SYDNEY SUN MESSAGES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 21 May 1915, Page 5

SYDNEY SUN MESSAGES

NATIONAL WAR COUNCIL

DIRECT VOICE FOR DOMINIONS

SUGGESTED

BELGIAN RELIEF STATEMENTS

REPORTS FROM. THE DAR-

DANELLES.

TURKS' BACKS TO THE WALL

THEIR POSITION SEARCHED BY

SHELL^FIRE

Times—Sydney Stjn Special Cables

(Received May 21, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, May 20. In the event of the formation of a National War Council representing all parties would be practically an enlargement of the Imperial Defence Committee, and it is considered in colonial circles that. it would be the> most opportune moment to give the Dominions a direct voice in the conduct of the \var and the subsequent peace negotiations. At a. meeting of the Belgian National Committee of Relief, Mr. Shirley Benn explained the committee's work. Australasia, he «aid, had made a magnificent response, and the Empire may well be proud. He desired to allay the fears that the Germans were receiving any of the foodstuffs, which was taken in barges under the American flag to 120 warehoiises and distributed to 32,000 communities. It was possible to account for the destination of every ton brought in. The Germans had scrupulously adhered to the agreement not to interfere. The committee desired to avoid dispensing humiliating charity and required the able-bodied to work for their bread. Fifty per cent, of the population of louvain, Malines, and other industrial centres were dependent on charity, but as the result of the committee's efforts, and despite the economic paralysis in Belgium, there was no starvation.

Madame Vandervelde said that the Belgians had not lost their souls. She had just learned that 800 postmen at Brussels had" refused to work with Germans, and no railwaymen were working, 740,000 men being idle and penniless, preferring poverty to working with murderers. The bodies containing those steadfast souls must be kept alive. In the House of CommonSj in reply to a question, Mr Tennant said that The Time's statement regarding theshortage of munitions was not pmsented to the Press Bureau at London. The Times comments that this is demonstratively false, as the original telegram with deletions marked by the censor in red ink was passed for publication.

The Times' correspondent at the Dardanelles reports that the Bulair lines, situated at the bottle-neck of the- Peninsula, are at the mercy of the fleet." It is still possible for the Turks to ferry reinforcements across the straits, but since the Queen Elizabeth sank a transport thus engaged it can only be regarded as a dangerous line of communication. The fighting at Gallipoli is therefore desperate; the Turks have their backs to the wall, and the chances of the garrison escaping are problematical. The cramped tongue of land enables the fleets gun's to play almost all round the positions, and the ships are assisted by a strong, determined, and firmly established land force.