1940-03-01 — Page 17

THE CHINA MAIL, MARCH 1, 1940

Pages 17

WOMEN GO ON WORKING AS BOMBS EXPLODE

FRANCE CALLED ON TO MAKE SACRIFICE

Paris, To-day. Figures showing how successfully France's fin- ancial problems were be-

ing met were given in a broadcast by M. Paul Reynaud, the Finance Minister, yesterday.

From HILDE MARCHANT

The only British woman reporter in Finland

Tempere, February 7.

THERE ARE TWO SPIRALS of smoke rising from this, Finland's most important industrial town. One is the grey smoke of factories where men and women work side by side, keeping industry's heart beating; the other is black smoke rising from the smouldering remains of their homes. For 1,024 bombs have dropped on this town. The last

home to go to, but these people stand together. The horror" of seeing their homes bombed and burned has brought them together.

The children are safe in evacua- tion villages, the men and women stay behind to work the mills. And this stronghold of Finland's "indus- trial people is giving its overtime to

guns,

raid was a few days ago. It was like an aluminium roof NO SMOKE than 600 bombs on the wooden houses below. over the housetops as thirty-two bombers sprayed more

a

Police Chief Suhonen showed me at his headquarters

WITHOUT

map stuck with coloured pins marking where each bomb FIRE

had dropped.

'f

It was like a macabre sequin pat- shattered, and the cemetery morgue tern over the face of the town.

wrecked.

I walked through these wrecked and amouldering streets, and it was like walking through a cut forest. The walls of houses had fallen in At the same time, he added, "our evil is economic. France is producing "roots" were marked by brick chim- the road like dead branches, and the less and consuming the same amount."

M. Reynaud emphasised the hard-neys still standing high. ship almost all classes would suffer

Only the chimneys marked the line

by rising prices and the danger of of the street, like stumps of felled

Inflation that would result.

It was to fight. this evil that the

trees.

WORKERS' HOMES IN RUINS Government had passed the new.de-been opened to the snow and ice.

The intimacy of these homes had crees. Only one was financial the convention with the Bank of France which enabled France to mobilise her reserve for payments abroad and at

home.

The gold stock would be revalued but the value of the franc would re- main unchanged.

All the other decrees were economic. Their essential object was to increase production and restrict consumption.

RATION CENSUS

M. Reynaud announced that in a few days a start would be made in taking a census for ration cards.

said

Over it all was a solidified screen of ice, as if to hide the indecency of exposing the pleasant domestic life the wooden walls had hidden.

The ice was yellow, with black streaks. That was solid smoke.. As the fire hoses, had been played on the flames the water jet had caught the smoke and solidified its pattern as if to preserve the disaster until melting spring.

of

In the tiny wrecked chapel was the figure of Christ with arms opened in supplication over ruined

altar, bier and brick walls.

Edward Kennedy,

One wrecked tombstone was

an Englishman born in 1885.

The local people funeral throwing bomb craters.

•

had a general flowers into the

And around these. petrified streets, preserved in a strange pattern by the firemen's Ice, are factories pumping out supplies for the front line.

These have not stopped. The smoke rises from them as if in de- fiance to the smouldering ruins.

FACTORIES KEEP GOING

I talked to a leading industrialist, who told me that workmen were now living two, and three families in one "Street after street of these sim-house. People who lost their home ple working homes were, rugged went to some one else's. ruina. The, first bombs had hit the homes of textile workers. : The singed and burning wood was dissolved in the snow. Only fron

He kept his own house open for food and coffee for his own work- people.

"Privation Is essential' In war. time. Every act of self-sacrifice le a shot fired at the enemy."

"

"We are fighting at the back as well as at the front line," he said. Speaking of the Franco-British ûn-had survived the burning.

There were bedsteads, a

one sewing "Not

of these ancial agreement, M. Reynaud

factories has a man's and a machine, this was the seed of the future organ-

woman's stopped. The soldiers are getting isation of Europe, and the field of its bicycle locked together in ice,, a pair the material they need." application ought to be extended. of kitchen scales, and a bucket.

bomb crater in an agony in a twisted iron.

In a stirring peroration, M. Reynaud declared: "We shall not lose the peace of the common victory of Britain and France as we did that of 1918," Reuter.

"DANGEROUS SLOPE" Havas quotes M. Reynaud as say- ing: "Nothing is worse than unjusti- fled optimism. Financially

we are holding on but economically we' are sliding down a dangerous slope."

