GERMANY'S WAR TAX LEVIES

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tee by permission of Germany and England. The people have been put on one-third rations. Every inhabitant of Belgium is allowed a pint of soup a day and about as much coarse brown bread as would make one American loaf.

The German idea of responsibility and power is that of force. They have ordered the people of Belgium to love them, coöperate with them, and go about their business. But the Belgians refuse to love the Germans, refuse to coöperate with them and will not resume their work for the Germans to appropriate the results. The people of Antwerp were invited to come back from Holland and it was proclaimed that there would be no indemnity levied, yet a huge one came down upon the city. The Germans levied a war tax of 50,000,000 francs on Brussels, and Rothschild and Solvay are not permitted to leave the city.

Payment on the tax was agreed to, and then the Germans demanded 500,000,000 francs from the entire province of Brabant, which includes Louvain as well as Brussels. The inhabitants said it was impossible and the demand was reduced to 375,000,000 francs. The inference must be that the latter levy covers a term of years.

The Germans are provoked that the bank money got out of Belgium. The Bank of Belgium sent its gold reserve to the Bank of England, 600,000,000 francs, and Germany demanded that this reserve be transferred from England to a neutral country; but, of course, England refused. There are some banks still doing business in Belgium, but the Belgians reject the German money except when obliged to take it.

The Belgian stores remain closed for the major part, and the Germans threaten that unless the Belgians reopen and proceed with business they will confiscate the stores and sell them to Germans who will do business. The people of Antwerp must be in bed by 9 o'clock. The people of Liége are ordered to retire at 7 P.M. No Belgian is permitted the use of a telephone, the entire system having been appropriated: by the military authorities.

The Germans have decreed German time, which is one hour different from that of London, but the Belgian people refuse to set over their watches and clocks. The Belgian railroad system is different from that of the Germans, left-handed tracks and a different system of signalling. The Belgians refuse to do the bidding

of the Germans and operate the railroads. The Germans must move the trains themselves.

The Germans do not hate the Belgians. They simply pity them, that they were so shortsighted as not to accept German gold for right of passage through the country. The German hate is reserved entirely for the English above all people on the surface of the globe. In Belgium 200 marks reward is offered for the capture of any Englishman found in that domain.

The latest response to Bernhardi's book, "England the Vassal of Germany," is Kipling's poem in the King Albert book issued December 16 to augment the Belgian Relief Fund. I clip two verses:

They traded with the careless earth,
And good return it gave;

They plotted by their neighbor's hearth
The means to make him slave.

When all was readied to their hand

They loosed their hidden sword

And utterly laid waste a land

Their oath was pledged to guard.

After the German Kaiser sounded the battle

sentiment of Europe by sending the warship "Panther" to Agadir three years ago in violation of the treaty of Algeciras, it was intimated

by the French and the English that Belgian neutrality might be in danger; also that the Lord and the Allies helped those who help themselves.

Therefore, a bill was introduced in Belgium's capital providing for the raising of an army of 600,000 men where before were 46,000 and a war footing of 147,000. The leader of the Catholic party opposed the programme, declaring that Belgian neutrality was guaranteed by Germany, France, and England. A compromise was effected by which an army of less than half this number was authorized.

When on Sunday evening, August 3d, at 7 P.M., the German ultimatum was handed to Belgium, she was given twelve hours or until morning to declare whether or not the country would be surrendered to the free passage of the German war battalions. Belgium had then an army of 200,000 men; 60,000 volunteers sprang to arms, and that 260,000 was the maximum Belgian army that attempted to withstand the millions of Germany's armed forces. Even these were not effectively placed. The 30,000 men at the frontier were not sufficient to permit of any effective sorties to protect the approaches to the Liége fortifications. It was a forlorn hope from a military standpoint, but for three weeks the Bel

gians with shrinking forces held in check the war power of Germany. Every week help was expected from the Allies, but no help came, for no country in Europe outside of Germany and Austria had any expectation of war.

Down to the ground and their graves fought the plucky little Belgians, until they numbered, not 260,000, but nearer 60,000. After every ablebodied man in Belgium was demanded by King Albert, the ranks of the Belgians began to swell, and, with able-bodied refugees returned from England, there are now about 120,000 men in the ten divisions of the Belgian army.

But England carries, as she ought, the financial burden. She feeds, clothes, and equips the Belgians and furnishes the money-supply. The Germans still strive, not so much against the Allies as against the English in Belgium. Here the fighting is fiercest, casualties are greatest, and here the reinforcements on both sides are the greatest per mile of line.

Meanwhile the more than a million Germans in Belgium have trenched across the whole country, rebuilt the forts at Namur, Liége, Antwerp, and other places, and are digging themselves into the ground doggedly and determinedly, and with as great precision and more science than