The Cordova daily times., 1916-12-28
Protests Against
 Deporting Belgians

| tecnnicai proficlency and that in the time of peace to come they would be useless to industry
 True, there were other ways ir which our finances might have been protected. We might have been spared those war levies which have now reached the sum of one billion francs, and are still mounting up at the rate of forty millions month; We might have been spared those acquisitions in kind, which amount to several thou sands of millions, and are exhaust. ing us.
 There are other ways of providing for the maintenance of professional skill among our work people, such as leaving to Belgian industry it's machin- cry and accessories, it's raw materials and it's manufactured goods, which l have passed from Belgium to Ger many. And it is neither to the quar- ries nor to the linn kilns to which the Germans themselves declare they will send our unemployed, that our spec ialists will go to complete their pro- fessional education.
 'The naked truth is that every de ported workman is another soldier for the German army. He will take the place of German workman, who will be made into soldier. Thus the sit. uation which we denounce to the civ | ilibed world may be reduced to these terms: Four hundred thousand work | men have been thrown out of work by no fault of their own, and largely on 1 account of the regime Of the occupa- tion. Sons, husbands and fathers of | families, they bear their unhappy lot without murmuring, respectful of pub lie order; national solidarity provides their most pressing wants; by dint of unselfish thrift and self-denial they escape extreme destitution, and they await with dignity and in 8 mutual affection which our national sorrows have intensified, the end of our com mon ordeal.
 Groups of soldiers introduced them. selves forcibly in the homes of these people, tearing the young people out ! of the arms of their parents. the hus- band from his wife, the father from his children, at the point of the bayo- net they block the entrances to the homes preventing wives and mothers from rushing out to say last farewell to them; they align the captiyes in groups of forty or fifty and push them forcibly into freight cars; the locomo- tive Is under pressure, and as son as train load is ready an officer gives the signal and they depart. Thus an- other thousand Belgians reduced to slavery, without previous trial. con demned to the penalty which comes next in cruelty to the death penalty: deportation. They don't know how long their exile is going to last, neither do they know where they are going. All they know is that their work will benefit the enemy. Several of them have been brought to sign by coer- cion or by threats an engagement which they dare to call 'voiuntry'
 While they certainly take the un- employed, they also take large mum. Der - in the proportion of one-Quar- ter for the arrondissement of Mons of men who were never out of work and belonging to diversified profes- sions - butchers, bakers, tailors, brewery workers, electricians, farm CTS; they even take the youngest men, college and university students, or young men from other high schools.
 This in spite of the fact that two high authorities of the German en- pire had formally guaranteed the lib erty of our compatriots.
 The day after the equalization of Antwerp, the frightened populace asked itself what would become of the Belgians of military age, or those which would arrive at that age before the end of the siege. Baron von Heu- ne, military governor of Antwerp, au- thorized me to reassure in his name the frightened parents. However, as rumors were running that in Antwerp. Liege, Namur and Charleroi, young men had been seized and forcibly car ried off to Germany, asked Governor von Huene to confirm to me in writ ing the verbal guarantees which he had given me. He replied that the rumors pertaining to depOrtations were without foundation, and he gave me without hesitancy the written de, claration which was read on Sunday October IS, 1914, in all the parochcial churches of the Arrondissement of Antwerp: Young men need not fear of being carried off to Germany either for enrolment in the army or for forcible employment
 Immediately after the arrival oi