OVER THERE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 30, 4 February 1916, Page 7

OVER THERE.

BELGIUM UNDER INVADERS'

HEEL.

PRUSSIAN TYRANNY.

From somewhere "over there" comes the roar of the guns—a dull, intermittent thundering that rolls towards us over Hat pasture lands of Flandere (writes Leonard Spray, an English correspondent on the JJutch frontier), it may be only an acoustic deception, but surely the invisible messengers of war—and death—are nearer. So, too. thinks my neighbour.

"They are driving the Germans back, monsieur; is it not co?" she asks—.this poor Belgian exile. That m the question that is always on her lips. For long, weary months she has been iliere, she and half a dozen fellow exiles. There are -hospitable English homos that would 'gladly give them welcome, and where they would sliare the comforts that are lacking in the shelters and barges that are their present abodes.

So 1 have often told them. But the reply is always the same. "No, monsieur; we must wait hero until 'they' have gone. Then we can go back home at once."

So here they sit, day after day, week after week, month after month, listening always to the distant guns, or watching the aeroplanes that look like tiny birds as they swoop and swerve in the far distance. Generally they are silent and impassive, but sometimes they weep silently after these lengthening daye of alternating hope and despair as they think of their littie homes or wonder what is happening "over there."

Their own menfolk ure playing their part in the battles that they hear but cannot see. Always they cherish the hope that they will see their husbands and fathers marching with the army of delivery, but sometimes comes the doubt that perhaps they are lying dead "over there," where the sun iis eettins; blood-red over a blood-red land.

Others are thinking not of the soldiers in the tiring line, but of their iesa fortunate compatriots—their friends or relations anmng those ti,OOO,OUU men, women and children, not in the narrow strip of Belgium that is still their own, but in all the rest of the unhappy land which groans under the yoke of the invader. How fares it with the people in Brussels and in Bruges, \n ruined Dinant, in tireBwept Termonde, under the blood-atained walls of Louvain?

Little of comfort is there in the news tl.at occasionally steals across the guarded frontier. It is a monotonous story —monotonous, 1 mean, in that the "mutif" never changeu. The details may vary, but the main outline is always the same. ;Hars?h tyranny ami petty persecution is the text of all the tales. What you realise as the meaning of it all m an attempt to break the spirit of a people. In previous dispatches 1 have told of the lines and punishments, the proclamations and restrictions, the unending stream of rules and regulations. Another Prussian method of trying to -hatter the morale of the people is the publication of false news. Pome time I tiiro 1 met n neutral who had just re- : turned from "over there." "Iβ , if true," lie , asked mc, "that the French have been terribly defeated ill the Champagne?" 1 told of the contrary, of how our gallant Allies had captured trench after j trench from the enemy in that district"What makes you think differently!" 1 asked. "Well," he replied. "1 have just come from Bruges. The walls are placarded with a bulletin stating that the Kronch have been routed in the Champagne, that thousands were killed and wounded, and 5000 taken prisoners."

Compared with the "news" issued in Belgium the "German wireless -, is a fountain of truth and pnrity. The productions of the latter, however strong their merits as works of imagination, are always "touched up" by the master of fiction who drafts the bulletins that decorate the hoardings of Belgium. Here is an example, which appeared not so long ago on the walls of Tirlemont and surrounding villages:

"Our troops have secured a brilliant victory over the Russians. The Belgian, army has been destroyed, and King Albert nnd Queen Elizabeth have been made prisoners."

Much of such nonsense is, no doubt, invented with the idea of encouraging the German soldiers passing through, or quartered in, the occupied zone. It may deceive them, but at any rate it has no effect on the Belgian readers.

At one time the people of Brussels used to stand in front of thejr would-be masters' placards and openly laugh at them. A terrible offence this, in the eyes of the proud Prussian. So promptly a notice appeared intimating that to

"make fun" at anything German was an offence, and would be treated with appropriate severity. Simultaneously an army of spies was drafted into the capital to catch delinquents. The sprightly-witted Beligians were quite equal to the occasion. They didn't laugh, they didn't even smile; in fact, they didn't as m-uch as condescend to read the German "news."

Another example of this policy of spirit-breaking is contained in a railway time-table issued by tfie German authorities. Here is set forth, among other fables, the announcement that among the lines reserved for the use of the military is that running from Audun-lc-Roman to Rheims! q "More bluff," pays the philosophic citizen of Brussels, who knows quite well that the Germans have never got nearer to Rheims than within big gun range of the cathedral.

But this is in Brussels, where it is still possible, despite threats of fearful pain and penalties, to read an Knglish newspaper occasionally. Far different is it in hundreds of villages in Belgium. Antwerp, Brussels and some other of the larger cities and towns have a limited postal service. But never a letter, or any other news, from the outside world reaches the scattered people of the countryside. And this is only the least of their troubles. But for the work of the International Relief Commission thousands of them would long ago hav-e starved to death. As it is, many only get enough to keep body and soul together; those, I mean, living in isolated spots that can only be reached at long intervals.

The managers of the Canterbury Patriotic Fund have decided to be represented at the conference convened by the 'Minister for Internal Affairs.

In connection with the cutting up by the Government of tho old kauri gum reserve at Henderson for settlement, the Waitemata County Council is inviting tenders for the formation of 46 chains of Stnrges Road, which will connect the reserve with the railway station.