THE LIBRE BELGIQUE.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 February 1919, Page 5

THE LIBRE BELGIQUE.

SECRET PAPER HELPS TO KEEP PATRIOTISM ALIVE. Ransack the whole record of the "clandestine press" trying to-serve Liberty in an atmosphere of ' depotism, stated the Boston Herald recently, and you will find no better example of its elusiveness and vitality than the little sheet wiych, despite all efforts to suppress it, is still holding its own in wardevastated, tyrant-cursed Belgium. Free speech that country ha 9 never had since the coming of the usurper. Many of its newspapers have been suppressed outright; the rest, harassed by fines and jirison sentences, live on to-day in a condition of unmitigated vassalage. But the people continue to find their "irregular" orgam of opinion in the Libre Belgique, even though it as much as the citizen's liberty is worth for him to be found reading a copy of that production. Founded about three years ago, Free Belgium has already played an important part in keeping tke home fire of patriotism aglow and in sending abroad news which the Hun censor has made taboo—the secret proceedings of the German courts, cases of tyranny within prison walls, and many poignant details of shootings and executions. Belgians gather privately all through the occupied territory to read the latest issue; the very officers who scour the country to discover the culprits receive the prohibited sheet; the German Governor-General himself is honored regularly with free copies. Where is the Libre Belgique published, how and where is it printed, who are the business manager, the editor and the contributors? The combined science, method, ingenuity, and skill of the whole German forces of occupation have thus far failed to answer any one of thjse questions and nothing better illustrates the futility of their campaign against the paper than the attempt which has just been made to strike terror into all who have written or are likely to write for it. Three men were arrested on an information charging one with being the manager of Libre Belgique, the other two with having supplied him with articles for publication. It took the military court three months to make up its mind, and its decision has committed all three accused to a German prison for long terms. A Hague newspaper asserts that the punishment was meted out "on suspicion" only, there being no evidence to justify a conviction. The trial brought out a mass of new suspicions, but the judges gained no new information as to the Libre Belgique's printing office and had to fall back on "the popular belief that the newspaper is printed on an automobile, which moves from, place to* place." It was thus made evident that even in Belgium, under German rule, "the resources of civilisation are not yet exhausted." „ [A London cabegram, published in the Gisborne Times on Dee. 31, stated: The Daily Express states that the secret journal, Libre Belgique (Free Belgium), published in Brussels throughout the war, was the work of two brothers, named Jourdain, who both' died on the eve of the armistice. Several men and women were shot or imprisoned for helping to pubb'sh the paper, which was printed on various presses throughout the country, which the Germans were unable to locate. The Jourdains employed two orderlies attached to von Biasing's and von Falkenhayn's staffs (successive German Governors of Belgium) to put copies on prja bj^^kfitaj