M. Reynaud added: "Up to now Germany has been waging an eco- nomic war and the German naval offensive Is directed exclusively against the Aliled supply sources. "We must be able to meet the situa- tion as long as necessary. Financially, the situation is good. Armaments bonds were promptly subscribed and the position of the franc on the New York free market is steady.

"In January, 1940, taxation yielded 300,000,000 francs more than in Jan- uary, 1939. Danger, however, arises from economic difficulties, notably from the increase in prices. ·

GOLD STOCKS

All

of

Yet strangely intimate things aurvive bombs. Hanging on a wall was a cabinet with a powder box, toothpaste, and shaving cream. Snow was shrouding them.

CAME BACK TO LIVE

In houses behind, people had pat- ched up their broken windows and cracked walls and come back to live. They work at a factory near by.

Children were evacuated, but women stayed behind to look after their husbands and tattered homes.

I saw another wrecked street in the suburbs. One house, with cretonne curtains stiff as boards in the windows, must surely have been called "The Firs."

It was a typical Acacia-avenue. Wooden homes, bought on hire purchase, were now cracked open, and the whole avenue was pro- sarved in oŋe long glacier,

The front doorstep of the house led through an open door slamming in the wind.

Last Sunday all factories worked overtime, giving their pay to the sol- diers.

Overtime and Sunday work is given to the airplane fund, for the working people say it is better to have one fighter than spend a day in a bomb shelter,

In the midst of this frozen, ruined town I met one voice that was like music.

It was the Lancashire accent of William Cooke, from Bolton. Ho la a spinning overader who. has been out here for thirty years,

He now directs the weaving for bandages and uniforms for the Finn- ish Army, He took me around his factory, showing me great spinning sheds whose machinery

Lancashire.

:

came from

Said William Cooke: "It is grand to see these people work when bomb fall only a hundred yards away They're one hundred per cent. strong in this war; .

"Blooming bomba fall blooming noar, but not a woman flinches." Most labour now is provided. by

·

Here in Finland William Cooke had created a frozen Bolton, but the spirit was the same.

"A situation which compels France Beyond was a hump-backed stair-women. They have taken the place to effect heavy purchases abroad and case with the front bedroom hang- of called-up men. deplete her gold stock cannot con-ing over the banisters, Bed linen, tinue..

curtains and rugs were draped in a Simultaneously prices are going up stiff, icy cascade to the open earth. and the country is confronted with a mad whirl of increased salaries to meet the increased cost of living fol lowed by a new rise in prices with- out any other limit than severe infla- tion and subsequent difficulties.--

"The only remedy is to restrict con- sumption, increase production and 'ac- cept rationing.

In a few days a census will be tak- en for the distribution to all French- men of Individual cards assuring an equitable supply of commodities to everyone.

BOMBING OF GRAVEYARD There was a boot cupboard " with polish and brushes; there was child's cot with a Mickey Mouse patterned covarist; ...... there was radio set with its valves and wire spilling on the floor.

#

"NOWT WILL SCARE THEM"

I watched the workers leave at 4 p.m. after an eight-hour shift, just as in Lancashire, though some went home on skis.

William Cooke said: "So, long as But perhaps most ironic of all was one loom stands they'll work it. Same the heavy bombing of the graveyard.as in Bolton. Nowt will scare these

Graves were opened, tombstones folk.

"They're fighting in their weaving and spinning. They're keeping the women and volunteers for replacing back line going, and they're tough." mobilised land workers but, if we get One thousand bombs on Finland's only an insufficient response we shall Bolton have braced the spirit of its, We must also produce agricultur- not hesitate to introduce compulsory people.They are not cowed. - al products. We have appealed to civil service,”!

A third of the workers have no

WOMEN ON: LAND.

ly

(Continued from Page 16)

"A telephone call, Sir. The Italian police, Sir."

"Ah." He smiled at three astound- ed women.

. "I was right you see, that's to tell me our friend the count has been arrested."

"Mr. Evesham!" Mrs. Chapman's exclamation was drowned by a cry of delight from Jennifer.

"Guy! You

detective! My

dear

13

a

"Yes," he smiled, "a detective."

""And what a clever one!" cried Mrs. Chapman. "Why, you're almost thought reader."

"Oh, I am,'

a

seriously.

1," he replied "There's nothing I can't. discover." He turned to Jennifer, "And to give you a proof, I can say what Jennifer is thinking now."

The girl blushed. "What's that?" to marry me." He smiled.

"You're wondering whether or not you've almost made up your mind to "In fact,

do so. To be married to a detective would be rather fun. Am I right?"

She laughed. "I'll give you my answer when you come back from the telephone

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