remain in Brussels for a fortnight to get the new bureau running. Mr. Hoover
mentioned that Captain Merton had turned up, saying he was going to be associated with us; that we liked him and hoped it would be so. Von Kessler said it would be arranged as we wished.
Hoover then elaborated on the indivisibility of the C.R.B. and the C.N. in all departments, the fears and suspicions on all sides as to proposals made by the General Government, and the disastrous results that would follow to food and tranquillity, and hoped the new department would meet these matters in an intelligent manner. This, von Kessler and Uhl assured us would be the case. The discussion went on to the relief of Poland, which the General Staff wished the Commission to undertake.
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DOCUMENT NO. 45 Memorandum,
OF CONVERSATION BETWEEN HOOVER AND VON DER LANCKEN. Von der Lancken announces that the Governor-General has decided to set up the
Vermittlungsstelle
BRUSSELS, 4 December 1915
Von der Lancken said he was glad to tell me that the Governor had decided to set up a new committee, comprising representatives from each---the Political, Finance, and Civil Departments, together with an officer from the General Staff, which would take over all questions relating to the C.R.B. and C.N. That Blum would represent the first, Pochee the second, --- the third, and Uhl the fourth. Captain Merton would be censor and general intermediary. He stated he had sent for Poland and that incident was now out of the way happily and that all the broad, general, and detailed questions which had arisen lately could go over to the new
Commission which should be established in ten days or so.
We then talked peace, the relief of Poland, etc., for about an hour.
.
more obvious reasons the relief organization made the most strenuous efforts to prevent even relatively unimportant and infrequent leakages. But to prevent isolated sale by uninformed or unscrupulous individuals to German agents was a difficult matter. Exaggerated reports of small leakages and British threats to stop all imports into Belgium made drastic action necessary. The service of relief
inspection was overhauled and a new General Department of Inspection and Control in which the Commission played a greater part than formerly was created.(28)
Another difficulty arose at about this time from the diversion of Belgian livestock to Germany, and by German meat buying in the occupied territory. For a time the British stopped entirely the C.R.B.'s imports of bacon and lard and threatened further restrictions unless the exports of all foodstuffs from Belgium ended.
Hoover's negotiations with the German officials on this whole question finally produced guarantees acceptable to the British.
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DOCUMENT NO. 46 Letter,
PERCY TO HOOVER, reporting leakage of relief supplies from Belgium into Germany, restricting C.R.B. imports and demanding reimbursement by Germans of supplies equivalent to those exported, and intimating that the whole relief activity might be stopped if leakages continued
FOREIGN OFFICE, LONDON 21 January 1916
DEAR MR. HOOVER:
A most unsatisfactory position has arisen with regard to your importations of rice into Belgium. In recent conferences with me you have estimated the monthly amounts which you wish to import at 5,000 tons. In September, October, and November last, however, you shipped from Rotterdam much larger amounts--- namely, 13,064, 9,361 and 11,735 tons, respectively, the greater part of which was destined for Belgium. You informed me that these were advance shipments, and that you intended to stop further imports in subsequent months.
As I told you some time ago we were much disturbed by exports of rice from Belgium to Germany via Holland in October and November last. We now discover that this is due to the sale by the Relief Committees in Belgium of portions of the stocks with which you had provided them and to the purchase of these stocks by the Germans.
As you know, I have frequently warned you against any accumulations of stocks in Belgium for fear of some such incident. I need not emphasise the serious nature of what has occurred, undermining as it must, our whole confidence in the
watertightness of your system.
I must therefore ask you for a statement of the full amounts of rice thus sold by the Committees, and we shall expect to hear within a month that the Germans have handed over an equivalent amount of rice to the Comité National from German stocks. Until this happens, you must import no more rice into Belgium, and if it does not happen within a month we shall reconsider, not only the question of rice imports but the question of your imports as a whole, since it will then be evident that we cannot rely either upon the efficiency of your organisation in Belgium nor upon the respect of the Germans for their own pledges.
