PLIGHT OF LUXEMBURG

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2675, 22 January 1916, Page 15

PLIGHT OF LUXEMBURG

UNDER THE GERMAN HEEL

WHOLE STATE A PRISON

Declaring that Grand Duchess Mario Adelaide of Luxomburg lias retired to a convent because of grief over the occupation of that Duchy by the Prussians, . Joseph Ltenoir, a writer and refugee, of Dudelingen, an important city of Lnuxemburg, says conditions in Luxemburg are as bad, if not jworse, than in Belgium. Mr. Lenoir, who is living in New York, told the New York "Hjwald" . that the identity of the people of Luxemburg has been obliter-' atcd aifd that every clause of tho treaty of 1867 has been ivolated by tho German invaders and conquerors. "It requires a moro eloquent tongue than mine to describe adequately conditions existing in Luxemburg. Mr. Lenoir said recently. "The residents of the Duchy have been converted from a prosperous people to a set of slaves overnight, as it were, and unless the Germans are defeated their lot will continue to grow worse hour by hour. Civil authority has been superseded by military rule, and innocent persons aro arrested on thd most trivial protexts, and if they aro not sentenced to death they aro sent to Germany to serve out long terms of imprisonment at hard labour.

"A few days before I and 'ovcral of my countrymen left Luxemburg it was announced that Grand Duchess Marie was to enter a convent, and that she bad renounced her t-itlo and civil authority in favour of her younger sister. Announcement of the Duchess's course was not allowed to be made public by the Press; the censors bavins strict orders to' prohibit the publication of news of this description. Deliberate falsehoods are published by the censors, the object being to prevent the world from learning what is actually going on in Luxemburg." Food Crowing Poorer, Economic conditions "in Luxemburg, according to Mr. Lenoir, are on the lowest ebb. He says the prices of food, owing largely to the fact that German authorities are sending most of the foodstuffs to Germany for the use of the army, • have increased from one hundred to five hundred per cent. Meat is from forty to sixty cents a pound; and sarce at that, while bread is not only five times higher than the prices belore tho war, but ts quality is so inferior _ that much illness results from eating it.

"0i la lid rubber cannot be obtained at any price, and wo know that Germany is suffering intensely from the lack of these hvo commodities, because'of the British blockade,'' said Mr. Lenoir. "The prices of wool arid leather, owing to the scarcity of those articles, are prohibitive, and I wonder what the prices will be in a year from now if the blockade is not broken. The conditions under which the poor live are made mors gravo by the lack of employment for the masses. Tlte iron mines are being worked by the Germans, and the ore shipped to' Germany as rapidly as it is brought to t'he surface.

: "The daily wage paid to people of Luxemburg is twenty and twenty-five cents a day, a sum too small to live upon, yet too large to justify one to 'lie for rather than refuse it. The newspapers are rigidly censored, and some of the more prominent journals, uotably tlie 'L'lndependenca Luxemburgoise,' at Escher, have been suspended the military authorities and- their editors sent to Germany for twenty years at hard labour for printing only the news. Marccl Noppeny, a lawyer and publisher, of the City of Luxemburg, was twice sentenced to death, and later sent to Germany. Mr. Fournelle, manager of- the Prince Henry Railroad in Rodingen, "also was sentenced .to death on a charge of giving aid to the French, but on the plea of the Grand Duchess the sentence was commuted to twenty years' imprisonment in Germany. "Tin's charge was manifestly false, but the Germans mist have pretexts to get rid of enemies, and they take advantago of every opportunity to send away the most prominent men in the country whose influence with the masses is groat. The country is hold by 300,000 German troops, find although it was at first announced tliat everything the troops commandeered would be paid for, this has not been dono. If any person seeks to pro6ont a grievance to the military authorities, he is arrested and sent out of the country under military guard."

Little Army Made Prisoners, Mr. Lenoir said further that the people of Luxemburg are not permitted to send any money out of the duchy, and all are required to give up twenty per cent, of the money in tlieir possession A°f i 1 . 16e 9 crm<ln R C <l Cross. At the time of tdi9 invasion of Luxemburg, on August 2, 1914, tho army of the duchy, numbering two-hundred and fifty men and officers, was captured and imprisoned for several nionths before being released and put to work in the iron mines.

When refugees came from France to Luxemburg all persons who aided them m any way were imprisoned," said Mr. Lenoir. "Many homes whore French women and children found asylum were burned down, and womeii and children shot by the troops. In Hussigny two German officers attacked a charming young woman, and her brother 6hot and killed one of the officers. IHe young . man was shot down, his father hanged, and the young woman turned over to the troops, so that she died within' a few days, a mental and physical wreck. "The German troops do not disdain to commit robberies of all kinds. At a railroad station in Luxemburg a coffin supposed to contain the body of a soldier fell from a truck and its contents soattered about the place. Tlieso conconsisted of silverware of every description, gold and silver jewellery, altar ornaments and other valuables stolen here and there. At Gomory, near Virion, in August, 1914, one hundred and fifty French troops who had surrendered end thrown their rifles aside were massed up against a wall and shot to death. It was a massacre, and many women who witnessed it died from horror and fright."