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O not waste the bread!" Thus appeals a poster from the walls of restaurants and hotels all over Belgium. "By saving bread you decrease the amount of wheat which must be imported. You accordingly maintain the value of your money."

This putting of economics on the breakfast-table is only one of a great multitude of straws which catch the eye even of the careless observer as he travels over the Continent to-day. They tell of the blowing of a new wind-a wind laden with the good tidings that nearly all the peoples of Europe are to-day beginning to build out of their lessened post-war materials a firmer and a fairer future than they could have dared to picture a year or two ago.

Such tidings are assuredly welcome to every American interested in the revival of what has been ever since, say, 1917 nothing less than a seriously sick civilization. Nevertheless, there are certain phases and by-products in this remarkable revival which for reasons to be mentioned later should, I believe, give to every serious-minded American legitimate cause for disquiet in his thought about himself and his country's position in the moral and commercial world of to-day and to-morrow.

First, about those straws.

Perhaps the most outstanding change in the post-war landscape for the traveller who recalls his pre-war Europe is the war garden-the universal, the ubiquitous, war garden. Even in the old "fore-fourteen" days the average Continental city, town, or farm looked a perfect monument to diligence and frugality, with its every

acre of ground crowded into its due service for either shelter or food. To-day it is evident enough that the vast hunger of the dark war days pressed an enormous additional acreage of tiny plots into new and life-saving performance. Hardly one of all those square yards but is still on the job. Every one of them that demonstrated its usefulness in increasing the country's ability to live and fight in those days is now being made to help the nation to carry on within the narrow limits of its own resources and so to hold up the value of its money by decreasing the amount to be purchased of its neighbors.

To an extent never known before, also, those little tracts have been given an opportunity to perform their huge aggregate of service by organized large-scale industry. In France, Italy, and to a considerable extent in Belgium and Germany, wartime demonstration of the war garden's usefulness, as a means of getting the utmost out of the narrow margin of their restricted hereditary environment, helped to persuade many of the larger industrial establishments to move away from the city out into the country; while near Nevers, four hours south of Paris, the post-war days of economic reconstruction saw such enterprises as the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway building, in brand new villages, new and highly efficient shops set most artistically in front of little gardens and at the edge of great open fields. The same savings both of plant operation and of living costs are, of course, much more apparent in the "reconstitution" of the devastated regions of the north of France.

Even in Germany one legitimate result of the abysmal fall of the mark has been this same increase of the country's re

ing of new homes in factory "city-lets" situated in the midst of the thrifty possibilities of the countryside. At Bourg la Reine, for instance, a model cité ouvrière just outside Paris, the cost of rent was definitely made a means of improving and increasing the industrial resources of the country by means of the stimulation of the birth-rate. As the housewife, her little vegetable garden behind her delightful little four-room home in the midst of the freshly built and painted little Spotless Town, explained:

"Only 900 francs do we pay for it the year. But that is because the bon Dieu has sent us six children. If we were so unfortunate as to have received only, for instance, four, then it is that we should

between the Channel and the Mediterranean-astonishing and significant. I mean the city and the village sport field.

This new piece of outdoor social furniture has perhaps made most amazing post-war progress in Germany. There it has naturally followed the abolition of military service; some of my miner friends in the Ruhr last September were quick to say that in some cases the new sport clubs were fostered by the monarchist party as likely to prove useful in the day of the longed-for call to arms and revenge. But in France, Belgium, Italy, and elsewhere sport has come with little, if any, military tinge, and with an almost equal rush in these last few years. If possible, Italy is a little more sport-mad than any of her

neighbors. On almost any road near the industrial centres, of a Sunday afternoon, racing bicyclists in annoying numbers drip sweat as they bend double over their handle-bars. The automobile races at Monza, near Milan, last summer drew over 40,000 visitors, including the honorable "Duce" Mussolini, for witnessing the contest for "Il Gran Premio d'Europa."

This new interest in outdoor effort would be good medicine for sick peoples if it did nothing more than to rebuild the national physique depleted by the strains of the war. It would also serve a very useful purpose if it did no more than to bring European women into a larger measure of outdoor freedom and equality, such as they are now beginning to enjoy in the sport fields or simple stadiums of, say, France. But to-day in Europe those athletic fields which now dot the landscape are doing an immensely bigger thing. They are bringing the various peoples together upon an extremely popular and significant platform. In actual practice their various athletic associations are now operating nothing less than a veritable League of Peoples-a League of Peoples at Play.

"Great excitement prevails," so reads the column of a local newspaper of the Ruhr, "and endless discussion is now going on as to the probable winners this coming Saturday, when the Hamburg Sportverein plays football with the Zurich 'Old Boys.' It must be remembered, however, that even in case of the victory of the Hamburg team, they must then go up against the Zurich 'Young Fellows,' if, as now is believed probable, these latter prove the victors over the 'Swiss Grasshoppers.""

The value of such good-natured international rivalry becomes all the more apparent when in the next column is seen a news item or editorial which breathes in every line a bitterness toward nearly all the nations of the globe. Nor does that bitterness prevent the use of an amazing amount of English. Besides naming the teams, such as the "Old Boys" or "Grasshoppers," according to the titles they chose, even the most chauvinistic of journals on the Continent does not hesitate to head its columns and despatches with such universal terms as "Football," "Box,"

"Lawn Tennis," "Golf," "Records," and so on. Everywhere the language has followed the game as completely as ScotchI do not mean the beverage has been imported in the golf bag. So our tongue and our exploits come upon the lips of great numbers of our European friends. For over there, as well as here, many of the newspapers which are read by the greatest number of average citizens are those which pay most attention to the world of athletic achievement. On the whole, such readers are a little more likely to become wholesomely internationalized than if they were to read only such highly local and parochial sheets as pass to-day, for instance, for the best French newspapers.