For the moment, your importations of rice into France may continue, but only on the absolute condition that you accumulate no stocks there whatever, and if we do not receive satisfaction within a month, this also will be reconsidered.
Yours sincerely
(Signed) EUSTACE PERCY .
DOCUMENT NO. 47 Telegrams,
FRANCQUI TO HOOVER and W. B. POLAND TO HOOVER, stating that reports of leakages were greatly exaggerated
BRUSSELS, 30 January 1916 FOR HOOVER, LONDON:
"Received your letter No. 35. It was our agents who pointed out to us six weeks ago the disappearance, and since then the investigation has been in progress. It proved that your information is much exaggerated. Our subcommittees in general are not acquainted with these abuses, resulting from German private company who did this business in ignorance with Belgian dealers, who on their part purchased from consumers. General Government has been informed. They are making concurrent investigations with ourselves and have explained to us that all mistakes by
Germans will be done away with. We are energetically acting in the same manner towards Belgian guilty parties. In any case you can now be sure that the
information obtained by us proves that this matter does not reach proportions as indicated by you. I am writing."
FRANCQUI [Translation]
Am requested by Smith(29) to inform you the irregularities have been very much exaggerated; information from Mr. Francqui today confirmed. Final report will probably not be ready before a week."
POLAND .
DOCUMENT NO. 48 Letter,
HOOVER TO PERCY, reporting the investigation of leakage of food into
Germany and showing that only small quantities of relief supplies were involved LONDON, 8 February 1916
DEAR LORD EUSTACE:
EXPORT FROM BELGIUM OF OUR IMPORTS
This matter has now been under rigorous investigation in Belgium and I send you some of the data.
(1) The bills of lading of the 18,000 odd tons of goods shipped from Antwerp after the 1st September have been inspected and the only items of a character at all related to our imports were: rice, 855 tons; beans, 14 tons; corn flour, 10 tons. Of this total quantity, it appears that a considerable amount was gathered from old stocks, and there is constantly some small rivulet of these supplies across the frontier from Holland.
Judging by the instances which our people have been able to trace down, it appears a good deal less than one-half could have come from our imported material; thus approximately 400 tons have leaked away from a total of 1,200,000 tons imported.
(2) We find that some of the local committees, finding the fabulous price at which they could sell rice, have done so entirely in innocence of heart and have invested the money in potatoes, thus getting larger value for their destitute with the same funds. They have all been soundly lectured on this subject, and further the entire inspection staff in Belgium is being changed from the joint control of the Comité National and the C.R.B. to the sole control of the C.R.B.
Furthermore, it appears that all this stuff was gathered up by one German firm, newly established in Belgium for the export of commodities which are not in question, such as wine. The German authorities, in order to show fair play, are putting this firm out of action so far as dealing in any commodity which we may import is concerned.
I think you may take it that these measures will settle the business once and for all and that the strenuous tone of your note calling attention to this matter has done a world of good; still, I do not feel that in the midst of our other difficulties and complexities the matter merits further pursuit.
Yours faithfully
(Signed) HERBERT HOOVER Chairman
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DOCUMENT NO. 49 Letter,
PERCY TO HOOVER, referring to reports that Germans were taking food imported by the C.R.B. into Ghent
FOREIGN OFFICE, LONDON 11 March 1916
DEAR MR. HOOVER:
A report has reached us that the Germans are taking half of the food imported by the Commission into the district of Ghent. It is said that they are giving this food to their soldiers and are also sending it in part to Breslau. I should be glad if you would make an inquiry into this question because, although I know that this kind of story is a common one in Belgium, this particular account comes to us from an unusually trustworthy source, and it refers to the military zone in Belgium where I have always felt some doubt whether your control is sufficient to secure the safe disposal of your imports.
As you may shortly be going to Belgium there are one or two other points of a similar nature which I should like you to inquire into.
In the first place, I have statistics of shipments from Belgium to Germany via Holland for the two months November 28th to January 27th. These shipments contain the following items:
On one boat 150 tons of rice and 150 tons of coffee.
