Prosperity

When the U. S. Press suddenly awoke to the financial potency and comparative prosperity of France last month, many curious eyes turned to France's neighbor and ally, Belgium. Last week Associated Press correspondents finished a report on Belgium's economic position which showed that the people for whom Britons and U. S. citizens once knit thousands of pairs of woolen socks today have the most balanced economic position in Europe, with the possible exception of the Swiss and Dutch.

All Belgian government bonds are selling above par. Savings bank deposits are increasing yearly. The Belgian bank discount rate is 2 1/4% as compared with 8% for Germany, 4 1/4% for Britain. Exports almost equal imports. There are only 62,000 unemployed. Antwerp shipping increases yearly, and the city's skyline, almost unchanged since the days of Pieter Breughel and Jan van Eyck, is now stabbed by an up-to-date portentous 20-story skyscraper. The gold coverage of Belgian banknotes is at the proud level of 66%.

Interviewed, Belgian industrialists credited the country's happy state to the German army. At one blow old-fashioned factories, mills and mines were wiped out. After the War they were rebuilt with German reparations money in accordance with the most modern production methods, thus giving the country a great advantage over Great Britain, for example, most of whose industrial equipment still remains antiquated.

Last week's A. P. report closed with a statement by Paul van Zeeland, director of the Belgian National Bank and secretary of the Belgian Economic Council:

"Speaking purely for myself I consider Belgium's economic status the most secure in all Europe.

"First, we have stabilized our currency at a rate favorable to our productive industry [one Belgian franc: 3-c-]. Second, our industrialists not only completely modernized their processes but declined to yield to the clamor for higher dividends and instead built up reserves. Third, a large part of Belgian industry remained in the hands of small, individual owners and families who with amazing suppleness adapted themselves to changing conditions. Fourth, Belgian industry did not make the mistake of overexpanding. . . ."

Both M. van Zeeland and the Associated Press omitted one important cause of Belgium's prosperity, her African colonies. Much water has flowed under many bridges since the bold bad days of King Leopold and the rubber atrocities in the Congo. Today the Belgian Congo produces no rubber (plantation rubber is being cultivated to regain the market that wild Congo rubber once commanded), but it does produce enough coffee and cotton to fill a large part of Belgium's needs. Palm nuts and palm oil are the most important assets of the colony, mining excepted.

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