overcome obstacles set in its path by
those whom it would aid. Belgian politicians, in keeping with the
weakness of their craft, could no more forego playing politics in time
of distress than some that we had in San Francisco and some we
have heard of only across the British Channel from Belgium.

Zealous leaders exaggerated the famine of their districts in order to
get larger supplies; communities in great need without spokesmen
must be reached; powerful towns found excuses for not forwarding
food to small villages which were without influence. Natural greed got
the better of men used to turning a penny any way they could.
Rascally bakers who sifted the brown flour to get the white to sell to
patisserie shops and the well-to-do while the bread-line got the bran,
required shrewd handling, and it was found that the best punishment
was to let the public know the pariah part they had played. In fact that
soon put a stop to the practice. It meant that the baker's business
was ruined and he had lost his friends.

A certain percentage of Belgians, as would happen in any country,
saw the invasion only as a visitation of disaster, like an earthquake. A
flat country of gardens limits one's horizon. They fell into line with the
sentiment of the mass. But as time wore on into the summer and
autumn of the second year, some of them began to think, What was
the use? German propaganda was active. All that the Allies had
cared for Belgium was to use her to check the German tide to Paris
and the Channel ports! Perfidious England had betrayed Belgium!
German business and banking influences, which had been considerable
in Belgium before the war, and the numerous German residents
who had returned, formed a busy circle of appeal to Belgian business
men, who were told that the British navy stood between them and a
return to prosperity. Germany was only too willing that they should
resume their trade with the rest of the world.

Why should not Belgium come into the German customs union? Why
should not Belgium make the best of her unfortunate situation, as
became a practical and thrifty people? But be it a customs union or
annexation that Germany plans, the steel had entered the hearts of
all Belgians with red corpuscles; and King Albert and his
"schipperkes" were still fighting the Germans at Dixmude. A British
army appearing before Brussels would end casuistry; and pessimism
would pass, and the German residents, too, with the huzzas of al