23 FEBRUARY 1918, Page 3

The Belgian Court of Appeal last week instituted a prosecution

of the few Belgian traitors in German pay who have constituted themselves the "Council of Flanders." Two of the men were arrested as revolutionaries. The German authorities thereupon arrested three out of the four Judges and sent them to Germany. The Judges of the other Courts and the Bar then declared a sym- pathetic strike. The "Council of Flanders" is a German device for dividing the Flemish-speaking Belgians from the French- speaking Walloons, in the hope that the Flemings would attach themselves to the German cause. It is a vain hope, for, though there was a good deal of rivalry between the Flemings and the Walloons before the war, the whole Belgian people is at one in loathing the Germans and all their works.