Belgian Government, as much as there is one left, namely, with the municipalities, and at our suggestion an ‘Intercommunistic Commission’ has been organized, so that everything possible can be done to help the country.  This commission sits in Brussels, and when any town or village or district has no more food on hand the fact is reported and it gets from the commission what is required.  What food supplies we found here we took charge of to prevent their being plundered, and also because we, as a belligerent, had to supply our own necessities; that is the right of war.  But by no means have we used up all the food supplies ourselves, nor set them aside for our own use; but a large part has been set aside for this commission, to be used for the poor, and another part will be given back in a short time for trade purposes, so that commerce will be revived again.

“There is no place in Belgium where the people have starved.  Their most pressing need now would appear to be money, for many are unemployed and many others disinclined to work.  At one place where we were told the people were starving we found stores crammed full of food—­but the inhabitants had no money and the shopkeepers wouldn’t give them credit.

“Everything is being done by us to revive business so that the people can again earn money.  If America had not been so tender-hearted as to send foodstuffs, and if the food supply had run out, we should certainly have considered it our duty to bring food from Germany, for we are for the time being the Government here, and it is our duty to see that the people do not starve.”

German newspaper readers are not aware that their Kaiser had a narrow escape from the bombs of the Allies’ airmen at Thielt, for the fact of the War Lord’s recent invasion of Belgium has been kept as nearly a dead secret as possible.  I learned from an especially well-informed source in Brussels that the object of the Kaiser’s visit was not only to encourage his troops but to reprove his Generals.  According to this informant, who is frequently in touch with high officers in their more mellow moods, when military reticence somewhat relaxes, the Kaiser was said to be in a towering rage at the failure of his army to make headway against the English and Belgians on the coast, and to have decided to go in person to see about it; also there has been considerable cautiously veiled criticism of his persistent “interference” in the conduct of the campaign.

Having last seen the Kaiser two weeks ago motoring at the German Great Headquarters in Eastern France, I picked up his trail at Louvain, through which place he passed by night a week ago in a special train in the direction of Lille, after a scouting pilot engine had returned and reported “all safe.”  On his return journey from Flanders he was rumored to have “put up” at the Palais d’Arenberg in Brussels.