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The most spectacular piece of good sense was displayed by Belgium's government in exile (which included Paul-Henri Spaak as Foreign Minister) when it decided that Belgium would need hard work and that hard work required incentives. The plans were put into operation on September 8, 1944, the day the government returned to Brussels. Like every German-occupied country, Belgium was flooded with excess paper money (almost five times as many francs were in circulation as before the war). Finance Minister Camille Gutt called in all bank notes larger than 100 francs, returned no more than 2,000 francs to anyone. The rest was temporarily frozen or funneled into government loans. Some Belgians howled at the deflation, but those who suffered most were those who had made the biggest profits on German accounts. Few Belgians wept for such sufferers. The economic surgery saved Belgium from the inflation which other continental countries experienced.
Full Shelves. The rest of the government's plan called for full shelves at full speed. Belgium used its dollar credits to buy food, clothing, alarm clocks and everything else consumers needed most—instead of spending it on heavy reconstruction. The common-sense reason: you could ask workers to work hard if they could buy something with their wages. Belgian workers, who had plenty to buy with their wages, did work hard. Belgian industries, which had reasonable profits to make, got down to the job as though their lives depended on it (as indeed they did).
This spring, the Belgian franc is (after the Swiss franc and the Portuguese escudo) Europe's hardest currency. Belgians had their worries, but they were better off than any other European people touched by the war. They had cake in the cupboard as well as hope in the future.
They also had a remarkably small Communist Party (about 100,000). Complains Communist Secretary General Jean Terfve: "Belgians are a peculiar people. They always grumble, but fundamentally they are satisfied." Spaak puts it differently. "Prosperity," he says, "is the death of Communism."
Paul-Henri Spaak, who in his Bond Street-style clothes still recalls Pieter Bruegel's ripe-colored, sturdy figures, himself best symbolizes Belgium's healthy appetite for good life, good sense and hard work. Last week he had a chance to show his mettle in a political controversy—the matter of raising the subsidies to state schools. That was a touchy business in a coalition government of eight Socialists, nine Christian Socialists (Catholic party) and two nonparty technicians. The Catholic party, which has strong roots among a people whose lusty contentment is matched by deep religious feeling, protested that the added subsidy was discrimination against parochial schools.
Spaak had not yet found a formula to satisfy both sides, but he sat at his desk (with four telephones) churning out ideas. Callers were ushered in through one of the three doors to the Premier's office—usually a moment after a rival had been ushered out through another. "In a crisis," says Spaak, "see everyone, and keep on proposing things."