German gunners must have timed their shells so that they should not
burst in the air, but only when falling on the ground. This method of
propaganda may cost a few lives, but it is certainly clever. It might
well be calculated to stir indignation in the hearts of the people
against the Allies and at the same time to serve as a warning to enemy
headquarters to the effect: "Whenever you send your aeroplanes over
Belgian towns, we are going to make the population pay for it."

The same kind of argument is used at the present moment with regard to
the wholesale deportations which are going on in Belgium. To justify his
slave-raids, Governor von Bissing denounces England's blockade. It is
the economic policy of England--not German requisitions--which has
ruined Belgium and caused unemployment: "If there are any objections to
be made about this state of affairs you must address them to England,
who, through her policy of isolation, has rendered the coercive measures
necessary." [1] But the argument is used more for the sake of discussion
than in the real hope of convincing the public. General von Bissing can
have very few illusions left as to the state of mind of the Belgian
population. He knows that every Belgian worker, would answer, with the
members of the Commission Syndicale: "All the Allies have agreed to let
some raw material necessary to our industry enter Belgium, under the
condition, naturally, that no requisitions should be made by the
occupying power, and that a neutral commission should control the
destination of the manufactured articles." [2] Or, more emphatically
still, with Cardinal Mercier: "England generously allows some foodstuffs
to enter Belgium under the control of neutral countries ... She would
certainly allow raw materials to enter the country under the same
control, if Germany would only pledge herself to leave them to us and
not to seize the manufactured products of our industry."