SLAVE TRAIN SCENES.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 8 February 1917, Page 2

SLAVE TRAIN SCENES.

WOMEN PLING THEMSELVES ON THE TRACK. The following cable of Nov. 19 to the “ Chicago Daily News” gives a vivid account of the slave-raiding methods employed by the Germans in the occupied territories of Belgium and France. “Germany intends to deport and impress into her labour ranks the whole of Belgium’s available manhood,” said an American business man to me this morning. This man, whose integrity and judgment are esteemed both in Europe and Amenica, and whose name in due course will be communicated to the editor of the “News,” reached Loudon afterwitnessing deportation scenes in Belgium that he describes as incredible and heartrending.” “Already,” he continued, “between 30,000 and 40,000 men have been torn from their homes, forced into cattle trucks and conveyed to Germany. In Germany they will be compelled to choose between aiding tire Central Powers in the war and suffering penalties of the severest nature. Many of them beyond doubt will refuse to work, regarding such work as treason to their own country, and thus will land themselves into straits too harrowing to think about. “Unless Germany can be induced to abandon her present policy between two and three hundred thousand Belgians will be deported. The American Relief Commission has thrown around a hundred thousand Belgians the protection of certificates of employment * o;] relief work, but this hundred thousand is a small part of the total population subject to impressment. HARROWING SCENES “Naturally the scenes attending the forcible removal of fathers and sons wring the hardest of hearts. I saw one long train of cattle trucks loaded with prospective deportees. Many had resisted, only to feel the German bayonet. Women and children had fought for their menfolk with desperate fierceness —clothes tattered, eyes streaming, voices screaming and shouting until hoarse. “Generally with as little brutality as possible, but always, effectually, the Kaiser’s soldiers crushed all opposition. Houses were searched by armed men from cellars to roofs. No discrimination was made between employed and unemployed. Only one object plainly was in view—to obtain the largest possible number of strong hands. “When the train had been loaded the women and children standing about in the huge crowd suddenly ran on the line in front of the locomotives, threw themselves on the rails, and clung there, shutting their eyes and uttering : loud lamentations. Detachments of solI diers prised them loose with bayonets, J and forced them clear of the track, when the train moved off towards the Gorman frontier, “Another distressing feature of the situation in Belgium arises from the forcible importation of Frenchmen from the provinces of France occupied by Germany. It appears that the policy of the German Government is to work the Belgians in Germany and the French men in Belgium. “Incidents of the most painful nature are resulting from the impressment of these Frenchmen. Many of them decline to work, declaring, like the Belgians, that it is intolerable that they should be forced to support a Teutonic war against their own country. “In one case thirty-five Frenchmen, for refusing to work, wear tied against trees for twenty-four hours and more. This punishment failed to break their will, and at last they wore released. “But how- can they live? The Germans won’t give them a mouthful of food unless they work. The American Relief Commission cannot undertake the feeding of these people, because of its rule denying food to all engaged in warlike action. How this will end God only knows. “The German authorities have their argument. They assent the Belgians and French in the occupied territories are degenerating from idleness, and claim that the best thing for them is to be deported and forced to labour* at good wages,, and so enable to preserve their own moral character and send money to their families. “But this utilitarian argument not only iguones the fact that men steadily employed arc deported, but fails to meet the stubborn difficulty arising from the strong Belgian and French .sense of nationality. These spirited people claim that what they are asked to bear is far wonse than pure slavery. They call it slavery plus compulsory active treason.”