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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16506, 25 April 1919, Page 6

Onr Prohibitionist friends arc finding: so many different explanations of their failure at the recent poll that it is xurp: isinrr that ll.ev were so confident, before the poll was held, that they would be victorious. The most surprising explanation so far advanced is that •which Mr Bruntnell thought out on his way back to Australia. "The main causes of defeat," lie said, "were a feeing: among sympathisers that it •was (unwise to take a vote -whSl© tJici soldiers wore auav, and the apathy shown by the women of the Domin'on." If the Prohibitionists were annoyed that the poll was not deferred, tliey were strangely silent about it. Certainly tliey bore their mental suffering so bravely that we do not knew of a single one who expressed the view Mr Bruntnell attributes to them. As for the apathy of the women voters, Mr Bruntnell's statement is simply ludicrous. There was no apathy either amongst the men or the women. The more the Prohibitionists explain, the moro they emphasise the perfectly obvious fact that Prohibition was defeated because ifc was dislikod by a majority of tho voters.

Before "Anzac Day" comes round again the whole battle-ground of Gallipoli will have passed into British hands for over. The cable message which statod that as the result of Mr Massey's consistent advocacy at the Peace Conference, a clause ensuring British ownership and the permanent earo of the Gallipoli gravos will bo inserted in the Peaco with Turkey, did nob specify more particularly tho area to be thus set apart, "but if it is to include, as it should, all tho places where our dead lie, it must extend over considerable portions on the southwestern and southern sides of the tragic peninsula. It must take in Achi Baba and Krithia, Chunuk Bair, and Anafarta, no less than Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay and Capo Helles, and somo of these places are- many miles away from each othev.

Some of the cemoteries —those at tho Bcach and at Shrapnel Gully, for example—were enclosed apparently before the evacuation, and tho graves wero lately fonnd to be in good condition, though almost all identifications had been removed, probably because in most instances these wero m the form of a cross, and the Turks, as Moslems, object to the Christian symbol. Apart from this, however, 'only a few of the graves had been in any way desecrated. Whatever the area defined in the clause may be, the exclusive title is to be vested in the British Government. Subject to that limitation, it is added, Turkish sovereignty over the land will remain unimpaired. The limitation, however, is so extensive, that little will remain to tho Turks except the responsibility for preventing any desecration of tho graves. In years to come, this "corner of a foreign field," in which lie those who gave the world a now conception of valour, will, no doubt be visited by many of the New Zealand parents whose sons gave it immortal fame. 9 A few days ago it was cabled that for his action in promoting the massacres of Armonians, Kenial Pasha had been sentenced to be hanged in Stamboul. It is not improbable that this is tho Mustapha Kernel Pasha, who commanded the Turkish forces operating against the British at Anzac and Suvla Bay. Mr E. ft. Peacock, representing tho Sydney "Sun," who visited Gallipoli last December with tho New Zealand and Australian troops sent to occupy the old war zone, met this Pasha in Constantinople, and, of course, interviewed him. Kernel spoke quite freely of the' campaign. The plan of attack was, ho said, a good idea, hut he submitted that it was a mistake to make the naval attack first, than jgo away, and return. If tho landing had been combined with the first naval attack it would have and Constantinople would have been captured. Tho Turks naturally, after the first warning, made full preparations against another attack. That, of course, is the way that most people look at the affair, which is generally regarded as the greatest of the several blunders that marked the campaign.

Kernel spoke very highly of the courage aud fighting powers of the Australians, but argued that they would havo done better to hold a smaller area. Tho landing at Anzac, which he admitted ho believed to bo impossible, he described as a very daring adventure, only needing more men to havo succeeded in its purpose. Generally, Kernel, who, after tho evacuation commanded in the Caucasus and Syria, where he found in the Armonians much less formidable foes than tho Anzaes had proved, impressed Mr Peacock so much by his praises of the Australians that the correspondent assured him that if ever ho visitod Australia he would find many of his old opponents glad to see him. In view of subsequent developments, that assuranco seems to have been somewhat premature. At all events, if the Kernel Pasha to whom it was given is tho individual rorently mentioned in the cables, ho will pay no visit to Australia, or anywhero else on earth.