BELGIAN RELIEF

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2413, 19 March 1915, Page 6

BELGIAN RELIEF

j HOW FOOD IS DISTRIBUTED ; ' THrCOMISSION'S WORK . _ The following article is one of a , series in the London "Times" deI scribing the tragic state of Belgium: to-day, and the methods under which the Relief Commission is • working. , f In Belgium one finds himself using , simple words, such as life, death, food, love, and hate. Belgium is a house .• with sealed doors, where a family of • seven million people sit in idleness and [ ■ silence around a cheerless hearth, think- ' iri|j of nothing but war and feeling nothing but war. America opened a win- ;' dow and slipped a loaf of bread into the •larder. ... ; \ If America had not opened the. win;i"dow there would have been starvation; r for Belgium grows only one-sixth of the T 'foodstuffs_jvhich it consumes. The "■other five-sixths Belgium, with the i densest population of any country in ; 'Europe, buys with the products of her : '.industries, now idle for want of a mar- ; I'ket. Britons need not stretch their ' (imagination to dwell .on the appalling !' possibility, of .what the loss of the command of the sea and the closing of I British ports would mean. They may ; find in Belgium an example of such . (strangulation in fact. Belgium could r' vlive for three or four months at most , ' 'on her own resources; then she must i Jihave food from the. outside world. ; After the fall of Antwerp prominent [.'■ (Belgians went to Mr. Brand Whitlock, 'the American Minister to 'Belgium, representing to him that famine was certain by mid-winter unless relief came, aad asking his good offices. Though the ; Germans had intimated to Mr. Whit- ; lock that the Belgian Government to I which he was accredited was at Havre, ' he has remained on in Brussels, with American opinion supporting his action. ;He. is not a diplomat who allows any 'official peccadilloes to restrict his broad . 'spirit of service. The Belgians . owe ! much to him, while the Germans could ■ .not gainsay his simple honesty of pur- !'• jpose in a humane cause. . The Spanish Minister, Marquis de iVillalobar, had also remained in Brust 'sels, and under the supervision of these itwo. neutral Ministers the American i iCommission for Relief in Belgium, with j iMr. H. C. Hoover as active charman, f ''with' offices in Loudon, was formed to i co-operate with the Comite National de f liSecours et d'Alimentation, of Belgium. , For Belgians Only. < The United States and Canada would •give food, and the British Navy would tlet it pass, only if convinced that it .Was going into Belgian and not into ! [German stomachs. Mr. Whitlock and jhis Spanish colleague secured a pledge r Ifrom the German Government that no iGerman would take any of the Amerij. lean supplies, and also a guarantee of ' 'facilities for thorough supervision of \the distribution by Americans which ■ Would permit detection of any breach of ifaith. : ' The American Commission l announced /that with the first requisition ■ of so . much as a bag of flour by the German's it would stop any further shipments of tfood and cease all relief, telling the ,whole world the reason for its action. ; : Jiansas and. Nebraska and Manitoba (supplying the wheat and steamers speeding to Rotterdam—this was a matter of prompt arrangement and organisation. But how get the bread to the hungry mouths when the Germans were ■using all the Belgian railroads fo"r mili- ; ' tary purposes? Germany was not go- | iag to allow a trainload of wheat to . keep a. trainload of soldiers from reaching the front ;• to allow any food for Belgians to keep her men in the trenches from-getting theirs regularly. Horse anil cart-transport would be cumbersome, and the Germans would not allow Belgian teamsters .to move about with-such freedom: - As likely as not they, might be acting as spies.'-Aiiy-Lody .who 'can' walk or ride may be a R py- ! Therefore the way .to stop spying '■ is not to let anyone walk or ride. . Besides;: Germany had requisitioned- most . of the horses that could do more than draw an empty phaeton on a level. But •she had not drawn the water out of the ■ 'canals, though the Belgians, always ■,whispering jokes at the expense of the 'conquerors, said that the canals miglit liave been emptied if their contents had •(ibeen beer. There were plenty of idle oanal boats fin Holland, whose canals connect with it'he web of canals in Belgium. You had ionly to seal the cargoes against requisition, the seal to be broken by a representative of the Relief Commission, and start them to their destinations. And how make sure that only those who had money in Belgium to pay should pay : -for their bread while all who had not ;. ( Should be reached ? ' 1| From America came Dr. Rose and Mr. i'James, of the Rockefeller Foundation, which.gives 500,000 dollars a month to the cause, and Mr. Bicknell, of the. Bed Cross, to offer their expert advice. The 'Americans soon found how simple was ; HJie problem of distribution in Belgium compared to that to the sufferers from a • flood or an earthquake in a new land | where social organisation is much looser.' fl'he people to be relieved were in their Glomes, or in those of their neighbours •if their own were burned. Every Belgian is registered. His Government pillows his occupation and his address. KUpo'n' marriage he receives a little book (•giving his name and his wife's, their images, their occupations, and. addresses ;'As children are born their names are (added. A Belgian holds as fast to this ;hook as a woman to a niece of jewellery . vihat is an heirloom. With rare exceptions .Belgian local officials had not fled ihe country. Thev. realise? that this 'Was a time when they were-particularlv meeded in thpir places to protect (heir people from German exactions and from ■their own rashness. There were also uny number of volunteers to help. Tho thins; was to get the food to the local officials and committees and let them organise local distribution. Bread and the Bread Line. From the bill of fare in a leading restaurant in Brussels one might get the. idea that all this talk about starving Belgium was nonsense. There was little difference from August except that the bread was the Relief Commission's brown which was 30 per cent, more , nourishment than white. Tho restaurant still had its excellent cooks. War had not robbed them of their skill.' You might trace the sourco of your steak or Toast to\heifers which were being taken to market by farmers who had no cattlo feed. Belgium lias meat to last two or three months by killing off stock to save it from starvation. For fruit you had luscious grapes; for salad the longleafed white chicory. There is a plethora of both. Belgium sells both to the tables of the well-to-do in England and America in time.of peace, when she exports food luxuries from her gardens and takes her pay in grains. All the patisseries were open. Brussels is famous for its French pastry. With a store of preserves, why shouldn't the balcesliops go on making tarts with heavy crusts of the brown flour? It gave work to the bakers; it helped the shops to keep open in an appearance of normality. But I noticed that they were doing little business. Stocks were small s and bravely displayed. Even the jewellery'shops were opened, with diamond rings flashing in the windows. ! "You must pay rent; you don't want to discharge your employees," said ft jeweller.:. "'There is no other place to go except, your'shop. If you closcd it would look' as if you were afraid of the Germansi It make you blue and

