The language situation in Belgian was well known to Irish readers. Indeed the compliment was returned. The last paper I remember looking at before the German column under Van Boehm wheeled by Ghent was a copy of _Ons Land_. It contained excellent photographs of prominent Gaelic League personages, with an account of the movement in Ireland. In Flanders, the position is a sort of transposition of ours into another key. The Flamand is in a majority of nine to eight. He presents, although a Catholic, a marked temperamental resemblance to our typical Protestant Ulsterman. So far as one could judge he has pretty well had his own way in all points except one. His language will live side by side with French, but it can hardly hope, or even desire, to displace the lingua franca of civilisation. By the way, it was interesting to notice the Pro-German articles in some of the Flemish papers even after the invasion. The Germans, it was said, were first cousins of the Flemings, Teutons like them, solid, pious, religious people, not like the atheistical Walloons and French! I am afraid that the burning zeal of the Germans towards their kinsmen was too lamentably literal for that campaign to succeed. But it is well known that German agents have been promising the Flamands an autonomous Flanders, under the eagle of Berlin... after the annexation. Certain journalists lately addressed a manifesto to King Albert. They received a cold and dignified answer, to the effect that the first task of the Belgian nation was to recover Belgium, and all Belgium; afterwards the nation would settle its own future. The most interesting by-product of the conflict of tongues in Belgium is one that will certainly not be repeated here. In the Marolles--the Coombe, so to say, of Brussels--the necessities of daily intercourse have produced a mixture of French and Flemish which has developed strong individuality. One heard songs in it which cannot be described by any candid person as being funny without being vulgar. The linguistic future of Belgium will, no doubt, be worked out on a basis of equality. The clash was never charged with any political menace; after the war separation of any deep kind would be unimaginable. Belgium, said King Albert, has lost everything except her soul. Is it not even true that, for the first time, she has found her soul? As the poet, Antoine Classe, phrased it-- “Flamands, Walloons, Ne sont que des prénoms, Belge est notre nom de famille.”