The Germans have always taken good care to demand wine. They demanded enormous quantities in the little villages of the Campine of Limburg (_N.R.C._, 15th January, 1915). Elsewhere they took for their own use all the cellars of the wine-merchants and the inhabitants, without allowing the latter to make use of them (see _Belg. Allem._, p. 118). A last point as to requisitions. They shall _as far as possible be paid for in ready money; if not, a receipt shall be given_. Very often no receipt has been given to the owners of property taken. Elsewhere the receipts are fantastical and valueless. It is the truth that those who do receive vouchers are requested to satisfy themselves of their accuracy, but this prescription is obviously a dead letter. Imagine, on the one hand, a peasant, Fleming or Walloon, terrorized into a condition of helplessness, and incapable of reading a voucher scrawled in German; and on the other, soldiers whose customary arguments are shooting and burning. ARTICLE 53. _An army of occupation shall only take possession of cash, funds, and realizable securities which are strictly the property of the State, depôts of arms, means of transport, stores and supplies, and, generally, all movable property belonging to the State which may be used for military operations...._ From the very first days of the occupation the Germans, in defiance of law and justice, seized upon the communal treasuries and the funds deposited in the branch establishments of the National Bank, the post offices, etc. They were obliged to recognize the justice of the protests made by the Belgian Government; but their love of pillage is incorrigible; on entering Gand, on Monday, the 12th October, their first care was to lay hands on the 1,800,000 (£72,000) contained in the communal treasury. According to Article 55 the Germans had no right to remove the furniture of the Ministries of Brussels (p. 134), since this property was not of a kind to be useful in military operations. ARTICLE 55. _The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, landed property, forests, and agricultural undertakings belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of such properties and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct._