This contract provides, also, that the Sonnenthal Company has the right and even is compelled, in co-operation with the gun foundry at Liége, to pick out in factories of the occupied territory those machines which seem most useful for the manufacture of German war supplies and to propose the seizure of the machinery. The Royal Belgian Government protests, with indignation, against these measures, which constitute a clear violation of Article 53 of the regulations of the Fourth Hague Convention. The items enumerated in Article 53 are limited and neither the seizure nor the transport to another country of machinery and tools used in industry are permitted; these implements must always be respected when they are private property, (Article 46.) By the removal of these tools, the efforts made by the manufacturers in order to maintain a certain activity in the plants are nullified, numerous workmen are obliged to remain idle and are facing starvation. These measures will also retard the restoration of industry after the war is over. Furthermore, the German authorities disregard in a systematic way the prescriptions of Article 52 of the above-mentioned regulations of the Fourth Hague Convention, which stipulate that requisitions in nature from towns and their inhabitants in the occupied territory can only be permitted when they are directly destined for the army of occupation. UNJUST FINES A dispatch from Minister Whitlock dated at Brussels, Aug. 2, 1915, gives a fuller memorandum on the subject, as follows: Upon the arrival of German troops at Brussels, the city and communes of the agglomeration were required to pay as a war contribution the sum of 50,000,000 francs in gold, silver, or banknotes, the Province of Brabant having to pay, in addition, the sum of 450,000,000 francs, to be delivered not later than Sept. 1, 1914. The sum of 50,000,000 francs imposed on the City of Brussels was reduced to 45,000,000 francs, but the city was later subjected to a penalty of 5,000,000 francs on the ground that two members of the German Secret Service had been attacked by the crowd without assistance having been rendered by the Brussels police. On this point it may be noted that when Mr. Max, the Burgomaster, at the beginning of the occupation, asked the German authorities to inform him of the names of the German secret police agents whom they intended to employ, he was told that there were no German secret police in Brussels. In December, 1914, a contribution of 480,000,000 francs, payable at the rate of 40,000,000 a month, was imposed on the provinces.