"BRUSSELS, _9th November, 1916_.
"To his Excellency, BARON VON BISSING,
"_Governor General in Belgium_.
[Sidenote: Belgian legislators recite the wrongs of Belgium.]
"EXCELLENCY: It seemed that no suffering could be added to those under
which we have already been weighed down since the occupation of our
country. Our banished liberty, our destroyed industry and commerce,
our raw products and instruments of work taken out of the country, the
public fortune ruined, want succeeding to wealth in families formerly
most prosperous, privations, anxieties, and mourning. * * *
[Sidenote: The "summary and sorrowful" procedure of the Germans.]
"Is there need to relate the scenes which the region of the étape
has been the theater of for several weeks, and which are now being
reenacted, during the past days, in the territory of the Government
General, where this scourge threatens to extend from commune to
commune until its victims are counted by hundreds of thousands?
The notices posted on the walls and reproduced in the papers tell
sufficiently what it is. Everywhere the same procedure, summary and
sorrowful: arrests in mass, men classified arbitrarily among the
unemployed, herded together, divided into groups, sent toward the
unknown. * * *
"The authorities prefer to give them work in Germany, where the
representatives of the [German] Industrial Bureau promise them 'good
wages,' if they consent to work there 'voluntarily,' and where they
may expect, in case of refusal, famine wages. What physical and moral
depression is counted on in order to force their hand?
[Sidenote: Everyone knows what Germany wants Belgian workers for.]
"True, it has been asserted that the work which is offered to them
will be nonmilitary in character; but voices have replied on every
side: 'in taking the place of a German workman, the Belgian workman
permits Germany to increase the numerical forces of its armies.'
The most odious work is that whose results are used against the
fatherland. To serve Germany is to fight against their own country.
To compel our workmen to do this is nothing else than an act of force
contrary to international law (referred to by Your Excellency in your
proclamation of August 15th, 1915), and contrary also to the spirit,
if not to the text, of the Fourth Convention of the Hague of 1907. * *
*
"They adjure Your Excellency to employ with the military authorities
the high prerogatives which are yours from your position to prevent
the consummation of an act without precedent in the history of
modern wars, and they beg you to accept the assurance of their most
distinguished consideration."
[Signatures of Belgian Senators and Deputies.]