THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, OCT. 30th, 1916. THE AUSTRALIAN REFERENDUM.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 269, 30 October 1916, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, OCT. 30th, 1916. THE AUSTRALIAN REFERENDUM.

The figures that have been cabled to us with reference to the voting! on the conscription issue, which the Commonwealth Government determined to make the subject of a referendum to the people of Austra-| lia, do not make very pleasant reading for those who see _in the unity of the Empire our chief hope of success in the great undertaking we now have in hand, and of sane and prosperous development for the vears to come. The latest returns to hand at the moment of writing show that out of a total of some 1,700,000 votes already counted, a majority not very short of a hundred thousand has voted against any measure of compulsory foreign military service. According to a recent official publication the gross electoral population of the Commonwealth is only a very little over two and a half millions, so that, although we are told that a record poll is expected, there seems but little chance that the present deficit of the affirmative answer will be wiped out by further counts of the votes cast in Australia itself. It may be, however, that they may so far reduce it that the votes of the soldiers away on active service may suffice to turn the scale, for it may be taken for granted that these will be fairly unanimous in favour of compulsion. According to a recent statement mad© by one of th© Commonwealth Ministers there are in the trenches in France and in the training ad reserve camps in England something like a hundred thousand Australians, a number which will be increased by those who are serving in Egypt and, possibly, at Salonika. How far it will be found practicable to get all these votes in remains to be seen, but at the very best it looks as if the Government proposal can win only by a very slim majority, if, indeed, it is carried at all. But on which ever side the necessarily narrow margin may eventually fall, enough will have been learned to show us that there is in Australia a strong element of selfish repudiation, not only of duty to the Motherland that has guarded us so long, but also of eve'n more sacred obligation to those who have already given and to those who are still , risking their lives in defence of the ideals we imagined were cherished by the great majority in Australia as in New Zealand. It may, perhaps, be suggested that condemnation of this kind is premature; that this vote has been taken, not to decide whether Australia will continue to fulfil her share in the carrying on of the great struggle for national liberty, but whether the Government is to be armed with authority to compel the individual to do his share ; and that, with the vexed factor of compulsion finally eliminated, we may yet- see the voluntary system provide all the men that are required. We fear that only the most foolishly sanguine of those who have been watching the trend of events and of natioal developments in Australia will entertain any such hope. Possibly the rejection of the compulsion measure might, for a little while, be followed by some slight reacting wave of voluntary enlistment. But the idea that there would be any sustained current in this direction may, we think, be dismissed from the region even of faint expectation. Even should the compulsion proposals be ultimately carried so far as securing a small majority is concerned, it can be readily imagined what difficulties will await those in authority when the need comes for putting them in force in the face of so strong an expression of popular disapproval. Australia at the present moment is manifestly a house divided against itself, and in such a way. and as the result of so long operating*repellent forces, that the restoration of unity is not likely to be the work of any but a long time.

The saving of Rumania from the barbarities of devastation and rapine that invariably follow occupation bv the Teutonic armies constitutes for us, at the present moment, the only source of immediate anxiety with regard to the military situation in Europe. The i..—s which have come through since our Saturday’s notes were written tend to strengthen the impression that on the Hungarian front the RussoRumanian forces, engaged in defending the passes and river-valleys running into Rumania, have secured sufficient reinforcements from Russia to be able to offer an effective resistance. With regard to the Dobrudja area, where Mackensen is pressing our Allies so closely and pertinaciously, there is, up to the time of writing this forenoon, nothing even so indefinitely reassuring. In fact, so far, the only message of cheer to hand is one from a Parisian paper, which says that ‘‘important reinforcements have arrived on both Rumanian fronts.” As against this we had, late on Saturday. first, a Petrograd message, stating that Mackensen’s success was due to a heavy augmentation of his numbers, and, next, reports of German and Bulgarian origin to the effect that the ‘‘Rumanians were precipitately retreating,” and that “the pursuit was being contin-) ued, the enemy, not resisting.”) These, of course, we are fairly entitled to treat with some degree of suspicion, as being, at least possibly, either exaggerated or mislead-, ing, the latest authoritative news, from our own side indicating that the retiring forces had taken up a defensive position upon the line stretching from Hirsova, on the Danube, to the Black Sea inlet known as Lake Razim. Here, we were told a few days back, Mackensen will be confronted by wooded and marshy country offering great difficulties to the pursuing forces, while those on the defensive will be stirred to desperate resistance by the consideration tha they are almost wholly deprived of any adequate avenues of escape. Later in the day, perhaps, we may have some indication of the steps that are being taken to provide some direct relief from a situation obviously quite sufficiently,precarious.

