GENERAL SMUTS.

Evening Star, Issue 16549, 8 October 1917, Page 3

GENERAL SMUTS.

MOMENTOUS STATEMENTS. THE ENEMY BEATEN. U BOAT CAMPAIGN A FAILURE. AERIAL REPRISALS CERTAIN. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association and Eeufcer.

LONDON, October 5. Speaking at a luncheon tendered to him by the presidents of the Chambers of Commerce, General Smuts, a member of the War Cabinet, reviewed the war situation. He said the Germans were already beaten, and their rulers knew it. The Germans had challenged the world on a military ground, and haG calculated on certain success. They made the greatest mistake in history. In this war, the decision would depend upon political, economic, and other non-military factors far more than in a military sense. Our military predominance on the western front was no longer in question. Referring to Russia, General Smuts said he was not sure that from the point of view of far-sighted policy Germany's attack on Russia was not the most fatal of German blunder's. She was striking a nation which, Jike herself, was an autocracy, but which had received a new consciousness from the terrible sufferings arising out of tho war. Russia was like a woman laboring in child-birth. Germany was choosing this moment to strike her down, and the spirit of history would never forgive her. The liberty which was being painfully born in Russia would arise vindictive in her incoming generations and become the more implacable enemy of the future Germanv.

The Central Powers were exhausted and demoralised internally, were faced with tho spectre of bankruptcy, and would see that the end was no longer uncertain. The Germans' hopes of the submarines had proved illusory, and thoy had now ceased to be a decisive factor. They could take that from him as a bed-rock fact.

General Smuts predicted that Germany's aerial warfare would not only fail, but would prove a terrible boomerang to the enemy. We were dealing with an enemy whose culture had not carried them beyond the rudiments of the Mosaic law. They could only apply the maxim of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and consequently we must reluctantly be compelled to retaliate. There wao no longer any choice in tho matter. We would endeavor to : avoid the German abominations, sparing as far as was humanly possible the innocent and defenceless in our air offensive, but it was' inevitable that they should suffer to some extent.

[The cable news in this isaue accredited to 'The Times ' has appeared in that journal, but only where expressly stated is such news the editorial opinion of "Th« Times.']