That talk is typical of the tone of voice used to Belgians: threat
backed by murder.
The whole policy of the Germans of late is to treat the Belgian matter
as a thing accomplished.
"It is over. Let bygones be bygones."
It is a process like the trapping of an innocent woman, and when she is
trapped, saying,
"Now you are compromised, anyway, so you had better submit."
A friend of mine who remained in Ghent after the German occupation, had
German officers billetted in his home. Daily, industriously, they said
to him that the English had been poor friends of his country, that they
had been late in coming to the rescue. Germany was the friend, not
England. In the homes throughout Belgium, these unbidden guests are
claiming slavery is a beneficent institution, that it is better to be
ruled by the German military, and made efficient for German ends, than
to continue a free people.
For a year, our Red Cross Corps worked under the direction and authority
of the Belgian prime minister, Baron de Broqueville. The prime minister
in the name of his government has sent to this country an official
protest against the new tax levied by the Germans on his people. The
total tax for the German occupation amounts to $192,000,000. He writes:
"The German military occupation during the last fifteen months has
entirely prevented all foreign trade, has paralyzed industrial activity,
and has reduced the majority of the laboring classes to enforced
idleness.
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