THE SLAVE RAIDERS OF BELGIUM

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3161, 13 August 1917, Page 6

THE SLAVE RAIDERS OF BELGIUM

AMERICAN PROOF OF OUTRAGES UNITED STATES CONSUL'S STORY : Tho United States Department of Stato has issued: for publication t'ho following dispatch from Mr. Brand Whitlock, American Minister . to Belgium, which ■was written in January:— "In order, to' fully understand the situation, it is necessary to go back to '..tho' autumn.'of 19M. At the timo wo :.were organising " the relief , work the Coniite National—the Belgian relief or'ganisation; tho,t 'collaborates/ with the Commission for .Eolief in Belgium—proposed an. arraugement 'by whioli the Belgian Government should pay to its own employees 16ft iii.Belgium, and other unempldyed'iUiieif; betides,., (he wages they had been'':accustomed, to receive. The Belgians wished'to do this both for humanitarian and patriotic purposes; 'they wished, to provide the unemployed with tho means of;.livelihood, and, at tho same

time, to prevent their working for the Germans. The policy, was adopted, and has been continued in practice, and on the rolls of the Comite National havo ■been borne the names of hundreds of thousands —some 700,000, I believe—of idle men receiving this dole, distributed ' through' the,communes. The presence_of these unemployed, however/:was; a 'cohs-tant temptation to German cupidity":""Many times they sought to obtain the lists of the 'chomeurs,' but -"were always foiled by the claim tliat under the guarantees covering tho reliet - work the records of tho Comite National and its various sub-organisations wcro immune. Hatlier than risk any interruption of tho ravitaillement, for which, •while loath to own any obligation to Aiimrica, the Germans have always been grateful, since it has had the effect of keeping the population calm, tho authorities never pressed the point other* than ■with the burgomasters of the communes. I'inally, however, tlie military party, al- , ways brutal, and with an astounding ignorance "of public opinion and of moral sentiment, detprmincd to put these idle L men to work.

Hindenburg and the Deportations. " ' "In August von Hindenburg was ap- " ' -pointed to the supreme command. Ho is said to have criticised von Bissing-s policy as too mild; there was a quaiiel, von Bissing went to Berlin to protest, 'threatened to resign, but did not. tie returned, and a German ofhcial here said ■' that Belgium would now be subjected to a more terrible Tegime, would learn what . war was. The prophecy has been vm-, dicated. The deportations began - in October in the Btape, at Ghent,., and at Bruges. The policy spread; the rich industrial districts of Hainaut, the mines and steel works about Charleroi, weie next attacked, and now they are seizing • men in Brabant, even in Brussels, despite some indications : : tions of the civil authorities that tlio ' policy was about to be abandoned. • "i'/uring the last fortnight men have been, impressed here in Brussels, but their seizures here are made evidently tfftn much greater care than in the provinces, with moro regard lor the appearances. There was no public announcement of the intention to deport, but suddenly, about ten days ago, certain ' : "men in town, whose names nre on the list of 'chomeurs' received summons n./afyirig them to report at one of the railway stations on ft given day; penalties were fixed for failure to respond to the summons, and there was printed on the ' card an offer of employment by the o.erman Government either in it ermany or Belgium. On the first day, out of about 1500 men ordered to present themselves - at the Gare du Nidi, about 750 responded. Taese were examined by German physicians, and 300 were taken. There was no "disorder, a large force of mounted Uhlans keeping back the crowds and , - "barring access to the station to all but those who had been summoned to appear. The Commission for Relief m Belgium liad secured permission to give to*each fleported man a loaf of bread and some . of the communes provided warm ciotli- ■ ring Tor those who had none and, m addition, a small financial allowance. As ' T>y one of the ironies of life the winter has been more excessively cold than Bei- - pium has ever known it, and while many of those who presented themselves were adequately protected against the cold, 1 many of'S%m. were without overcoats. ; The men shivering from cold and tear, the parting from weeping w j ™| and children, the barriers of brutal U hlansall this made the seen© a pitiable and distressing one. "It was understood' that the seizures would continue here in Brussels, but on Thursday last, a . bitterly cold da>, ' those that had been'convoked were sent 'home without examination. It is sv.p- ---■ posed that the severe weather has moved ' ,'tlie Germans to postpone the deporwtions.

Rage, Terror, and Despair. "The rage, the terror, and despair ex- - cited by this measure all over Belgium ■were beyond anything we had witnessed • Bince the dw the Germans roured into Brussels. Tlie delegates of the Comuimaion for Relief in Belgium, returning to Brussels; told the J.iost distressing stories of ,the scenes of cruelty arid sorrow attending the seizures. And daily, hourly almost, since that time, ap- ;■ palling stories have been related by Belgians coming to the Legation. It is impossible for us to verify them, firs , because it is necessary for us to exercise " <i!"i possible tact in dealing with the sub--1 iect at all, and, secondly, because there is no means of communiaction between and tlis Etappen ".'GobieC ~;.Ti'an6por.V.tion everywhere in '-•-Belgium is"'difficult, the vicinal raih\ajs scarcely operating any more because ot -the lack of oil, while all .the horses lia,o ■ been taken. Tho people who are forced, •to go from one village to another.must do so on foot or in . vans drawn by the • few miserable horses that are ieft. 11l wagons of the breweries, the one liistitu- ; tion that the Germans have respected, are hauled by oxen. "The well-known tendency of sensational reports to exaggerate themselves. ' especially in time of war, and in a situation .like that existing here, with no newspapers to'serve- as a daily clearing-.-bouse "or- all the rumours that are as vividly believed as they are eagerly rc•peated, should, of course, be considered, but even if a modicum of all that is to'd is true, there still remains enough fo stamp this deed as one of the louiest that history records. . ' i TI am constantly in receipt of reports from all over Belgium that tend to bear out the stories one constantly hears of ibrutalitv and cruelty. A uumoor of men gent oack to Mons aro said to be in a dvin<" condition, many ot them tubercular it Malines and at Antwerp returned nien have died, tlioir iriemls asserting tliat they have been victims of neglect and cruelty,. of cold, of exposino,

"of Hunger. "I have had requests from the burgomasters of ten communes fmrljii J*>": viere asking that permission be obtained to send to the deported men in Germany packages of food similar to tlioso th, t nro being sent to prisoners of war. i his far the German authorities have i eluded to permit this cxcept in special mstaiicc!-, ami returning Belgians claim that r\\ when such packages are received the} • are used by the camp authorities only as another means of coercing them to Eign the agreements to work. "It is said 'that in spite ot the libei a I salary promised thoso who would sign voluntarily, no money basket ten reccived in Belgium from workmen in (jeimariy. Oue interesting result of the dep'H'fations remains t.o be noted, a icsu t, that onco more places in relief the tier- ' jiian capacity for blundering, almost as ci-eat as tho German capacity for cruelty. "They have dealt a mortal blow to any prospect- they may ever have had ot Twin" tolerated by 'the population ol Planners; in tearing away from nearly overy humble home in. the land a luisx band and a father or a son and brother "tfiev havo lighted a fire of hatred that will never go out; they have brought borne to every heart in the land in a wav that will impress its horror indelibly on" the memory of three generations, a i'eilis'ttion of what. German methods as with the s in the hpat of pawion and the fai»t lust of war but by ono of those deeds that ™ <l4air of the future of the inman race, a deed coldly planned, slu- & ""tared, and deliberately and executed, a deed «> ficnuaii soldiers are said m hate went in its execution. and so mon»tio .> that even German officers 50 now. said to be ashamed."-.;