.

"'Art. 47. Pillaging is formally prohibited.

"'Art. 53. When occupying territory, the army can only seize cash as
well as funds and securities belonging entirely to the State; also
depots of arms, ways and means of transportation, warehouses and
provisions, and in a general way all movable property belonging to the
State and liable to be used for warlike operations.

"'Art. 56. Property of municipalities, property of establishments
consecrated to worship, to charity and instruction; to art and science,
even though belonging to the State, will be treated as private
property.'

"In defiance of these conventional rules, voluntarily and solemnly
accepted by Germany, she has committed, from the beginning of her
invasion of Belgian soil, numerous attacks upon private property."

GERMAN CUPIDITY.

At Hasselt, the report shows that on August 12, 1914, the Germans
confiscated the funds of the branch of the National Bank, which amounted
to 2,075,000 francs. At Liege, on entering the city, they forcibly
seized the funds of a branch of the same bank, amounting to 4,000,000
francs. Moreover, upon finding at that branch bundles of bank notes of
5-franc denomination, representing an amount of 400,000 francs, and
which were not yet signed, they forced a printer to sign those bank
notes by means of a rubber stamp, which they had also seized, and
afterwards put the notes in circulation. The bank, it is explained, was
a shareholders' corporation, the capital having been obtained by
subscription from private parties and was in no wise an institution of
the State.

The enormity of this offence is made apparent by the fact that in the
war of 1870, when the Prussians entered Rheims in the Franco-Prussian
war, and they wanted to confiscate the funds of the branch of the
National Bank of France, Crown Prince Frederick ordered that funds which
were found at the bank could not be seized so long as they were not used
for the maintenance of the French army, it having been contended by
directors of the institution that the bank was not a State, but a
private bank. But more than this Germany levied supplies from every
Belgian city and tried to levy upon the city of Brussels the sum of
50,000,000 francs and the province of Brabant 450,000,000 francs.

TREATY OBLIGATIONS.

Categorically, the violation and disregard of every phase of the Hague
treaty is described. In spite of the strict provision that undefended
cities, villages and