The Germans are provoked that the bank money got out of Belgium. The Bank of Belgium sent its gold reserve to the Bank of England, 600,000,000 francs, and Germany demanded that this reserve be transferred from England to a neutral country; but, of course, England refused. There are some banks still doing business in Belgium, but the Belgians reject the German money except when obliged to take it.
The Belgian stores remain closed for the major part, and the Germans threaten that unless the Belgians reopen and proceed with business they will confiscate the stores and sell them to Germans who will do business. The people of Antwerp must be in bed by 9 o'clock. The people of Liége are ordered to retire at 7 P.M. No Belgian is permitted the use of a telephone, the entire system having been appropriated by the military authorities.
The Germans have decreed German time, which is one hour different from that of London, but the Belgian people refuse to set over their watches and clocks. The Belgian railroad system is different from that of the Germans,--left-handed tracks and a different system of signalling. The Belgians refuse to do the bidding of the Germans and operate the railroads. The Germans must move the trains themselves.
The Germans do not hate the Belgians. They simply pity them, that they were so shortsighted as not to accept German gold for right of passage through the country. The German hate is reserved entirely for the English above all people on the surface of the globe. In Belgium 200 marks reward is offered for the capture of any Englishman found in that domain.
The latest response to Bernhardi's book, "England the Vassal of Germany," is Kipling's poem in the King Albert book issued December 16 to augment the Belgian Relief Fund. I clip two verses:--
They traded with the careless earth, And good return it gave; They plotted by their neighbor's hearth The means to make him slave.
When all was readied to their hand They loosed their hidden sword And utterly laid waste a land Their oath was pledged to guard.
After the German Kaiser sounded the battle sentiment of Europe by sending the warship "Panther" to Agadir three years ago in violation of the treaty of Algeciras, it was intimated by the French and the English that Belgian neutrality might be in danger; also that the Lord and the Allies helped those who help themselves.