"The Hague Convention, signed October 18, 1897, by all the civilized States, among others by Germany, contains the following stipulations regarding laws and customs of warfare on land:
"'Art. 46. The honor and right of the family, the life of the individual and private property, as well as religious convictions and the exercise of worship, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated.
"'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.