On two other boats an aggregate of 1,700 tons of coffee, rice and beans.
On another boat 400 tons of coffee, rice, beans, and flour.
On another 450 tons of coffee, rice, beans, and oil nuts.
Two further boats carried 1,200 tons of rice and beans, and 300 tons of rice, respectively.
These figures suggest a grave suspicion not only that shipments of Belgian native stocks, such as coffee and oil nuts, are being exported freely, which of course we knew before, but also that the leakage of your rice from Belgium, of which we have had evidence, is combined with a corresponding leakage of beans.
Finally, we have had a report that one particular mill owner in Brussels, by name Vuylsteke, is using the oil extracted in milling your grain for sale for the Germans for munitions purposes, and we are told that Vuylsteke is working in close touch with the Germans.
You will, of course, regard all this information as strictly confidential so far as it might betray the source from which it came.
Yours sincerely
(Signed) EUSTACE PERCY .
DOCUMENT NO. 50 Letter,
HOOYER TO PERCY, reporting a new investigation of leakage and the
reorganization of the Bureau of Inspection and Control to prevent further trouble of this character
LONDON, 5 April 1916 DEAR LORD EUSTACE:
LEAKAGES OF IMPORTED FOODSTUFFS
Together with my American colleagues in Belgium, I have now completed a renewed inquiry into this matter all over that country. As I recently informed you, we early in March entirely reorganized the Bureau of Inspection and Control, by which it was brought entirely under American direction and considerably
expanded. We have set up a complete bureau in each province, with an American
head solely devoted to it, and in addition have now instituted an independent national service for the whole of the country, entirely separate from the Provincial Bureaux. In addition to the former inspectors, some of whom we have changed, we have reinforced the staff by recruits from former colonial, school, and railway and police services. A considerable number of these men are engaged in checking the accounts of the communal committees and in the comparison of the issue against food cards with the receipts into the communal magazines. Another section is devoted to tracing the origin of every parcel of overseas foodstuffs which we can discover in private hands. In this latter matter we have arranged with the 60 district Procureurs de Roi to co-operate in prosecutions, which they are doing vigorously. I enclose herewith specimen copies of the material presented by this Bureau to the weekly meetings of the Commission members in Brussels, at two or three different meetings, in order that you may get some idea of its activities.
From our experience of these bureaux, two conclusions are quite positive:
1. That the leakages from our imported foodstuffs are and have been extraordinarily small, and, in any event, the bulk of these leakages arises from Belgian causes as distinguished from German causes. For instance, we have found no gray flour of our peculiar composition (82 per cent milled wheat with 5 to 10 per cent maize) in private hands. We have, however, discovered some white flour of Belgian origin, which comes from the milling by peasants of hidden wheat and by the sifting out by bakers of a certain percentage of white flour from our supplies. The high price of white flour to wealthy Belgian customers is a powerful stimulation to small traffic in this direction and is impossible wholly to control.
Again, the brewers in Belgium, who are now desperate for brewing materials, have been from time to time buying maize from farmers out of the supplies which were issued to them for fodder purposes prior to the time when we stopped such issues.
2. There is a very much larger amount of smuggling from Holland in overseas materials than had previously been believed. From sources which are reliable I shall be able to present to you in the course of a few days some evidence as to quantities. They are very considerable, and at certain points the German authorities required the smugglers to sell to them at low prices from 30 to 50 per cent of their imports, the smugglers being allowed to sell the remainder of their imports to Belgians at any prices they could obtain.
