On the 16th October, 1914, the German authorities undertook to exempt from all requisitions the provisions imported by the National Committee. But this promise was promptly violated. The Germans, it is true, did not requisition the wheat, but they did requisition the bread made from that wheat. Moreover, they pretended that their engagement of the 16th October, 1914, general as it was, did not affect Flanders, a _territoire d'étape_ not subject to the Governor-General. This is the effect of their letter of the 21st November, 1914. Up to the present it has been impossible to get them to keep the engagements to which they subscribed on the 16th October; for although they have extended to cattle-foods the promise that nothing should be requisitioned by the troops placed under the orders of the Governor-General--the _territoire d'étape_ being thus excluded--they have, on the other hand, forced the communes of Flanders to open grain markets, in which they make purchases, thus continuing to impoverish the food-stores of the country. While they exclude Flanders from the region exempted from requisitions, they take care not to breathe a word of this exemption in their own newspapers. The _K.Z._, on the 4th January, and _Der Volksfreund_ on the 5th declared that requisitions of foodstuffs were suspended throughout Belgium. Despite the difficulties raised by the Germans, the National Committee of Relief and Alimentation has rendered our country inestimable services, which only those who have visited our towns and rural districts and have seen the work of the local Committees can form any conception. We borrow from the report of the Executive Committee for the month of January 1915 (published in Brussels 15th February, 1915) a few figures (_see_ table, p. 176) as to the distribution of relief during the month of January. But the National Committee extends its beneficent action over many departments which are not mentioned in this table. Here, according to the same report, is the list of these departments:--