Nuncio at Berlin. Germany,
if this statement is correct, now proposes to spoil the future of
Belgium by splitting the nation into two administrative districts,
Flemish and Walloon, thus injecting the poison-germ of disunion into the
body politic. She also demands "the right to develop her economic
interests freely in Belgium, especially in Antwerp," and a guarantee
that "any such menace as that which threatened Germany [from Belgium!]
in 1914 shall be excluded." This is the German idea of making good an
injustice by committing a fresh injury. It is in the style of a
highwayman who says to his victim: "I will reward you by letting you go.
But I must keep the big pearl, and you must permit me to break both your
arms." [Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: For further confirmation of these ideas see the Memoir of
the late General von Bissing, former Governor-General of Belgium,
published by the Bergisch-Markische Zeitung, May 18, 1917, and by Das
Grossere Deutschland, May 19, 1917.

"History now shows us that, neither prior to, nor at the outset of
hostilities, were people able to rely to any great extent on a neutral
Belgium, and, should we attach a certain importance to these historic
truths, we shall not, however, on the conclusion of peace, suffer
ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a neutral state and
country. An independent or neutral Belgium, or a Belgium whose status
would be fixed by treaties of another kind, will be, as before the war,
under the inauspicious influence of England and France, as well as the
prey of America, who is seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is
only one way to prevent this, viz.: by the policy of force, and it is
force that should achieve the result that the population, at present
still hostile, should become used to German rule and submit to it.
Moreover, it will be necessary, through a peace assuring us the
annexation of Belgium, that we should be able to protect, as we are now
compelled to do, the German subjects who have settled in this country,
and the protection we shall be enabled to afford them will be of special
service to us in the struggle about to take place in the world's market.
It is only by reigning over Belgium that we shall be able to utilize
(verwerten), with a view to German interests, Belgian capital in savings
and the numerous Belgian joint-stock companies already existing in enemy
countries. We ought to have control over the important enterprises that
Belg