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go, surrounded by soldiers, with the band playing before them, to the station, whence at evening they depart without knowing whither or for what labor they are destined.

As our turn was delayed we had time to prepare as far as possible the girls, who are known among us as the "sisters" and the "two." They packed their luggage pluckily, each wishing in case of need to take the place of the other, and I had to settle which it would be best to let go. On Monday we found some comfort at the little village we visited with you last year; everybody overwhelmed us with their sympathy, suffering for us and with us; for none, not even our helpers, were free from fear. All helped us, and Mme. D. made me promise to tell her if the girls I spoke of above were taken; if so, she was free, and would accompany them and be their mother. All the week this torture lasted, and the agony weighed us down. A., the servant girl, was taken and then released, partly owing to her father and partly to her young sister, whose gratitude is touching. L. A.'s daughter was seized. Then came our turn. You may imagine that sleep was impossible to me. I heard the troops passing, and awoke all my household.

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At 4 A. M. the visits in our street began. They lasted till 1:30 P. M. We were taken at 10 o'clock. You can guess our agony during those six fatal hours! Of course, there a chance of getting them released, but as surely some would be seized, and had they not already endured more than enough during that terrible day, passed beside the public women of our district, without any real certainty of delivery? At last-God again accorded us His fatherly protection-and having gone over every one, none was seized, but we were worn out. It was sinister to see the young girls living in our street passing one by one silently by, each under the guard of a soldier: there were three members of the little working party I started, deeply moved. I had given them some words of advice as to the danger to which they would

be exposed, (it was on Good Friday before the first raid;) the plucky children could not keep back their tears, and like all the others were most troubled at the thought that they would be made to work for the enemy.

Our fears are, however, not yet at an end. As regards ourselves-alas!-father himself may be threatened. Our chief accountant, M.'s husband, has been taken, and they are of an age. Oh, if they take him too! Pray, dearest, pray all of you with us, I entreat you, and thank God for having spared us this time-us, Aunt A., and all her children, also our relations and friends, (B.'s relations;) pray Him to continue His protection, for which our need is so great! Will our release never come?

It has been said-another lie-that we were in revolt and that this was a punishment. At Roubaix officers of the guard, finding themselves in the midst of a calm and dignified population, refused to carry off women and children by night. Here the Sixty-fourth Regiment, who have been at Verdun, were quite ready. Some, they said, would have preferred to have stopped in the trenches. At the least they will get the Iron Cross and the name of this glorious feat of arms will decorate their flag.

But, above all things, let our soldiers, when they get there, not revenge themselves by committing similar deeds. To do so would be to sully the fair name of France. Let them leave such evil deeds and crimes to God's vengeance. These people, as a woman whose husband, daughter, and son were seized told them, "will be accursed in their race, in their wives, and in their children."

I have finished my long, miserable tale, but I cannot adequately describe the awful misery of those whose homes have been decimated. Many will die of it. It is, as Monsigneur said, the passion of our families added to the Passion of Christ. One woman burst out into a sweat of blood when they seized her son; they brought him back, and she did not know him. It is terrible, and our position seems to me very threatening. Pray for us. ** MARIE.

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By A. J. Hemphill

American Banker and Honorary Treasurer of Neutral Commission for Relief

W

HEN I got to Brussels my first impression was that everything was normal, except for the absence of vehicles owing to the scarcity of horses and the prohibition of motors except to a few. The people are well clad, the shops are open, and men go about their daily life much the same as they do in London or New York. the markets I saw people buying and selling mostly vegetables-and business being freely transacted in the ordinary way. That was on the surface. But one has to remember that Belgium normally lives on imported raw materials and food, and pays for her food by export of her manufactures. This vital current is

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stopped by the war, and 60 per cent. of Belgium's workpeople are idle. A large part of the commercial class are also idle and reduced to dependence upon charity. When I went to the relief stations where the wholly destitute-amounting to a large proportion of the population-get their soup and other provisions, I saw, in the waiting queues, not only the needy class that one would expect, but welldressed men, women, and children. In Brussels and elsewhere throughout Belgium the human lines that daily wait for the small ration provided by the charity of the world are marked by this same sad feature. Destitution is not only widespread, but there are now dependent upon relief thousands of the upper classes who never dreamed of coming to such a pass.

It is only after being in Brussels for a little time, and after visiting Charleroi, Malines, Antwerp, Liége, and other places, that one realizes how misleading are first impressions of life in Belgium as it is today. The outward appearance of normality is sustained only by the fact that relief to the value of over $6,000,000 is, so to speak, injected into the country every month. The external calm is an amazing tribute to the efficiency of the

system whereby the relief organization provides and distributes to this whole nation the supplies without which there would be chaos and unthinkable suffering.

In this complex work of rationing every day over 7,000,000 souls, of whom just one-half are totally or partially destitute, the Belgians themselves are co-operating magnificently. Without their unflagging support and publicspirited work the efforts of those throughout the world who, regardless of nationality, sympathize with the Belgian people would fail of their purpose.

