Status Quo Ante?

Into a pot bubbling with all sorts of complex plans for postwar Europe, Belgium's exiled Premier Hubert Pierlot last week tossed a proposition as calm as it was simple. His proposition: that Belgium take up where she left off in 1940, with King Leopold on the throne, the prewar Parliament in its seats, the exiled Cabinet in power until it "renders account" and prepares the country for postwar elections.

"Then," said Pierlot, "we will resign."

Such a program will probably be more practicable for Belgium than for most of Europe. Since the day the Nazis immured him in Laeken Castle, 42-year-old King Leopold has kept his title but has refused to govern. Belgian courts have stubbornly refused to cater to the Nazis, and have kept the prewar judicial system pretty well intact (TIME, Jan. 25, 1943). Nazi exploitation and expropriation have presumably played havoc with Belgium's interior economy, left the true ownership of many properties in doubt. But even this factor--a specter of disintegration which overhangs all Europe--did not seem to worry Premier Pierlot. Comfortably, he recalled that Belgium still has her rich African Congo, now aboom with wartime demands for its rubber and minerals.

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