The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1916. THE OPPRESSION OF BELGIUM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 23, 21 December 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1916. THE OPPRESSION OF BELGIUM.

Notlinng viler or more against the lawn of. civilisation and humanity has ever been perpetrated in modern days than the deportations of Belgian civil-

ians by' the criminal Huns. The- recent reply to the feeble protest from the United States is, of course, of the Usual speciously lying German type, while the endeavour to throw blame on Britain for a crime that will have to , be heavily paid for, is merely another example of Teutonic trickery and effrontery. Lord Robert Cecil, in the vigorous protest that bo made last month against this enslavement of a people, exposed the tactics of the Germans in attempting to justify their barbarous methods by the suggestion that England was responsible for-un-employment in Belgium. "Three times during the past year," Lord Cecil stated, 'we have proposed to| the Germans a definite scheme whereby i the exports of Belgian manufacture, and even imports of raw material might bo made free under the control of the Belgian Relief Commission, and that tlie commission might coutro: all the funds arising out of the trade. To

f none of these proposals liavc wo had a reply. The Germans have consistently refused to do anythin'g to .assist the relief commission and Belgium industry. Instead, they have exacted forty mil-

ion francs a month from Belgium, requisitioned every kind of machinery and raw material, seized the funds ol the national banks and restricted exports. Tl.ev have drained Belgium drv and stripped her bare and we all .'.ikuou this policy was deliberately calculated to create a maximum amount of unemployment in order that when the proper moment arrived their slave mid* might begin. They will be scattered among the towns in all the reinok, corners of Germany, from Silesia to Westphalia and, once caught np on the machine, they will never return to Belgium. It is this grinding np „f a nation piece-meal that is the most horrible feature of the situation. ' But it must be remembeed," Lord ' Robert added, in a special appeal to the United Stales and other neutrai countries to m«ike to the position, ••that the Allies can and will liberate Belgian territory. Meanwhile they can and will bear the burden of keeping the Belgians from starvation. But they can not protect the Belgians rrou. starvation ; they can not ensure that when Belgium is liberated it will be 1 a nation and not a desert. It is only the neutrals who can do this by the

exercise of their public opinion." Bui Germany's crafty and insolent replies' to both President Wilson and the' Dutch Government, indicate very' clearly that nothing but force will restrain the wild acts of Germany, and yet in fare of all this there are-, foolish and soft-hearted pacifists who are almost persuaded that the Allies should listen to Germany's; fraudulent peace proposals. It is utterly false! to assert that there had ever been any disturbance in Belgium due to non-employment since the Germans over-ran the country, except such as they imagined, invented or caused themselves for their own purposes. To steal the food and money of the civilian population was bad enough, hut this last act of brutal cruelty to a defenceless people should indeed harden our hearts to exact full reparation and impose punishment for the evildoer. "It is notorious," writes M, Daignon, secretary to the Belgian Commission of Enquiry, "that Germany commandeered all the crops in Belgium for herself. America's goodness of heart averted the impending calamity, earning the undying gratitude of all Belgians. But Germany, not satisfied, took away all the machinery available for war work and requisitioned all the raw material, fixing her own prices and thus compelling the closing of many Belgian factories and rendering 400,000 Belgians idle. Municipalities, where it was possible, ordered work on public enterprises, but in most cases these lists are carefully able to do so as they were without funds owing to the heavy illegal taxes imposed on them by the German governors. Even , when the municipalities provided employment, Belgians from one town were not allowed to go to another where work was to be found. All this was done despite the proclamation posted by General von der Goitz, promising to ask nothing of the population contrary to the national feeling and exhorting them to engage in the economic reconstruction of the country. General von Bissing endorsed this, stating that life under war conditions was ended for Belgium. The deported men are notified to bring such tools as they can procure of a long list given and are allowed to bring money. They are selected indiscriminately without reference to whether they are working or idle. The! German authorities in a few cases by deposing ...the burgomaster as at Bruges, have been,'able to lay their hands 0n.,. the American commission's lists of Belgians receiving aid, but in mose cases these lists are carefully guarded by the Belgian municipalities and are not available to the Germans. These are now using their own l lists of men of military age as a means for the wholesale deportation of all the able-bodied men." It is undoubtedly a part of the German plan to so crush and maltreat these people, so that broken in spirit they may be forced to cry for peace at any price. We do not believe, however, that frightfulness will be more" effective in Belgium than it has been elsewhere, and Germany has but made another collossal blunder. Patriotism still lives in the hearts of the Belgian people, abased as they are by their loathed oppressors, and to consider for one moment any peace which does not compel the fullest reparation that can be made to Belgium would be utterly dishonoring, to the nations now allied against the , cuvse of German mili- | tarism. ...'■,