Act shall not be covered into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States, but shall be used and expended for the government and benefit of said islands under such rules and regulations as the President may prescribe.

SEC. 6. That for the purpose of taking over and occupying said islands and of carrying this Act into effect and to meet any deficit in the revenues of the said islands resulting from the provisions of this Act the sum of $100,000 is hereby appropriated, to be paid out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and to be applied under the direction of the President of the United States.

SEC. 7. That the sum of $25,000,000 is hereby appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be paid in the city of Washington to the diplomatic representative or other agent of His Majesty, the King of Denmark duly authorized to receive said money, in full consideration of the cession of the Danish West Indian Islands to the United States made by the convention between the United States of America and His Majesty the King of Denmark entered into August fourth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, and ratified by the Senate of the United States on the seventh day of September, nineteen hundred and sixteen.

SEC. 8. That this Act, with the exception of section seven, shall be in force and effect and become operative immediately upon the payment by the United States of said sum of $25,000,000. The fact and date of such payment shall thereupon be made public by a proclamation issued by the President and published in the said Danish. West Indian Islands and in the United States. Section seven shall become immediately effective and the appropriation thereby provided for stall be immediately available.

Approved, March 3, 1917.

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

MEMOIRE OF THE BELGIAN GOVERNMENT IN REGARD TO THE DEPORTA

TION AND FORCED LABOR OF THE BELGIAN CIVIL POPULATION ORDERED BY THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT 1

The German Government tries to justify the deportation of Belgian civilians by invoking reasons of different sorts.

It alleges first that the depressed condition of Belgian industry could not offer to unemployed Belgians any means of working, or, at least, any means of making a suitable livelihood in Belgium.

Then it alleges that the general interest of the occupied territory (for which the occupant is responsible) demanded that the unemployed should not remain a charge upon public charity, finding in such aid an encouragement to their natural laziness and exposing themselves to the loss of their technical skill by long idleness.

Finally, it alleges its anxiety for order and public safety to which the increasing army of unemployed Belgians might constitute a danger. None of these reasons justifies the measures taken by the German general headquarters on October 3, 1916.

I

Inconsistency of German Argument

The fact will not escape an attentive mind that the motives set forth in the plea of the German Government are contradictory to each other.

1 Official Bulletin, Washington, June 9, 1917. The following note from the State Department accompanies the memoire:

The Belgian Minister, Mr. de Cartier, has transmitted to the Secretary of State the following memorandum prepared by the Belgian Government in regard to the deportation of civilians and the forced labor imposed on them by the German authorities. In his note of transmittal Mr. de Cartier says:

"This document is a complete refutation of the excuses offered by the German authorities for these acts of barbarity, and is a clear statement of the successive steps by which Germany has sought to break down the patriotic spirit of the Belgian workmen and to enslave them for work of military utility against our own fellow countrymen."

Indeed, if it be accepted as true that the deportations are caused by the stagnation of industry in occupied Belgium, then it would be unjust to accuse the Belgian laboring class of laziness in this case of involuntary unemployment.

If, on the contrary, there is really laziness on the part of the Belgian laboring class, then there must be work for them to do in Belgium; consequently, the deportation into Germany is an entirely arbitrary act, and it is incomprehensible that an attempt should be made to justify it on the ground of the stagnation of Belgian industry.

What is, however, the real situation in occupied Belgium?

The cessation of the larger part of Belgian industry is an admitted fact. But Germany founds an argument upon this fact as upon an event due to the circumstances of a state of war and in the presence of which the good intentions of the occupant were powerless.

However, this is not the case. The depressed condition of Belgian industry is not a case of accident caused by the force of extraneous circumstances unconnected with the action of the German authorities; these authorities are, on the contrary, personally responsible.

Their responsibility is double.

The German Government is the direct author of the crisis in Belgian industry and labor.

The German Government has deliberately prevented the Belgians from applying the remedy.

II

The Rathenau Plan

Since the occupation of Belgium, the German authorities, in spite of their deceitful proclamations, have put into effect the plan worked out in August, 1914, at Berlin, by Dr. W. Rathenau, for the systematic exploitation of all the economic resources of occupied countries to the profit of the war organization of the Empire.

