Gentlemen: What is happening is known to all these gentlemen. It is the conception and interpretation of Article 52 of The Hague Convention which has created difficulties between you and the German military authority. On which side is the right? It is not for us to discuss that, for we are not competent, and we shall never arrive at an understanding on this point. It will be the business of the diplomatists and the representatives of the various States after the war. Today it is exclusively the interpretation of German military authority which is valid, and for that reason we intend that all that we shall need for the maintenance of our troops shall be made by the workers of the territory occupied. I can assure you that the German authority will not under any circumstances desist from demanding its rights, even if a town of 15,000 inhabitants should have to perish. The measures introduced up to the present are only a beginning, and every day severe measures will be taken until our object is obtained. This is the last word, and it is good advice I give you tonight. Return to reason and arrange for the workers to resume work without delay; otherwise you will expose your town, your families, and your persons to the greatest misfortunes. Today, and perhaps for a long time yet, there is for Halluin neither a prefecture nor a French Government. There is only one will, and that is the will of German authority. _The Commandant of the Town_, SCHRANCK. (_From Massart's "Belgians Under the German Eagle," New York, 1916, pp. 192-3._) GERMANY'S PROFITS The German profits from the Rathenau plan were summarized thus frankly by Herr Ganghofer in an article published in the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten Feb. 26, 1915: