The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1904. THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 199, 20 August 1904, Page 4

The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1904. THE WAR.

Vor the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs' resistance. For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.'

In the complete absence of news from Liao-yang the interest of the war once again centres round Port Arthur. For some days the bombardment appears to have been going on continuously, and as the Japanese are now masters of nearly all the heights commanding the town, the garrison can now have little hope of prolonged resistance. The fighting in the trenches and between the elaborate lines of earthworks by which Port Arthur is walled in appears to have been desperate and sanguinary; and the gallant defence -made by General Stoessel I has already gone far to redeem the Russian military reputation. But with KuTopatkin far away, and the peninsula screened off by two Japanese armies, the fall of Port Arthur cannot ! now be long delayed. However, the Japanese have shown that they recognise the difficulty of the task that still lies before them by offering General Stoessel reasonable terms of surrender. The rumour that Marshal Oyama had undertaken to allow the garrison to march out with the honours ou* war and join Kuropatkin in Manchuria was almost incredible; and later intelligence encourages us to reject it altogether. It seems that the Japanese commander proposed that all women, children under sixteen years, priests, foreign di■plomatists and officers of neutral powers should be allowed to pass through the besieger's lines in safety to Dalny, and that all the warships in the harbour should be handed over to the Japanese. Under the circumstances it was hardly to be expected that the garrison or the relics of the Russian fleet would be allowed to escape. But Genera] Stoessel is not yet prepared to give in. He is reported to have lost his self-control ' completely, stormed furiously at the Japanese, and refused even to allow a three days' truce for the burial of the dead, who now lie in hundreds along the hillsides about the doomed town. The bombardment has therefore re-com-menced, and though the Japanese have doubtless suffered heavy losses in forcing their way so far, they are no less brave and resolute than the defenders, and with numbers and position in their favour they need not wait even for ■famine to achieve the inevitable triumph. When Port Arthur falls there will be no escape for the surviving warships, which since the great sortie have once again ventured out, but have fallen back hopelessly 'before the immensely superior fleet that faced them outside. And when the siege is over, the army of 80,000 Japanese now surrounding it will be free to reinforce General Oka in his advance from the South towards Liao-yang. The capture of Port Arthur will be the death blow not only to Russia's naval power in the Far East, but to all hope of recovering her military position in Manchuria at least within the limits of the present campaign.