d have
necessarily followed the last decree. It only remains to declare that
the workers can be deported to complete the process and to legalise
slavery.

This step was taken on October 3rd last, when an order, signed by
Quartier-Meister Sauberzweig and issued by the General Headquarters of
the German Army, was posted in all the communes of Flanders. This order
warned all persons "_who are fit to work_ that they may be compelled to
do so _even outside their places of residence,_" when "they should be
compelled to have recourse to public help for their own subsistence or
for the subsistence of the persons dependent on them."

[Footnote 4: Another poster dated from Menin (August, 1915) reads as
follows: "From to-day the town is forbidden to give any support whatever
even to the families, wives, or children of workmen who are not employed
_regularly on military work_.."]

* * * * *

But there is more to come in the story. Three guarantees were left,
which have been quoted again and again by the German Press and by Baron
von Bissing in his various answers to Cardinal Mercier. It was first
stated that the men seized would not be sent to Germany, then that only
the unemployed were taken, and finally that these would not be used on
military work. These last guarantees have been repeatedly broken.
Again, I will leave the Germans to condemn themselves.

In his decree published at Antwerp, on November the 2nd, General von
Huene (the same man who had given Cardinal Mercier his formal written
promise that no deportations should take place) declares that the men
are to be concentrated at the Southern Station, "whence ... they will be
conveyed in groups to _workshops in Germany_."

In a letter sent by General Hurt, Military Governor of Brussels and of
the province of Brabant, to all burgomasters, it is said that "where the
Communes will not furnish the lists (of unemployed) the German
administration will itself designate the men to be deported to Germany.
If then ... errors are committed, the burgomasters will only have
themselves to blame, for _the German administration has no time and no
means for making an inquiry concerning the personal status of each
person_."

Finally, an extraordinary proclamation of the "Major-Commandant
d'Etapes" of Antoing, dated October 20th, announces that "_the
population will never be compelled to work under continuous fire,"_ this
population being composed, accor