requisition of metals still more severe. All the steel material--_in
whatever shape it may be (including tools)_--must be declared to the
_Abteilung fuer Handel und Gewerbe_ in Brussels, under a penalty of five
years of imprisonment (25,000 marks).

October 31st: The commune of Anderlecht has voted a credit of 40,000
francs for the purchase of _wooden shoes as the shortage of leather
prevents most of the people from buying boots_.

November 1st: A decree dated October 14th prepares for the seizure of
all textile materials, ribbons, hosiery, etc. No more than one-tenth of
the stocks can be manufactured, under a penalty of 10,000 marks. A
decree dated October 17th makes the declaration of poplars all over
Belgium compulsory.

It was scarcely necessary to underline some passages of this report.
However bad may be the impression it causes, it would be twenty-six
times worse if we had the leisure to follow step by step the progress of
German economic policy in Belgium. It is evident that the German
administration, in spite of its former declarations, is resolved to ruin
Belgian industry and to throw out of work the greatest number of men
possible. All raw material must go to Germany in order to be worked
there. As it has become evident that the Belgian workers will not submit
to war work so long as they remain in their surroundings, they must be
torn away from their country and compelled to follow the materials and
machines over the frontier. Labour has become an inanimated object
necessary to the prosecution of the German war. It is as indispensable
to Germany as cotton, nickel and copper. It will be treated as such. If
the men resist, they will be crushed. If the soul of Belgium will not
yield to persuasion, it will be taken away from her, like her cattle,
her corn, her iron and her steel. And so Belgium will become a weapon in
Germany's hands, a weapon which will strike at Belgium. And the only
thought of the deported worker turning a shell in a German factory will
be, as is suggested by Louis Raemaekers' cartoon, "Perhaps this one will
kill my own son?"

V.

THE MODERN SLAVE.

I. THE CREEPING TIDE.

We must now deal with the second factor which makes the conditions worse
in Belgium than in Germany. While German peace-factories, ruined by the
blockade, have been turned into war-factories, the majority of Belgian
industries have remained idle. In spite of the high wages offered by the
Germans--some skille