The enormous gap between prices in Holland and prices in Belgium has created a vacuum, the suction into which it is impossible for the Dutch Government wholly to control. The traffic is not one of moral turpitude, since it has the justification of
"feeding the Belgians" and since it is more or less simply the maintenance of the custom of trade across the frontier. In consequence, there is no moral feeling or public opinion against this traffic in Holland. I am convinced that the Dutch authorities make every possible effort to stop this traffic, but 300 kilometers of
artificial border in an agricultural country with such intense populations on both sides, all intent on the traffic, makes any tight dam absolutely impossible. It just happens that the overseas imports are the foodstuffs of the most concentrated form, such as rice, beans, bacon, and lard, and, in consequence, these are favored articles of traffic. It is our impression, however, that the majority of the bacon, lard, and beans are Dutch, originating near the frontier. As an indication of the profit to be made in this traffic, the price of lard in Brussels is from Frs. 13 to Frs. 15 per kilo against Frs. 3 in Holland, or a profit on smuggling of £250 per ton. As one
indication of the amount of smuggling, at our instance, 35 prosecutions were started in the Province of Limbourg against persons who had foodstuffs in their possession of the overseas type, and in 30 of these cases the owners were able to establish their Dutch origin.
On the 15th of March the Germans put in force a complete prohibition on all food exports from Belgium, and they appear to be enforcing it at all points vigorously, even to the taking from soldiers returning to Germany on leave the small amounts of butter or other articles which they carry with them. Furthermore at our request the German firm who exported foodstuffs from Antwerp has been suppressed from doing business in Belgium. The German authorities informed me that an inquiry into the operations of this firm indicated that they had purchased less than 50 tons of material which could have arisen from our imports, the balance of their exports being Dutch stuff smuggled over the frontier. This corroborates our own
conclusions from tracing our own communal leakages. This particular organization maintained agencies along the frontier for the purpose of purchasing from
smugglers, and they were able to aggregate considerable quantities for export to Germany.
For reasons which I will set out in another communication, the ration being issued by the communal committees is far below the necessities of the population and in such small quantities that the resale by individuals is improbable in the extreme, as people in this condition do not surrender their whole basis of subsistence. There is public knowledge as to exactly what the ration consists of, so that every person entitled will demand his full quota from the communal committees. The
communes, owing to deficiency in overseas transport, have been undersupplied and in consequence the difficulties with their dependents have been very great and there has thus been sufficient pressure to guarantee that they make no disposals
otherwise than in the proper manner.
I can only reiterate that there has been no leakage in our imports worth mentioning and with the measures now taken it seems to me absolutely impossible, and in fact, our men are generally complaining that the new bureau is discovering nothing but creating enormous labor to no purpose. We will, however, maintain it as an
additional safeguard to the situation, although I may mention it has caused great difficulties in Belgium and we have had serious resignations from the Belgian committees as the result of feeling created.
Yours faithfully
(Signed) HERBERT HOOVER Chairman
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DOCUMENT NO. 51 Service Note,
describing functions of C.R.B. and C.N. Department of Inspection and Control BRUSSELS, 23 February 1916
The C.R.B. is required to certify that the goods imported by it are distributed to the civil population of Belgium and the North of France, and that the general terms of the undertakings of the German and British authorities are carried out.
For its part, the Comité National must take care that the distribution of food to the population is made in accordance with its instructions, which are inspired by the fundamental rules on which the imports of foodstuffs by the C.R.B. are based.
Finally, the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the Comité National must both be assured that the foodstuffs imported are equitably distributed among the whole civil population. With this end in view, both Commissions must insist upon the strict observance of the resolutions agreed upon by common consent.
In order to accomplish its mission, the C.R.B. has established throughout the country a numerous staff. In every province, it has responsible representatives empowered to see that the obligations imposed upon it are rigorously observed.
These representatives are to be sufficiently informed of the conditions governing the mission of the C.R.B., so as to enable them to certify that they have been
regularly carried out. They must see that any irregularities are rectified, and call the attention of the Central Office of the C.R.B. in Brussels, through its Inspection and Control Department, to any violation of the terms of the guarantees.
In order to avoid irregularities in the distribution of foodstuffs, the Comité National has instituted for its part a Controlling Service in every province. The Provincial Controlling Services, each consisting of a Controller in Chief, Head of the Service, and his Assistants, exercise a general supervision over the Local Committees in the District of the province assigned to them.
In addition to and supplementing the Provincial Controlling Services, the Comité National has inaugurated an independent General Inspection Service. This Service