Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-10
2CER APPEALS TO WORLD TO STOP DEPORTATION
ELGIANS HUNS BRUTALLY DRAGGED FROM HOME
Cardinal Refutes Arguments

Cardinal Refutes Arguments
The Governor General had attempted to iust;s, !,
condemnation of the Belgian working classes TO | s
servitude and deportation In his reply the Cardns,
refutes all the arguments brought forward by Re-.
Won Kissing for defending the German Government sa
proves, in peremptory manner, the anti.juridcai nS
antisocia character Of the deportation Of the unsr
ployed.
Archbishop's House, Malines.
November TO- 191s
To His Excelency Baron Won Bissing Governor cs,.
eral, Brussels.
Sir-I refrain from expressing to your Exco,
ency the sentiments awakened in me by your letter
11O0O51) in to the letter addressed to Won
October 10 regarding the deportation of the unem.
ployed
have melancholy recollection Of the pbrs,,
which your Excellency, emphasizing each syllable
pronounced in my presence on your arrival at Br,,
sels ~ hope our relations will be cordial.
! have received mission to heal the wounds Of Bel,
gum."
My letter of October 10 recalled to your Excel.
ency's memory the undertaking given by Baron Won
Huene military governor .of Antwerp, and ratihed
some days later by Baron der Gotz, your pred
ecessor in the General Government at Brussels.
The undertaking explicit, unconditional, with
out limit of time. "Young men need not fear being
carried off to Germany, either to be enrolled in the
army or to be there employed in compulsory labor"
",
thousands of times for more than fortnight.
Baron Won Huene and the late Baron Won der
Gotz did not speak with any qualification your dis.
patch of October 26 seemed to imply "If the occupa
tion does not last than two years, men fit for
military service shall not be placed in captivity
They stated absolutely: young men, and still more
men of ripper age, shall not at any time during the
occupation be imprisoned employed in compulsory
labor"
To justify yourself your Excellency quotes the
conduct of England and France, who have, you say
taken from neutral ships all Germans between sev.
enteen and fifty years of age and nterned them in
concentration camps.
If England and France have been guilty of an in
justice, it is the English and the French that you
should have inflicted reprsas, not on innocent and
disarmed people.
But has there been any injustice? Imperfectly
informed of all that takes place outside the
walls of prison, tempted to believe that the
Germans taken and interned belonged to the reserve
of the imperial army. They therefore soldiers
whom England and France were justified in sending
to concentration camps. Belgium has only recently
that is since August, 1918, had universal military
service; the Belgians therefore, from seventeen to
fifty years of age residing in the occupied part Of
Belgium are civilians and noncombatants. 1t is
play words to 1iken them to German reserv-
lists in applying to them the misleading appellation
''men fit for military service" .sp... ..."
The orders, public notices, comments in the press
designed to prepare public opinion for the measures
in the forefront two considerations. The unemployed
it was said, danger to public security they are
burden the state.
1t is not true as said before in my letter of Oc.
tober 10, that worlSmen have upset or simply
threatened anywhere to disturb public order. Five
million Belgians, hundreds of Americans are won.
derstruck witnesses of the sefrespect and unfaing
patience of our working classes.
1t is not true that workers deprived of work are
burden on the occupying power on the benevolent
funds which its administration provides. The national
committee to which the occupying power makes no
contribution Is the sole means by which victims Of
enforced idleness are assisted
These two answers have been left without reply
RESCUED From, IdLeness''
The letter of October 26 seeks another method Of
justification. 1t alleges that the measure by which
the unemployed have been struck so grievously. has
been brought about by social and economic causes"
1t is because it has at heart more earnestly and
more ntegently than ourselves the interest Of the
Belgian nation that the German Government rescues
the laborer from idleness and saves him from losing
his technical Skill Compulsory labor is the price to
be paid for the economic advantages procured by
commercial exchanges with the empire"
CONTINUED MONDAY
co{S TSRGrtSs Saod dos0 ,Jg Sy rs1' 10 o ksdosr Co.
International Copyright, 1890 BY Public Ledger
holders of numbers by the late Dr.