ltivation yet she supported seven and a half million
people and before the war it is said she had no paupers.

This little country has been called the "balance wheel of the world's
trade." The city of Antwerp is said to have forty miles of quays--ahead
of New York City. When the war broke out Belgium had just completed a
ten million dollar canal and had spent eighty million dollars on her
waterways. Her commercial and industrial interests were amazing. She had
one hundred and eighty factories for the manufacture of arms alone. A
single engine factory in Liege turned out two thousand large engines
complete, annually. The zinc foundries and cycle works of this one city
are world famous.

Belgium had the cheapest railroad fare of any country on earth.
Twenty-four of her thirty-two lines were government owned. One could
purchase a third-class ticket, good for five days going anywhere over
these lines for $2.35. One could ride to his work on the railway train
twenty miles and back each day for a whole week for the insignificant
sum of thirty-seven and one-half cents. This made it possible for even
the poorest people to travel and many of them did. The city of Brussels
had two hundred passenger trains entering and leaving the two great
depots every twenty-four hours.

Belgium gave the world the greatest example of thrift ever known.
Surely, if ever a nation needed such an example, we did and do. Belgium
could live well from the crumbs that fall from our tables. Were the
American people as thrifty as the Belgians, we could save all the war
cost us, including the soldiers' bonus, in a generation. There,
everybody works, even father. While the people are poor, yet, as noted
above, it was a country without paupers and will soon be so again.

The government paid interest on savings and encouraged even the poorest
to have a savings account. Such an account could be started with one
franc and could be opened at any post office. Our thrift stamp idea came
from Belgium. The farmer or working man could buy a small plot of
ground, build a little home for his family, be insured against sickness
or accident, even though he hardly had a dollar to start with. The
government would back him and he could borrow money from the national
savings bank system.

The Belgians are said to have the best courts in existence. With a
single judge in the Supreme Court, cases are reviewed quickly while
everything is fresh in mind and witnesses and all