The reluctance with which the Rumanians would abandon the position they took up south of the Con-stanza-Chernavoaa railway, and the overwhelming superiority of numbers and artillery that Mackensen must have commanded in order to

enable him to drive them from it, I may be gathered from a description given in the London “Times of the defensive works they occupied, in the course of a general review of the Dobrudja and its strategic value the “Times” says:—“The most important port is Constanza, to the development of which much attention has been devoted. The town has also a great military value, because it forms with Mangalia (further to the south and, of course, earlier in the enemy’s hands) the only place where a safe landing can be made, and because its possession decides the fate of the powerful defensive line improperly called the wall of Trajan. 5 This work occupies the depression along which runs the railway line from Chemavoda to Constanza, and consists ■ of a complete system of three lines of entrenchments, studded . throughout its whole length with fortified camps. Constanza, moreover, is on the shortest route from the Danube to the sea and is free from ice m winter.” Of the bridge over Danube which connects the Constanza railway with that running westward to the Rumanian capital the same authority tells us that I the whole work is some HJ miles long, between Fateshti, west of the river, and Chernayoda, east of it. The structure consists, of an iron bridge 1000 yards in length over the Bortcha (an anabranch of the main river and running nearly parallel with it), of a dam with several viaducts eight miles long and 18 feet high over the marshy land, and of a second bridge, about one. mile long, over the- big river itself. While the destruction .of this bridge by the Rumanians has deprived Mackensen of the most convenient means of making an incursion into Rumania proper, it has, of course, also at the same time left but poor facilities of throwing across the river direct reinforcements for the Rumanians themselves. There are, however, it would appear, still left practicable crossings at Hirsova, where the Rumanian right wing now rests according to the advices quoted above, and at Ibraila (or Braila) and Galatz, further to the north, where operations would be free from hostile interference.

Such later news as has come under the eye of the writer since the foregoing was penned consist merely of Bulgarian communiques which, even accepted at face value, do not disclose any material change in the Dobrudjan situation. One of these messages, however, seeks to give the impression that the RussoRumanian forces are retreating northward in the hope of securing escape across the river by pontoon bridges previously prepared at two cressing places mentioned in the foregoing notes as well as at two other points. It also intimates that the Bulgarians have already succeeded in destroying one of these bridges, that at Hirsova, upon which the Rumanian right wing rests. There is every probability of this hitter statement being correct. But it may be doubted whether the Russo-Rumanian forces have nothing hut escape in mind, and we imagine that it may be assumed that, if only for the purpose of guarding the ciossings into Rumania proper, they will sacrifice much in order to stay Alackensen’s advance. Indeed, it wculd probably only spell worse disaster to adopt any other course, for it can be readily understood that any attempt at crossing a mile-wide river by pontoon bridges upon which enemy artillery could play would be almost out of the question. Mackensen, too.is daily getting further fiom his base of supplies, and lengthening communications through roadless country should serve greatly i<.- modify the force of his assaults. None of the messages that have so far reached us cast any fresh light upon the position of matters on Rumania’s northern frontier.

From the main Russian front we hear only, in a general way, that “terrific fighting continues in Galicia and Volhynia,” while German reports, filtering through Rome, suggest that Russia is redoubling her efforts to revive the more mobile aggression of the earlier phases of Brusiloff’s campaign. This class of suggestive German announcement is always worth noting, as it is usually designed to prepare Berlin for news not altogether favourable. There is little word from Salonika, where weather conditions still continue to be inauspicious. Despite this, the Serbians have managed to make some little further progress towards Monastir. There has also been heavy rain on the Somme, where, however, the British have pressed a little bit further forward in the vicinity of Les Boeufs. The French reports are almost wholly confined to their new offensive movements at Verdun, where they are meeting .with almost unvarying success, resulting in heavy losses being inflicted on the enemy during his futile counter-attacks.