THE SLAVE DRIVERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SLAVE DRIVERS.

._—<_ A NEUTRAL PROTEST. John C. Van der Veer, London editor of the Amsterdam Telegraaf, writes in the London Daily Mail: My old edition of the well-known German encyclopaedia, "Allgemeine Deutsche Real-Encyclopaedia," says of the ancient Huns that "their shameless lust, cruelty, and rapacity made them a terror to the peoples who were subjected to their furious invasions." Does this not apply forcibly to tie modern Huns? Whatever country the Germans have invaded in this war they behaved themselves in no less furious, brutal and rapacious a manner than the former Huns did anywhere. The Germans raped girls and women, murdered children and old men, burned towns and villages, destroyed monumental beauties of ages, plundered right and left, and robbed the surviving population of their livelihood. While all this happened in the invaded countries under sway of the Kaiser's authority, his military hordes waged on land and sea a warfare as inhumane as that in olden times was carried on by the Huns of Attila, who at least did not mask his misdeeds under a religious cloak. It become every day more surprising that there are still neutral countries in official friendly relations with a Power which has made itself the enemy of the whole of humanity and civilisation. Hardly a day passed in the more than two years' course of the war that Germany did not give the whole world a fresh shock of horror by some act of her systematic frightfulness. And black as already is her long register of misdeeds, what to-day is happening in Belgium beats all records of German brutality. For Heaven's sake, let the whole world note and pay due regard to the modern slave-drivers in that unhappy and overwhelmed little country. For more than two years the Belgians who remain in their country and are kept there forcibly by their ruthless German taskmasters have heriocally endured the greatest hardships and sufferings, but never allowed the Germans to undermine their steadfast loyalty to their own country and King. Continued requisitions reduced them to misery; they were not only deprived of their own foodstuffs, but to some extent also of what was sent from outside for their relief.

Their tools were expropriated, their factories depleted of machinery and raw material. Even their metal household utensils were taken away, and all went to sustain the German army of invasion, which had already largely ruined and devastated Belgium. But in spite of German rapacity and terrorism the Belgian population as a whole "bucked up" bravely and could never be made to sing "Germany above all." And now, after the German authorities have succeeded by their wanton desolating policy in causing much unemployment in Belgium, they use that as a pretext to carry off the remaining young manhood of that suffering country not by tens or hundreds but by thousands, and compel them to work in Germany on various war materials used against their own country and their King's army.

Was there ever a policy more cruel, unjust, and inhumane?

A "REAL BLESSING." The infamy of the Germans is made worse by their excuses. We find that General von Bissing, the German military governor in Belgium, told the Berlin correspondent of the New York Times: "The removal of (Belgian) workmen is neither a hardship for the country nor for the population, but is a necessity caused by the war, which on the whole is a real blessing to Belgian workmen." What? The war which destroyed the prosperity of their country is a blessing to the Belgians!

Such things can only occur to a Prussian. And if their forcible removal is no hardship, why then do the Belgians try to escape? Many of them succeeded in getting over the frontier to Holland, but scores of fugitives were shot by German sentries, who were purposely increased on the Belgian-Dutch frontier and threatened with severe punishment if they let anyone escape. Other fugitive's stuck on the electrified wires at '.•he frontier and were thus killed. Yet, General von Bissing dares t<> say that the deported Belgians go '•cheerfully" to Germany,

The real fads are well known in Holland and daily reported in our press. 'the frontier correspondent of our own paper, who has good opportunities to learn what is going on in Belgium and by whom the impending fate of Captain l-'ryatt was tirst announced, told us weeks ago that preparations were being made to remove the young men. Germany is careful enough to select those most useful to her. Their ages run from seventeen and eighteen to thirty-live and forty. Only old men are left behind, being the Ica.st useful lo cither Belgium or Germany.