The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1917. THE ALLIES DUTY TO BELGIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1917. THE ALLIES DUTY TO BELGIUM.

If there is one fact in connection with the war that is better known than any other it is that Britain joined in the strife because the neutrality of Belgium had been violated. The dominions rallied round the Motherland for the same reason, an<P the war is being prosecuted to a victorious conclusion so that the small nations shall never again be trodden under foot by military swashbucklers. What true. Christendom thinks of German professions and (icrman crimes is also well known. Belgium is not alone in her piteous plight. The blood of many a martyr, singly and in masses, calls aloud for vengeance, but just as Belgium was the first victim of Run ferocity so has she the first claim upon our help and sympathy. Commenting editorially on the. pitiable condition of Belgium, the Uunedin Star says: "There is nothing more cruel, nothing more infamous, in the history of modern times than the story of Belgium as' it 'has been told day iu and day out for nearly thirty months of jiever-aosent physical and mental agony. Time and again we have ■caught ourselves saying throughout those awful months: 'This surely must be the limit of Satanic depravity.' Yet the words have barely escaped our lips before the news of some fresh horror—the latest blossom on the tree of Kultur—is blazoned to the four winds. What is the truth about Belgium as it is known today? Briefly, that she is being bled to death—lmirdered—Jbefore the eyes of a world that has supped so full of horrors that we are tempted at times to wonder whether it has not grown callous or indifferent, or both. Not contented with having violated her integrity, pillaged and destroyed her cities and villages, blackmailed her to tlio :\\tcnt of £10,000,000, laid hands on her live stock, her food products, and hw mineral wealth, Belgium's ravisher and slayer some three months since laid foul hands on the men and women, the boys and girls who were ■eft, herded them in gangs, packed them into trucks like cattle, and railed them into his own horrible land. Germany has never yet hesitated to invent or to lie when to invent and to lie were the readiest.wear pons to hand. Therefore, when all Europe and the hotter part of the United States of America were protesting hotly aaginst the Belgian deportations, the German authorities lied by way of answer. The lie appeared in a recent 1 cable, in which it was stated in answer to an enquiry from the United Stales Government that those deported were 'unemployed,' that it was really an *ct of kindness on the part of the German authorities—an expression of that true morality *nd Christian feeling of which lit* Kmui «-»*■ — "Uift U completely

lacking in Englishmen—and that none were forced to do military work if they objected. It is a reasonable assumption that German officials, like their Imperial master, 'have long since ceased to know shame. . . To Cardinal Merger's protest the German tyrants answered, 'Only unemployed workmen are being taken,' and so satisfied were they tlisit their answer mot the full needs of the case, that they repeated it to the United States Government. Whether it will satisfy the requirements of President Wilson we neither know nor care. It will, at least, afford him room for further literary controversy. What is more important is that it does not satisfy the best thoughi among his own people. It does not satisfy tl.e universities of America (whose professors and students have petitioned the President that he. demand that Germany shall stop the Belgian deportations ana' their 'unparalleled cruelty and unspeakable suffering'), and it did not satisfy Carinal Mrrcicr. His answer was swift and sure: The whole truth is that each deported workman means another soldier for the German army. Ho will tako the place of a Germait workman, wlio will bo made a soldier. Therefore, the situation which we denounce, to the civilised world may be summed up in these words.' Belgium, having 'been attacked, robbed and starved, is now to be dispersed as a nation—not in the dark nor in some obscure corner of the world, but in the broad light of day, and in brutal disregard of the protesting indignation of, the race. Hence, as an Empire, we have but one course left us: 'To prosecute the war with all out; power' to its only possible close."