Wherever Prussia rules she has only one method of ruling--that
of terror. Wherever she finds civilisation and the wealth which
civilisation creates, she can do nothing but despoil. She is as
incapable of persuasion as of creation. No people forced to endure her
rule have ever been won to prefer it as the Alsatians came to prefer
the rule of France or as many Indians have come to prefer the rule of
England. In Belgium she has been especially herself in this respect.
A wise policy would have dictated such a careful respect for private
rights and such a deference to native traditions as might conceivably
have weakened the determination of the Belgians to resist to the
death those who had violated their national independence. But Prussia
is incapable of such a policy. In any territory which she occupies,
whether temporarily or permanently, her only method is terror and her
only aim loot. She did indeed send some of her tame Socialists to
Brussels to embark on the hopeless enterprise of persuading the Belgian
Socialists that honour and patriotism were _idéologies bourgeoises_
and that the “economic interests” of Belgium would be best promoted
by a submission. These pedantic barbarians got the answer which they
deserved; but on their pettifogging thesis Raemaekers’ cartoon is
perhaps the best commentary.
The “prosperity” of Belgium under Prussian rule has consisted in the
systematic looting, in violation of international law, of the wealth
accumulated by the free citizens of Belgium, for the advantage of their
Prussian rulers; while to the mass of the people it has brought and,
until it is for ever destroyed, can bring nothing but that slavery
which the Prussians have themselves accepted and which they would now
impose upon the whole civilisation of Europe.