the people in the street Uue. One tries to go through the motions of normal existence, anyway. But of course you don't sell anything. This week I have repaired a locket which carried the portrait of a soldier at the front, and I have put a new mainspring in a watch. I'll -warrant that is ihoro than some of my competitors have done." Swing around the circle in Brussels of a winter's morning and look at tho only crowds that the Germans allow to gather, and then see the bread lilies in remote tonus, and tho open Patisseries become as pitiful a mockery as Mario Antoinette's naive apocryphal question of why the people were crying for bread when they could buy sich nice littlo cakes for a sou Whenever I think of a bread lino again I shall see the faces of a Belgian bread line. They blot out the memory of those at home where men are free to go and come, where war hasnot robbed the thrifty of the opportunity to buy food or the poor of tho opportunity cf working for it. It was fitting that the great central soup kitchen should be established in the central. express office of tho city. For there is no express business, except in German troops to tho front and wounded to the rear, in Belgium these days. Tho dispatch of parcels is stopped, no less than the other channels of trade in a country that largely lived by trade. On the stone floor where onco packages were arranged for forwarding to the towns whose names are 011 tho walls are many great soup cauldrons in clusters of three, to economise space and fuel. "We don't lack cooks," said a chef who had been in a leading hotel, "when so many of us are out of work. Our society of hotel and restaurant keepers took charge. We know the practical side of the business, I suppose you have the 6ame kind of society 111 London, and you would turn to it for iielp if the Germans occupied London." He gave me, a .printed report in which I read, for'examplo, that "M. Arnot, Professor of the Ecole Normale, had been good enough to take charge of accounts," and "M. .Catteau has been specially appointed to look after the distribution of. bread." Most appetising that' soup, prepared under direction of the best chofs 'in the city. The meat and the green vegetables in it were Belgian and the peas American. Steaming hot in big cans it was sent to the communal centres, where lines of people with pots, pitchers, and pails waited to get their daily allowance. A democracy was in that bread line such as I have never seen anywhere except at San Francisco after tlie earthquake. A Nation on Short Rations. _ Each person had a blue or a yellow ticket, with several numbers to be punched. The blue tickets were for those who had proved to the communal authorities that they could not pay; the j'ellow for those who paid five centimes for each person served. A flutter of blue and yellow tickets all over Belgium, and in return life 1 With each serving of soup went a loaf of Relief Commission bread. In many towns no, soup is served, only bread. The faces in the line were not those .of .people starving—not yet. They would have been if the United States' and Canada had not sent flour. There was none of the maciation which pictures of famine in the Orient have made familiar; but they were pinched faces, bloodless faces, the faces of people on short rations. India and China are used to famine, but it does not seem in tho game that thrifty little Belgium should starve for want of bread. • 'To the Belgian bread is not only the staff.- of .life; it is the legs. At home, in America, we think of bread as something that goes with the rest of the meal; to the poorer classes of Belgians the rest of. the meal is something that goes with bread. To you and me food has meant the payment of some money to the baker and the butcher and the. grocer—or the hotelkeeper. We got our money by labour cr from our investments. What if there were no bread to be had for labour or money? Sitting 011 a mountain of gold in the Desert of Sahara would not quench thirst. ' Three hundred grammes, a minimum calculation—is the _ allowance. That small boy sent by his mother receives five loaves: his ticket calls for rations for a family of five. That old woman receives one loaf, for she is alone in the world. Each one as he hurrieß by has a personal story of what war has meant to home and those dear to him. They answer your questions frankly, gladly, and their gloomy faces light with the old Belgian cheerfulness when they find that you are American. A tall, dis-tinguished-looking man is an artist. "No work for artists these days," he said. _ No work in a community of workers, where every link of the chain of economic life is broken. No work for the next man, a chauffeur; or for the next, a brassworker; the next, a teamster; the next, a bank clerk; the next a doorkeeper rf a Government office; while the wives of those who (/till had work were buying in the only market they had. But the husbands of many years were not at home. Each answer about the absent one had'an appeal that nothing can picture better than the simple words or the looks.that accompanied the words: "The last I heard of my husband he was fighting: at Dixmude, two months ago." "Mine is wounded, somewhere in France." "Mine was with the 'Army, too. I do not know whether he is alive or dead. I have not heard since Brussels was taken. He cannot get my letters. I cannot get his. Of course the Germans will not let us correspond." - '/Mine was killed at Liege, but we have a son." The tears were in your own heart. There were none in these women's eyes; rather, a certain stubborn pride that their husbands' were away and free to fight for the return of the freedom which those at 'home know how' 1 to value by its loss.