File No. 855.48/405
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
No. 5089
London,
October 24, 1916
.
[Received November
6.]
Sir: I have the honor to transmit
herewith, for the information of the Department, a copy of a note
from the British Foreign Office, under date of October 21,
concerning the question of the distribution of foodstuffs in Belgium
considered in connection with the labor policy of the German
Government of occupation.
I have [etc.]
[Enclosure]
The British Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs (Grey) to
the American Ambassador (Page)1
London,
October 21, 1916
.
My Dear Ambassador: I wish to draw
your attention to Lord Robert
Cecil’s recent answer in the House of Commons to
a question as to the distribution of foodstuffs in Belgium in
connection with the German labour policy. Lord Robert laid down in that
answer that the commission worked on the following principles:
- (1)
- The commission supplies nothing to any German.
- (2)
- The commission supplies nothing, except bread, to any
Belgian who earns enough to feed himself from native
supplies.
- (3)
- Any workman working for the Germans under coercion
must be maintained by the Germans entirely, without any
assistance whatever from the commission.
His Majesty’s Government regard these principles as a direction
to the commission on which they should model their action.
[Page 885]
As you know, the press at the present moment is full of the
accounts of the coercion of Belgian workmen and their
deportation to the place where the Germans wish them to work.
There is one point in connection with this that the commission
should bear in mind.
To judge from the press reports—and indeed, from the necessities
of the situation—all coercion of labour in Belgium is bound to
be based upon the criterion that men who fall under the
commission’s relief owing to unemployment are liable to be
coerced. Now, all relief, whether in kind or in cash, given in
Belgium arises from the commission’s importations and is made on
their responsibility. Therefore, this criterion amounts to a
statement that a workman renders himself liable to enslavement
by the mere fact of accepting relief from the commission. This
is clearly equivalent to the use of the relief as a means of
coercing workmen against their conscience, and therefore
constitutes a clear and deliberate violation of the German
guarantees.
I shall be glad if you will transmit the above to the United
States and Spanish Ministers at Brussels and will make it clear
to them that these conditions are a sine qua
non of the continuance of the work. It may be desirable
that they should inform the German authorities that these
limitations follow automatically upon the guarantees under which
the commission works.
Believe me [etc.]
For Viscount
Grey of
Fallodon:
Eyre A. Crowe
