BELGIUM'S PLIGHT

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 140, 13 June 1918, Page 9

BELGIUM'S PLIGHT

WHAT GERMANY'S GRIP MEANS.

There ie in Sydney just now one who saw the Germans sweep like a tornado through Belgium, casting to the four winds a sacred treaty, and scattering death and desolation as they went. For eight days he watched an almost endless stream of German soldiers passing his door—lso,ooo of them in the full panoply of war. And they were only the precursor of tile coming storm —the beginning of that grisly chapter in history which Cardinal Mercier, Primate of Belgium, in behalf of the Belgian Bishops, had denounced to the civilioed world—the entering of peaceful homes and worse—it has been recalled in all its hideousness in the Belgian official documents—the taaring of youth from parent, husband from wife, father from children, and, the carrying off pell-mell of thousands of the Belgian womenfolk to forced labour —inoffensive citizens reduced to slavery.

He was a cure of sonte, this eye-wit-ness now in our midst (says the Sydney Morning Herald. He stayed with his stricken people for a year, and then, to get bodily sustenance for them, to tell the outside world of their suffering he decided to escape. He did so only with his life. Crawling on hands and knees through the inky darkness, through swamps, ditches, and stubble, he made hi 6 slow and painful way through the torn and shattered fields of his country to'the borderline of Holland, while German sentries g\x>se-stepped the ,path on both sides; They missed him, and he has found his way to Australia, the spokesman of Cardinal Mercier, that resplendent figure whose heroic defence of the rights of his people will live in hietorv. '

Father Vandamme told briefly and hurriedly thfe story of his mission to Australia ac he walked from St. Pat. rick's Presbytery, Churchill, to. catch a tram at King-street. Like his people, for whom he risked his life in escaping from the Germans, this little Belgian priest feels that there is "no night but hath its morn"—that out of the blackness of their suffering light will yet come; that the filial victory of right over might will restore their country to them. "Our people," he says, "are confident that the Allies will win ; it is that confidence that keeps their spirits up. Cardinal Mercier is tns spokesman of the Belgian people before the German authorities. Patriotic and fearless, he is the man who, living under German rule, dared rebuke the conquerors tor their conduct towards tho conquered. All the needy look to him for help and adyice.

"His Eminence,',' continued Father Vandamme, "has sgnt me out into the world to tell the story of our people and to find help. In what light do we regard the Germans? In the light of a man who haa stealthily entered your home and robbed you. They have robbed our whole country. You ask me if their cruelty has been on the scale that has gone out to the world. I say, without fear, yes. They took even the mattresses and blankets in the orphanages. They even made an inventory of the bells in our" churches. Cardinal Mercier. protested against it; he knew it was only the precursor of wholesale confiscation. There are three and n-haif million people in Belgium dependent entirely on gifts; th^y have to be supported by charity. These poor people know only too. well what w»r right at tbsir doors ha* mean*."