122

Allgemeine Zeitung, March 4, 1915, "Justice, however, demands that 

publicity should be given to the preeminent part taken by the German 

authorities in Belgium in the solution of this problem. The initiative came 

from them and it was only due to their continuous relations with the 

American Relief Committee that the provisioning question was solved." 

Hamill points out "That is what the Belgian Relief Committee was 

organized for--to keep Germany in food."

The Belgian Relief Commission was organized by Emile Francqui, 

director of a large Belgian bank, Societe Generale, and a London 

mining

__________________________

62 McRae and Cairncross, Capital City, Eyre Methuen, London, 1963

63 John Hamill, The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover, William Faro, New 

York, 1931

* Copies of Hamill’s book were systematically located and destroyed 

by government agents, because it was published on the eve of 

President Hoover’s re-election campaign.

69

promoter, an American named Herbert Hoover, who had been 

associated with Francqui in a number of scandals which had become 

celebrated court cases, notably the Kaiping Coal Company scandal 

in China, said to have set off the Boxer Rebellion, which had as its goal 

the expulsion of all foreign businessmen from China. Hoover had been 

barred from dealing on the London Stock Exchange because of one 

judgement against him, and his associate, Stanley Rowe, had been