Of all that,
plants, machinery, mines, nothing is left. Everything has been carried
away or destroyed by the enemy. So complete is the destruction that, in
the case of our great coal mines in the north, two years of work will be
needed before a single ton of coal can be extracted and ten years before
the output is brought back to the figures of 1913.
"All that must be rebuilt, and to carry out that kind of reconstruction
only, there will be a need of over 2,000,000 tons of pig iron, nearly
4,000,000 tons of steel--not to mention the replenishing of stocks and
of raw materials which must of necessity be supplied to the plants
during the first year of resumed activity. If we take into account these
different items we reach as regards industrial needs a total of
25,000,000,000 francs.
"To resurrect these regions, to reconstruct these factories, raw
materials are not now sufficient; we need means of transportation. Now
the enemy has destroyed our railroad tracks, our railroad equipment, and
our rolling stock, which in the first month of the war, in 1914, was
reduced by 50,000 cars, has undergone the wear and tear of fifty months
of war.
"Our merchant fleet, on the other hand, has lost more than a million
tons through submarine warfare. Our shipyards during the last four years
have not built any ships.
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