This plan allowed, notably, the seizure of all stocks of raw materials existing in the occupied territories and the transfer of them into Germany in order to avert the consequences of the closure of the seas. This was to be completed by the removal of the implements of labor and, in general, by the removal of all means of production which the Empire might need for the continuation of the struggle. Economic commissions, attached to all the military authorities in the occupied territories, were to be constituted the agents for putting into execution the Rathe

nau plan. By this plan as the German publicists have written on so many occasions, with the approval of the censor the war carried on by the Empire would take on the character of an "economic war." This program was methodically carried out.

Systematic Exhaustion of Resources

It would seem reasonable to expect that the occupying authority which had been already relieved of the feeding of the Belgian population by Belgian initiative and by the generosity of neutral countries, especially by the United States - should make it a point of honor to aid the country to recover as soon as possible from the injuries received during the first months of the invasion. But, on the contrary, the occupying authority used its temporary legislative power only for the purpose of covering its designs of monopoly with the cloak of legality.

The collection of the Bulletin Officiel des Lois et Arretes pour le territoire belge occupe, published at Brussels from the end of August, 1914, contains, during the period of twenty-six months, more than 120 orders relating to economic conditions, decreeing the making of inventories, the prohibition of sale and purchase, the seizure of products, of raw materials, and of tools, or decreeing prohibitions, restrictions, or taxes upon products, materials, or tools, whether for importation or exportation. The list of objects mentioned in these orders contains more than 400 different specifications, among which are certain classes of objects comprising in themselves many subdivisions. All these things, one after another, have been immobilized, then seized and sent out of the country by legislative acts of the civil authorities, after innumerable requisitions had been made by the military authorities.

Stifling of Belgian Competition

Moreover, besides the motives of military interest denounced above, an underlying thought of stifling Belgian competition also inspired several of the measures. An avowal of this has been explicitly made, in Germany itself, by several publicists of authority, and notably, in regard to the Belgian glass industry, by Dr. Goetz, president of the syndicate of master glass makers of Germany, in an article published by the Wirtschaftszeitung der Zentralmachte of November 10, 1916.

The Belgian Government knows that the operation of removing machines and installation was, in several cases, confided to the repre

sentatives of German firms who were the direct competitors of the Belgian industries, and that in at least one instance, in an artificial silk factory, the Belgian firm's secret process of fabrication was ascertained from the factory inspected.

Numerous Belgian industries have been placed under sequestration without plausible reason.

Finally, the German authorities, in 1916, placed prohibitive tariffs on the remaining Belgian industries which had still maintained a relative degree of activity through their commercial relations with certain neutral countries, the glass industry and the metallurgic industry.

Moreover, it appears from recent information that the German administration requires from Belgian exporters the deposit of a guaranty of 20 per cent of the value of all merchandise exported, in order to insure the return to Belgium of the entire proceeds of the sale.

These prohibitive measures are of a nature to close to Belgian industry any markets which may have remained open, and even to render impossible all export trade.

The effect of these measures is increased in the interior of the country by restrictions of all kinds placed upon circulation (a complicated system of passports, the seizure of bicycle tires, etc.) and by the financial policy of the German authorities.

German Financial Policy

Attention can be called here only to the principal acts which have marked the German financial policy:

(a) A war tax of 40,000,000 francs per month for the benefit of the German war treasury a tax fixed at first for one year, the Belgian Provinces being jointly and severally responsible (December, 1914), with the official promise that there should not be afterwards any other war tax. In November, 1915, however, this tax was made permanent. In November, 1916, after nearly 1,000,000,000 francs had been extracted from the country, the tax was increased by the sum of 10,000,000 francs per month (50,000,000 francs instead of 40,000,000).

(b) Imposition of the mark at the forced rate of 1 franc 25 centimes. (c) Refusal of the German authorities to accept marks in payment of the war tax, of which a large proportion was required to be paid in francs.

(d) Absolute prohibition of the exportation of securities, even to pay for commodities necessary for the feeding of the civil population.