WAR REFUGEES.
[To vas EDITOR or THR " Srre-nroa."]
SIR,—The Board of Trade has adopted my last effort to assist in the present struggle, leaving me free to help in other ways, and if those to whom the following idea commends itself will write to me, I shall be glad to do my best to organize a practical effort. We English are notoriously slow to adopt the ideas and practices of other nations, but history shows that we have from time to time incorporated those which refugees have brought here. The Lombards, French Huguenots, and Flemings are imperishable examples. The Flemings and French are with us again as refugees, and it might be to our mutual advantage if we could borrow ideas from them, and, while assisting some of them to earn their own living, could learn from them some of their crafts.
At this moment, when it is clear that food production should be one of the great cares of the nation, we should do well to remember that the Belgians and French are past- masters in the art of intensive cultivation, the growing of beet, &c., and from them we might learn valuable lessons of how to work our country in smaller holdings than now exist, how to give employment to more persons on the land, and how to produce ourselves much that we now import. When they have had time to recover from the awful shocks which they have suffered it might be possible to obtain some idea of their various trades, and, under proper supervision and restrictions, create for and give them employment, which would assist them to provide for themselves, relieve them from the terrible thoughts which must assail them in their solitude and enforced idleness, and enable them to impart to us some of the knowledge which they have and which we so lack. Could this be done they will probably leave an unforgettable mark on English country life, and will confer a further benefit upon the nation which gladly gives what hospitality it
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