Somewhat the same international aspect is to be noted for the sport of Belgium, where the post-war revival of morale is both cause and effect in a considerable extension of pigeon-racing. Of a Saturday or Sunday afternoon the station master in some small town across the border in France or Germany or Luxembourg is likely to use his spare moments providing excitement for a group of sportsmen in, say, Brussels or Antwerp. In line with careful instructions given him-along with proper compensationhe takes the crate of Belgian-owned homing pigeons out of the station and he proceeds after carefully correcting his watch with Belgian time-to put this particular bird or that into the air at certain designated instants. A few hours later the owner welcomes the arrival of his pet at its "home" in the cote erected perhaps upon the roof of his apartment. Instantly unfastening the number with the moment of its release from the tiny carton on the bird's leg, he proceeds to solve the mystery of those iron tubes which excite the visitor's curiosity as he sees them projecting from numerous high roofs in Belgian cities. He encloses the bird's tag and the precise times of release and arrival in a little ball-like receptacle and starts it rolling through the tube. This projects it out into the middle of the street, where it is caught by a waiting messenger boy. This incipient sportsman darts off like a flash. A few moments later he comes panting into the restaurant where the real sportsmen have assembled. Breathlessly

series of contests," so the leading newspaper is likely to set forth, "has been sold by its popular owner, Mr. Dash, to Mr. Blank for what is considered one of the most sensational prices to date. Exact details are not known, but it is believed to be well into the thousands of francs!" Such winged aristocrats of sport do more than help to revive the old satisfactions of the pre-war world. They are, of course, not to be confused with their humbler brethren which share, along with a surprising number of rabbits, chickens, and perhaps pigs, the tiny cage crowded up close to the little war garden of so many workers' homes. But sooner or later they all together face the day when they will do their part in helping

universal progress in the direction of temperance and at least partial prohibition.

A recent study made by the French Government in two of her most industrial federal states, or departments, revealed that the consumption of alcohol has lessened since pre-war by 20 per cent per inhabitant. Credit was formally given to the war garden, the model homes, and the other advantages which came with peace, including particularly the move of industry into the country. There nobody has the same desire or occasion to spend time in the estaminet. In Belgium it has for some time been against the law to buy spirituous liquors in a saloon or in any place to be consumed upon the premises.

Even the department stores and other places cannot sell less than two litres to any one customer. This has resulted in the importation of considerable quantities of heavier ale and beer from England and of heavier wines from Spain and Portugal. Nevertheless, all observers agree that the law has greatly reduced drunkenness throughout the country and especially among the workers. In Italy one of the ways in which Mussolini has exercised his dictatorial powers has been to curtail the hours during which alcohol in any other form than the usual light wines and beer can be sold in the numerous drinking places. In Bulgaria also the last two years have seen a very genuine spread of local option. All this has only been in line with the similar reduction of the per capita consumption of beer and liquors in England following upon the continuance. of the war-time restriction of the open hours of the public house.

This general temperance movement has undoubtedly been one result of what is itself to be reckoned an important factor in this revival of Europe's morale. I mean the generally improved conditions of the lower groups of workers. Even more universal than the war garden throughout the industrial world of Europe, as well as in America, has been this phenomenon: the unskilled social-bottom worker, the common laborer, has practically everywhere come into a better living than he was able to enjoy before the war. His improvement has been both absolute and relative. He is not only better off than he was before, but he has also made more progress away from his pre-war standing in the line than has the skilled or the semiskilled worker above him. The reason for this comparative and absolute improvement is the same in Europe as in America. The making of munitions in all these countries forced the engineers to design machines which were so "fool-proof" that they could be operated by men who had previously never known any tool except the pick and shovel. High piecerates had also to be offered for the same purpose of obtaining maximum hurry-up output. As a result, the machinist, the clerk, the teacher, and other members of the so-called middle classes found themselves occupying a less favorable position

than previously. They found themselves, that is, closer to the bottom of the social ladder simply because the bottom had been cut off. Those conditions of work at high wages do not exist to-day for the common laborer, but he has not yet retired to his old place at what used to be the bottom. And because he is living better he finds it easier to resist the mocking allurements of old John Barleycorn and, therefore, easier also to make more than ever before of the resources of his still humble and restricted and still warwounded lot.

That elevation of the world's social bottom is in itself worth being called at least a partial social revolution. But with it have come certain other outstanding changes which followed close upon both the peace and the war.

For one thing, the demand for munitions aroused everywhere in the world's factories a great interest in the care of the worker as an indispensable social and national asset. It was surprising this past summer to find that in Italy and Belgium as well as in France and England the same causes produced there just as they did here a rapid development of what is still called over there by the name of welfare work. It was nothing less than amazing to inspect, for instance, a tire factory situated in the fields outside of Milan and to come upon a war-built plant amazingly similar in lightness, airiness, safety, and general attractiveness to the same kind of establishment here. Still more amazing was it to find dozens of children receiving instruction in well-kept day nurseries, located, of course, at the edge of elaborate sport fields and tennis courts provided for the workers close to the most modern of shower-baths and rest-rooms.

Such activities are hardly less valuable from the standpoint of man-saving and national frugality than the everywhere marked general improvement of factory safety. All of them are much the same sort of social tools for bettering the future by making the most out of little as is the supplement familiale paid by the French, Italian, or other Continental employer to his workers according to the number of their children. Of the same sort also in the way of help toward proper adjustment to the difficult financial conditions of