The Comité National in Brussels, composed of the leading Belgians who dared to stay and face the invaders, has enrolled thousands of volunteer helpers, who are now experts in this problem of rationing.

Both in America and England a good deal of uneasiness somewhat naturally exists as to the relief supplies actually reaching the Belgians. I discussed this point thoroughly with responsible Belgians throughout the country and with the Americans who are supervising the distribution, besides keeping my own eyes open for any indication of confiscation by the Germans. As a result I am convinced that the relief supplies sent into Belgium reach, in their entirety, the Belgian people. Except for trivial local incidents, which are invariably remedied, I heard of no instance whatever of the Germans breaking their guarantees to respect the food which the allied Governments allow to be brought through the blockade. As regards the home-grown produce, there are, probably, still some minor leakages-almost inevitable in a country garrisoned by a foreign army-but I can safely say that 95 per cent. of the native food supplies go toward feeding the Belgian people. The inappreciable leakages to which I refer are always made the subject of

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negotiations between the relief organization and the belligerent powers.

What do the Belgian people really think? They don't think. They just hope. They live from day to day in the undimmed expectancy of regaining their independence. I might also say they live on hope, because if that wonderful spirit were not there the scanty ration, which is all the relief organization can supply, would be inadequate to prevent increased disease and mortality.

Under ordinary circumstances the population would be pauperized by free feeding of the unemployed. This is not the case in Belgium. In the first place, a daily diet of soup, bread, sometimes potatoes and a little bacon, and occasionally rice and beans, continued over two years, does not offer many attractions. It is only the indomitable spirit of the people themselves that makes it bearable. They will be glad enough when peace comes to exchange free meals of such a kind for the food they can earn by work. At present a small percentage get a few days' work weekly in local industries, such as the enamel, glass, and coal trades, at a few francs per week. They unceasingly refuse wages at from 15 to 25 francs a week, which they could obtain by working for the Germans. Glass and enamel ware, by consent of the Allies, are being exported in small quantities, but the payments for such exports are retained in allied countries until the conclusion of the war. The German assertion that the whole Belgian Nation has organized a passive resistance strike on an unprecedented scale is undoubtedly correct.

In one relief canteen which I inspected a man came up and made a complaint. There was no meat, he said excitedly, in his soup. He had long given up the idea of receiving meat as part of his daily meal, but if he was to live, he declared, he must get some of the nourishment that meat provides. He was right. There was practically no meat in the soup. But what is one to do? Such meat as there is in the country is $1.50 per pound.

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There are 600,000 children in Belgium entirely dependent upon the tenderheartedness of the outside world. A large percentage of the remaining 2,000,000 children up to the age of 16 are The partially dependent upon relief. problem of bringing them up and even of keeping them alive is becoming more and more grave. The relief organization has just started an extraordinarily meet interesting experiment to emergency of short milk supplies in industrial centres. They have asked the peasants to lend, free of charge, for one year, one cow from each of their herds to a communal herd which will provide milk for the children. In Antwerp the herd now numbers over 400 cattle. other centres the peasants are responding excellently to the appeal. At the end of the year the cows will be returned to their owners, who will be compensated for the loss of any of their cattle.

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My visit to Belgium gave me my first opportunity to see for myself the actual working of the relief system. It is a marvel of efficiency and devotion. As an American I am proud not only of my fellow-countryman, Mr. Herbert Hoover, to whose genius for organization the whole structure owes its continued existence through a thousand heartbreaking difficulties, but of those Americans who, so self-sacrificingly and self-effacingly, are devoting themselves in the occupied territory to keeping the Belgian Nation alive. *** All Americans admire the magnificent generosity with which the British Empire, despite the many other calls upon its benevolence and resources, has contributed, through the National Committee for Relief in Belgium, to the support of the relief work. After seeing that work for myself, I venture to say that it is the duty of every humane individual to help these helpless civilians in Belgium—especially the children-who for nearly two years have endured sorrows and privations that would try the soul of any nation in the world, and yet still remain heroically true to those traditions of liberty and freedom which they have inherited through centuries.

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Belgium

By Baron Adolf von Bachofen

A German official who recently visited the occupied territory

T is a matter of course that the military administration of Belgium, so far as its needs are concerned,

holds the country in an iron grip, guarding the conquered territory in every way. But the fact that, immediately following the great military successes of the Fall of 1914, a civil administration had been called into life and since that time had solidly incorporated itself in the life of the nation was one of the things that impressed me the most. I still distinctly remembered the conditions in Alsace in the eighties, when the relations between the Government and the people were thus characterized by a worthy citizen: We don't mind being governed, but we will not be scolded." At that time there were all kinds of orders as to what must and must not be, but the economic union of the new territory with the empire and the reconstruction of its sadly stricken industries were still in a bad way fifteen years after the conquest.

