eys at an entire cost of 37-1/2 cents per week, less than the
amount that you pay for the journey one way for a like distance in this
country. Out of this has come Belgium's prosperity. She has the money to
buy goods from other countries, and she has the property to export to
foreign lands. Last year the United States, with its hundred millions of
people, imported less than $2,000,000,000, and exported $2,500,000,000.
If our people had been as prosperous per capita as Belgium, we would
have purchased from other countries $12,000,000,000 worth of goods and
exported $10,000,000,000.

So largely have we been dependent upon Belgium that many of the engines
used in digging the Panama Canal came from the Cockerill works that
produce two thousands of these engines every year in Liege. It is often
said that the Belgians have the best courts in existence. The Supreme
Court of Little Belgium has but one Justice. Without waiting for an
appeal, just as soon as a decision has been reached by a lower Court,
while the matters are still fresh in mind and all the witnesses and
facts readily obtainable, this Supreme Justice reviews all the
objections raised on either side and without a motion from anyone passes
on the decision of the inferior court. On the other hand, the lower
courts are open to an immediate settlement of disputes between the wage
earners, and newsboys and fishermen are almost daily seen going to the
judge for a decision regarding a dispute over five or ten cents. When
the judge has cross-questioned both sides, without the presence of
attorneys, or the necessity of serving a process, or raising a dollar
and a quarter, as here, the poorest of the poor have their wrongs
righted. It is said that not one decision out of one hundred is
appealed, thus calling for the existence of an attorney.

To all other institutions organized in the interest of the wage earner
has been added the national savings bank system, that makes loans to men
of small means, that enables the farmer and the working man to buy a
little garden and build a house, while at the same time insuring the
working man against accident and sickness. Belgium is a poor man's
country, it has been said, because institutions have been administered
in the interest of the men of small affairs.

THE GREAT BELGIUM PLAIN IN HISTORY

But the institutions of Belgium and the industrial prosperity of her
people alone are not equal to the explanation of her unique heroism.