SLAVE GANG IN BELGIUM.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1917, Page 3

SLAVE GANG IN BELGIUM.

Cardinal Mercier’s Protest (Fiom Charles Tower.) Amsterdam, Nov 16 Cardinal Mercier, in an open letter to the civih'sed world on behalf of the bishops of Belgium, makes a powerful indictment of the slave*garig system of the Germans in Belgium, The letter confirms in every respect the details of the German practices already published, He says that a protest was addressed by him to General von Biasing, the German commander, on Ootober ly, aud copies were handed to representatives at Brussels of the Holy See, Spain, the United States, and the Netherlands. At that time only men actually out of work were affected, “ but now all sound men are taken away without distinction. They are packed info goods trucks and carried off, ws do not know where, like a gang of slaves.” After exposing the German treachery in breaking repeated promises &Dd solemn undertakings, and after disproving one by one the lying excuses and explanations offered by the modern slave-drivers, Cardinal Mercier saye :

“The naked truth is this : Every workman taken from Belgium means oae soldier more for the German Army. He is intended to take the place of the German workman, out of whom a soldier is to be made. So that the situation which we now expose lo the ciyilised world comes to this. Four hundred thousand workmen have fallen victims to unemployment against their will and for the most part as a result of the German regime cf occupation. Troops of soldiers force their way into these poor homes, tear the young men from their parents, the husband from his wife, the father from his children. They guard with bayonets the doors through which the wives and mothers

desire to run tabid a last farewell lo those taken from them,

“ The soldiers separate the prisoners into groups of forty or fiLy, a Q d place them by foies into goods trucks. Tbe engine stands under steam, and when the train is full the superior officer ' gives the Bignal for departure, aud once more a thousand Belgians are canned off into slavery aud, without

formalities are coudemnod to the hardest of punishment knowo to punitive legislation —namely deportation. They know neither where they are goitig nor for how long. All they know is that their work is to profit tbe enemy loaD.” The cardinal. declares that it is utterly untrue to say that only the unemployed are taken, for tbe Germans are now takieg men who have never been unemployed, even boys from the colleges and students from the universities and high schools. “ And yet two high authorities of the German Empire expressly guaranteed us the libeity of our countrymen.”