Progress of the War.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15218, 4 March 1915, Page 6

Progress of the War.

The reports from the Eastern front continue to he satisfactory. In Northern Poland the Russians have made their loft safe for the time being by driving the Gorman* back on Mlawa and .Jnnow, while on the right the enemy is .falling bark north-west of Grodno, fighting.stubbornly. At Osowietso ho is reported to be using his biggest siege guns to batter down that fortress and breakthrough to Warsaw's main line of communications. In the Carpathians a,nd Galicia things seem to bo going well with the Russians. Thi-y claim to have inflicted groat losses on the enemy, and they retain their hold on Hungarian territory south oi ihcDukhi pju-s. The Austrians

have been defeated in the region of

Stnnislawow, but they are apparently still in possession of that town, and there has been fighting to the north. In thn Unkovina th«> Russians, advancing again, have occupied Sadagora, which lies a few miles north of Czornowitz, and perhaps by this time operations have begun tor the re-occupa-tion of the capital. In tho West there is nothing out of the ordinary in tho now?, but the Allies have gained ground and apparently lost none. Sir John French's late-st report tells of progress at La Ba.ssee, mastery over the enemy's snipers, a dashing attack by Canadians, and effective work by tho artillery. The British artillery will have been strengthened by guns specially built to overcome the German ami, which at the beginning of the war was superior in range and weight. No doubt during the past few day* the Allies have been putting extra pressure on the enemy to help the Russians, and this pressure will be increased rather than relaxed. We are now into March, the first of the spring months, and the general offensive should not be far away.

The British public ha«s, perhaps, not given tho Welsh regiments their fair share of popular fame for their deeds on many.a field. Perhaps it is because they do not wear a kilt. Two Welsh oorpe shored in that terrible battle at Gheluvelt in October, details of which are now published for the first time. Detachments of these regiments, the Sonih Wales Borderers, and the Welsh Regiment, were overborne in the centre by greatly superior numbers, after a gallant resistance, but were avenged by the Woreestors. For the South AVales Borderers (the old 24th Foot) it was Jsandula over again. On that fatal field, where several companies or the regiment were annihilated by the Zulu hordes, it was the Queen's colour of the regiment that Lieutenants Melville and Gogh ill saved so heroically. On the same day a handful of men of the Borderers held Rorke's Drift against three thousand Zulus. The regiment's record goes' back to Marlborough's campaigns, and includes such, actions, as Talavera, Salamanca, Vfttoria, and Chillianwallah.

Tho Commodities Commission in New South Wales has ruled that soap is not a necessary commodity. The decision may surprise some people to whom a day without soap would be almost as bad as a day without food, but tho decision is sound in view of tho definition of "necessary commodity" given by .the in introducing his Bill. The term, he said, included any of the following:—"(a) Coal, firewood, coke, or other fuel; (b) gas for lighting, cooking, or industrial purposes; (c) any article of food or drink for man or for any domesticated animal; (d) any article which enters into or is used in.the composition or preparation of any of tho foregoing. ... We include, all those things which are obviously essential for the sustenance of life, either directly or 'indirectly." Millions of people manage to exist ■without soap. Even in civilised countries there are many people whose acquaintance with soap is as distant as that of the imwashed gentleman in a certain famous advertisement. We have oven been told that soap is positively harmful, and that we would enjoy better health if we did not wash. The Commission has power to recommend Parliament to declare any article a necessary commodity, but, unless tho circumstances are very special, it would bo guided by the above definition.

Stevenson's "Inland Voyage" is, we hope, not so little known Dr. Truby King suggested in the letter we printed yesterday. Amongst Steveneonians it is nearly "the" favourite; and the episode of "The-Royal Sport Nautique," coming early in the book, is a cherished chapter..The boating club, by the way, had no "Anglais" in its name, and tho "Cigarette" was not Graham Balfour, but Sir "Walter Grindlay Simpson. For their greater neatness and significance, we may perhaps note that what the nice jonng Belgian "Nauticals" actually said was, "We are all employed in commerce during the day; but in the evening, voyez vous, nous sommes Berieux." To Stevenson.' spiritual vagabond that he was, this wholesome and happy phrase seemed to be "a very wise remark." The devotion of the "Royal Xautieals" to rowing—they were kcejjer than Englishmen, in Stevenson's account—was to bear its fruit in later years, when the Belgians beat Leander at Henley. There is not much in Stevenson's little book about the Belgians—'•'this pleasing people," he calls them-rbut there is one passage about the rowing me.n which it is pleasant to read to-day: "And when my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have, so far fallen from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an-enthusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt whether he will bo near so nice a k Ilow, and whether he would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple, of drenched Englishmen paddling into Brussels in the dusk." It is almost as if Stevenson were venturing to say that if Belgium did not lapse into materialism she- would earn the respect and esteem of England, which she enjoys in her misery to-day.

The magnificent speech by Mr Asqiiith. which was summarised in yesterday's cable news, will have sent a thrill *>\ delight through the heart of every citizen of the Empire. Before tho war the Prime Minister had become renowned for the breadth, depth, and dignity of his speffches. but he was considered over-logical and cold. The war has enhanced all hie merits as an orator, and has added .the of strength and tire, so that it is impossible to read any of hi* important speeches without feeling oneself in the presence of a strong man spesiking with all tho power and strength of England. We have to go far back in the records of Britain for .speeches so deeply moving and so sustaining, and perhaps we shall not find anything so fine even then, or so adequate to n. great situation. The latest speech is. indeed, a history-making utterance, and to those Germans who can .sco the realities through the garments of speech, it will sound as the voice of Fate pronouncing doom on German ambitions.