

This is a great achievement—one more demonstra-tion of the riches accruing to France from the patientindustry of peasants, which makes her one of the richcountries of the world, in spite of the corrupt Parisianfinance which for a generation past has wasted thesavings of her investors. When we look at NorthernFrance we see what honest Frenchmen can accom-plish. 1 But when we turn to the money claims

1 A more recent estimate (namely, for July 1, 1921) has been given,presumably from official sources, by M. Fournier-Sarloveze, Deputy forthe Oise. The following are some of his figures :

Inhabited Houses

At the Armistice : Totally destroyed .... 289,147

Badly injured..... 164,317

Partially injured .... 258,419

By July 1921 : Entirely rebuilt .... 118,863

Temporarily repaired . . . 182,694

Public Buildings

Churches.

MunicipalBuildings.

Schools.

PostOffices.

Hospitals.

Destroyed

1,407

1,415

2,243

171

30

Damaged .

2,079

2,154

3,153

271

197

Restored .

1,214

322

720

53

28

Temporarily

patched up .

1,097

931

2,093

196

128