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There is a mighty difference between the Prussian jurists who were in power at that time and the far-seeing officials of the empire of today. Forces from all parts of Germany are being employed in the civil administration to put the country in a new state of industrial activity, to make everything ready for peace, and to shape the relations between the empire and Belgium, so that an active trade after the conclusion of peace will develop close bonds between the two countries. At the same time everything adaptable about the administrative bodies has been retained and left in the hands of the natives. Belgian Judges administer the law, and Belgian Mayors attend to the affairs of the cities and towns, only a few of them having been removed or interned because of political intrigues, as in Brussels.

A Belgian committee looks after the distribution, even to the last village, of

the articles of food and similar objects that come from the United States for the civil population. Only the highest officials are missing, and, naturally, the Ministries, which could not work with the German Government, are out of the country. Where the native institutions are not sufficient, or where sharp and continued opposition prevents effective work, the organs of the civil administration reinforce the native organizations and bring new life to the severely stricken land. The staff of men that his Excellency von Bissing has gradually gathered together for this task comes from every part of Germany and from all spheres of activity.

After the country had been conquered in an incredibly short time, the civil administration was organized as soon as possible, and it certainly faced one of the hardest tasks that could be placed before a Government. In a country whose life depended upon industry in a greater degree than any other, all the factories were at a standstill. The people were filled with the deepest hatred toward the new rulers, the owners of almost all the industrial and commercial establishments had fled, the enormous trade that ordinarily ebbed and flowed through the country was in complete stagnation. It was necessary to feed the population and to revive labor.

The first problem, that of providing food, was solved with comparative speed. Because of the killing off of young cattle and the selling of horses abroad, some drastic orders were issued; as a result, the supply of live stock is now again at its former height and the agricultural output is scarcely less than at any time before the conquest. this output, which, nevertheless, meets only a scant two-thirds of the demand, was held at the disposition of the coun

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try for its own needs. Additional supplies were first sent in from the empire, and later a Belgian committee was organized, which, under arrangement with the belligerent powers, drew food supplies from the United States and distributed them through its branches over the entire country. Without any friction to speak of this committee has continued to fulfill its task down to the present day in an almost independent manner and without any exaggerated supervision by the Government.

Far more difficult was the task of reviving industrial activity, but it has been accomplished to a surprising degree. The first step was to open the coal mines, under the supervision of the Government, but for the account and at the risk of the owners, and today some 70 per cent. of the workings are again in operation. The coal, except in so far as it is used in the country itself, is exported to Sweden, which receives about 200,000 tons a month, and to Holland and Switzerland. Many carloads are also sent to the trenches in the east. The total exports amount to about 300,000 tons a month.

While the management of all the mines is in the hands of Chief Mining Officer Bonhardt, in the east, around Liége and that section, Director Woltersdorf runs the workings with extraordinary ability. Herr Woltersdorf, who came upon the scene as a Lieutenant of artillery, was ordered, after the capture of Liége, to blow up the entrances to some mines where it was thought francstireurs were in hiding. But before obeying the order, he informed the Governor that the hostile band could be driven out in three hours by stopping the pumps. This method was adopted, and as a matter of fact no francs-tireurs came out, but the mines were saved, and shortly afterward Woltersdorf, who in civil life is Director of the Central Bureau for Mine Safety and of the experimenting station at Beuthen, was placed at the head of the district. He not only put all the coal mines in operation, but was also able to see that work was continued in the Campine, a waste region in Limburg, where the coal is covered with

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It was of great importance that the iron ore mines south of Liége were rich in manganese ore, for it was just there that the German iron industry was short. A number of these mines are again in operation and, besides, a considerable number of old rubbish heaps are being worked over again. Some of the pottery plants, whose former principal export territory was England, have renewed operations, though still on rather modest scale; their products go through the canals to Holland and from there, to a large extent, find their way to their old destination, England.

The Cockerille Iron and Steel Works, which also belong to the Liége district, are employing almost 5,000 men, more than half the normal number. The textile industry is in the worst condition, being almost entirely dead. It is true that when Antwerp was captured very large quantities of raw materials, especially wool, were found; but this material. had already been bought, to a large extent, for Germany, and therefore it went to Germany, and to a lesser degree to Austria. The Belgian industry was thus left to depend upon its own stock, which naturally in the course of a year and a half is practically exhausted. Efforts to get raw material from abroad are of particular importance to this industry.

In many cases the various establishments are being operated by their old Directors and engineers, and only the work of superintendence and the matter of exportation and consumption are handled by the Germans.

But in spite of the revival of activity in many industries there are still many tens of thousands of industrial workers entirely out of employment, and therefore it is of great importance that the emigration of Belgian workers to Germany is being promoted and that already some 10,000 workers have heeded the call and are employed in the Rhine country and in Westphalia. There they are becoming acquainted with better wages, the highly developed sick and accident insurance, and all the other pro

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