Despite these efforts it was obvious that the Belgian budget could not be restored to financial equilibrium save by Germany's payment of the war indemnity. In order to have some guarantee of that indemnity the Government, on Nov. 10 1918, placed under sequestration all property belonging to subjects of the enemy countries. The chief item of expense was the indemnification of war damage, estimated at over 35 milliards. The State supported the formation of cooperative societies, advancing to persons who had suffered war damage up to 70 to 95% of the compensation due to them, and the creation of the Credit National Industriel, also supported by the Banque Nationale, and serving as intermediary between the State and the claimants. To provide the advances these organizations issued 5% bonds guaranteed by the State up to the value of the compensation for damages. Thus the debt was brought into the hands of several groups, which should greatly facilitate its liquidation.
The work of national reconstruction was being accomplished up to 1921 amid political and social calm. After the Armistice the Government was composed of ministers belonging to the three great parties. All political strife had ceased, a truce having been brought about by mutual concessions. Universal suffrage “pure and simple” at 21 years of age was established at the demand of the Socialist party. As compensation the Catholic party claimed votes for women, which the Chamber conceded for communal elections but not for parliamentary elections. The elections of Nov. 16 1919, with universal suffrage at 21, deprived the Catholic party of the majority it had enjoyed since 1884, while the Socialists gained considerably.
Thanks to this political calm, Parliament was able to introduce such important reforms as the income tax, and the prohibition of the sale of alcohol in public (law of Aug. 29 1919).
The only disturbing elements in Belgian public life in 1920-1 was the Activist movement. Promoted by German intrigue during the war, it still existed, making the independence of Flanders its ostensible object. At the last election its candidates only polled 62,000 votes out of 1,757,104 cast, and it was generally condemned by public opinion. The members of the Raed van Vlaenderen and certain Activists who had assisted the enemy were convicted of high treason and sentenced, but they had escaped to Holland, where they were well received by both the Government and the public.
Belgium took an honourable part in the proceedings of the League of Nations. Like Brazil, Greece and Spain she was invited to join the Council along with the Great Powers, and her delegate, M. Hymans, was elected president of the first general assembly at Geneva. At that assembly Belgium was reflected as member of the Council, to sit on it with Brazil, Spain, China, and the Great Powers. With the object of extending Belgian influence abroad, the diplomatic and consular services were completely reorganized. The Association Internationale des Académies has chosen Brussels for its centre of activity.
On Aug. 19 1920 the Académie de la langue française was inaugurated at Brussels. Dr. Bordet, professor of Brussels University, was awarded the Nobel prize. University life had revived. The civil status granted to the universities of Louvain and Brussels was on July 5 1920 extended to the universities of Ghent and Liege. The profits realized by the C.R.B. were presented by the president, Mr. Hoover, to the Belgian universities. Each of them was the recipient of a donation of 20 million francs, intended to develop the scientific side of their work. Mr. Hoover moreover presented a sum of 80 millions to the Fondation Universitaire, the income to be allocated by a committee of university professors to encourage the advance of science in Belgium.
Finally, mention must be made of the reform of justice, the creation of single judge tribunals, reforms in the treatment of prisoners, and the institution of a school of criminology. The Government established a school of agriculture at Ghent, a school of social service, and a colonial school. A commission of inquiry was appointed to investigate the violations of international law committed by the Germans in Belgium. Archives of the war were founded to collect all the documents relative to the history of Belgium from 1914 to 1918.
Bibliography.—From the historical point of view: H. Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique (5 vols.); idem, Les anciennes Democraties des Pays-Bas (English trans.); Cammaerts, Belgium. From the political point of view:—H. Van der Linden, History of Belgium; Van der Essen, A Short History of Belgium; E. Descailles, Charles Rogier; P. Hymans, Histoire parlementaire de la Belgique; idem, Frere Orbans; Van der Smissen, La Correspondance de Leopold I.avec M. Beernaert; Baffin, La Jeunesse de Leopold I.; Le Lime gris beige. From the economic and social points of view:—Seebohm-Rowntree, Comment diminuer la misere en Belgique; Levinski, Le developpement industriel de la Belgique; Waxweiler, Enquete Industriette (published by the Ministère du Travail); H. Charriaut, La Belgique Moderne; Passelecq, Les deportations des ouvriers beiges pendant la guerre. (H. P.; J. P.)
Belgian Literature
It cannot be said that any very extraordinary new talent either in prose or in poetry revealed itself in Belgian French literature between 1910 and 1921.
The fame of Maurice Maeterlinck and Emile Verhaeren remained world-wide. Maeterlinck's play L'Oiseau Bleu (1911) was first performed at Moscow, then in London (translated as The Blue Bird), and later in Paris and New York. The writer's poetic imagination and serene philosophy contributed to make his play intensely popular. A continuation under the title of The Betrothal was produced in London in 1921.
During the war Maeterlinck published, in 1916, a volume of articles he had written in various newspapers and lectures he had delivered in England, France and Italy, under the title of Les Débris de la Guerre. He also wrote L'Hôte Inconnu (1917), Le Miracle de St. Antoine (1919), Les Sentiers dans la Montague (1919) and Le Bourgmestre de Stilemonde (1920), a play dealing with the horrors of the German invasion in Belgium.
Emile Verhaeren's tragedy Hélène de Sparte was first published in German, translated by Stephan Zweig, then in Russian, and appeared in French in 1912, when it was performed in Paris. Verhaeren's forcible and rather rugged style is perhaps not absolutely suited to the subject he treats. His poems, however, Les Rythmes Souverains (1910), Les Villes à Pignons (1910), Les Fleurs du Soir (1911), Les Plaines (1911) and Les Blés Mouvants (1912), are as intense in feeling and vitality as his earlier work. Verhaeren's accidental death (he was crushed by a train in Rouen station Nov. 26 1916) was a great loss to Belgian literature. La Belgique Sanglante (1915), Parmi les Cendres (1916), Villes Meurtries de Belgique (1916), Les Ailes Rouges de la Guerre (1916) have been read and admired all the world over for their ardent patriotism and their righteous indignation as well as for their felicity of expression. These war poems will live wherever the French language is spoken.
In Les Libertins d'Anvers, Légende et Histoire des Loistes, Georges Eekhoud has told the story of the heretic sects in Antwerp in the i6th century. In this book Eekhoud, according to his custom, exalts his native city in her vices as well as in her virtues. Other books written by Eekhoud are Les Peintres Animaliers Belges (1911), and L'Imposteur magnanime, Perkin Warbeck (1914).
A tragedy in four acts by Camille Lemonnier, Edénie, set to music by Leon du Bois, was performed in Antwerp in 1912 with great success. The poem, written in blank verse, has all the charm of Lemonnier's vivid imagination and forcible style. Lemonnier died in 1913. His last book, Au Cœur frais de la Forét, was published in 1914.
Albert Giraud's La Frise Empourprée (1912) is a collection of poems, in which their author remains faithful to the Parnassian tradition. In 1919 Giraud published a volume of poems, Le Laurier, written in Brussels during the war, and in 1920 Éros et Psyche.
Ivan Gilkin published in 1911 poems called La Nuit, the first of three volumes, of which the others were to be called L'Aube and La Lumière, and in 1920 a play in blank verse, Le Roi Cophetua.
Grégoire Le Roy, in his collection of poems called Le Rouet et la Besace, illustrated by himself, deals with the sufferings of the poor. La Couronne des Soirs (1911), Contes d'après Minuit (1913) and Joe Trimborn (1913) are collections of short stories.
