s,
in public works, such as draining, ditching, constructing embankments
and building sewers. The National Committee paid nine-tenths of the
wages, the commune paying the other tenth. The first enrolment of
unemployed amounted to more than 760,000 names, and nearly as many
persons were dependent upon these workers.

Providing employment for these led to certain complications. The Germans
had been able up to this time to secure a certain amount of labor from
the Belgians. Now the Belgian could refuse to work for the German, and a
great deal of tact was necessary to prevent trouble. As time went on the
relief work of the Commission was extended into the north of France,
where a population of more than 2,000,000 was within the German zone.
The work was handled in the same way, with the same guarantees from
Germany.

In conclusion a word may be said of the effect of all this suffering
upon the Belgian people, and let a Belgian speak, who knew his country
well and had traveled it over, going on foot, as he says, or by tram,
from town to town, from village to village:

"I have seen and spoken with hundreds of men of all classes and all
parts of the country, and all these people, taken singly or united in
groups, display a very definite frame of mind. To describe this new
psychology we must record the incontestably closer union which has been
formed between the political sections of the country. There are no
longer any political parties, there are Belgians in Belgium, and that is
all; Belgians better acquainted with their country, feeling for it an
impulse of passionate tenderness such as a child might feel who saw his
mother suffering for the first time, and on his account. Walloons and
Flemings, Catholics and Liberals or Socialists, all are more and more
frankly united in all that concerns the national life and decisions for
the future.

"By uniting the whole nation and its army, by shedding the blood of all
our Belgians in every corner of the country, by forcing all hearts, all
families, to follow with anguish the movement of those soldiers who
fought from Liege to Namur, from Wavre to Antwerp or the Oise, the war
has suddenly imposed wider horizons upon all, has inspired all minds
with noble and ardent passions, has compelled the good will of all to
combine and act in concert in order to defend the common interests.

"Of these profoundly tried minds, of these wonderful energies now
employed for the first time, of the