BRUTAL TREATMENT OF BELGIANS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3186, 10 September 1917, Page 5

BRUTAL TREATMENT OF BELGIANS

FORCED TO DO MILITARY WORK ILL-FED AND BEATEN UNMERCIFULLY t. i • ew York, September 0. ine Belgian Government has given fho Pari- - edition of tlio "ow Tort "Times" an exclusive statement describing tho sufferings of the Belgian people, and headed "Workers in 'Hungerlana"'—"Behind the Wanders Front." "Tho press-gang 6ystem," tho artielo states, "which was begun in Ootobor, 1916, has been continued without intermission. Men from 17 to 45 years are seized haphazard, irrespective of health or social position, and are employed on military work in constructing railroads. They are treated brutally, and beaten unmercifully. ' Complaints of illness and exhaustion aro unheeded. They are not even permitted to receive packages of food from their families. Six hundred were taken from Harlcbeke, of whom 22 are now dead and 108 reported ns incapacitated. When tho inhabitants refused to servo as workers they were forced to servo by cruol gangs. Tho departure of the Americans from Belgium removed tho last scruples of the invaders. Tho cost of living was quadrupled; butter is 18 francs a pound, and potatoes, which are tho staplo diet, are entirely lacking. The Germans are forcing tlje residents of Courtrai to distribute food, and aro practising tho :nost dastardly form of blackmail." —Aus.-N.Z. Cablo Assn.