The Carlisle independent., 1918-01-03

says: (On file in state department.)
 "Then, in August, Ton Hindenburg was appointed to the supreme com mand. He is said to haYs criticized Von Bissing's policy as too mild; there was a quarrel; Von Bissing went to Berlin to protest, threatened to resign, but did not He returned, and Ger man official here said that Belgium would now be subjected to a more ter rible regime-would learn what war was. The prophecy has been vindicat- ed. Recently I was told that the dras- tic measures are really of LudendOrf's inspiration; do not know. Many Ger man officers say so."
 If Won Bissing had opposed the pol icy of deportation when his own judg- ment was overruled. he consented to become the devils advocate" and de tended the system in public. Espe- cially instructive is the following con versation reported by Mir. F. c. Wal colt:
 T went to Belgium to investigate conditions, and while there I had op- portunity .. to talk one day with Governor General Von Bissing, who died three or four weeks ago, man seventy-two or seventy-three years old a man steeped in the system, born and bred to the hardening of the heart which that philosophy develops. There ought to be some new word coined for the process that a mans heart undergoes when it becomes steeped in that system.
 ''I said to him, Governor, what are you going to do if England and France stop giving these people money to pur- chase food?
 Won Bissing Relied on Starvation.
 He said, We have got that all worked out and have had 1t worked out for weeks, because We have ex- pected this system to break down at any time
 He went on to say. Starvation will grip these people in thirty to sixty days. Starvation is compelling force, and we would use that force to compel the Belgian workingmen, many of them very skilled, to go to Germany to replace the Germans, so that they could go to the front and fight against the English and the French.
 "'As fast as our railway transpor- tation could carry them, We would l transport thousands of others that would be fit for agricultural work, across Europe down into southeastern Europe into Mesopotamia, where we have huge, splendid irrigation works. A that land needs is water and 1t Win blossom like the rose.
 "'The weak remaining, the old and the young, we would concentrate oppo- site the firing line, and put firing squads back of them. and force them through that line. so that the English and French could take care of their own people,
 Tt was perfectly simple. direct, frank reasoning. It meant that the German government would use any force in the destruction eff any people not it's own to further its own ends. - Frederick C. Walcott. in National Geo. graphical Magazine, May, 1917.
 4 brief general view of the character of the deportaions can perhaps be gained best from the report of Minis ter Whltlock.
 "The deportations began in October in the Etape, at Ghent, and at Bruges, as my brief telegrams indicated. The ,a gch industrial dis. tricts of Hainault, the mines and steel works about Charleroi were next at tackled now they are seizing men in Brabant. even in Brussels, despite some indications and even predictions of the civil authorities that the policy was about to be abandoned.
 TThe etapes were the parts of Bel gium under martial law, and included the province of western Flanders, part of eastern Flanders and the region of Tournai. The remainder of the oc- cupied part of Belgium was under civil governmental
 Ptiable and Distressing Scene.
 During the last fortnight men have been impressed here in Brussels. but their seizures here are made evidently with much greater care than in the ! provinces. with more regard for the ] appearances. There was no public an nouncement of the intention to deport i but suddenly about ten days ago cer i tain men in towns whose names are on the list of chomeurs received sum mons notifying them to report at one of the railway stations on a given day penalties were fixed for failure to re