MEXICAN WAR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16558, 23 May 1914, Page 11

MEXICAN WAR.

CONSTITUTIONALIST SUCCESSES

TOWNS CAPTURED,

EN ROUTE FOR MEXICO CITY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. NEW YORK, May 21.

Advices from Juarez state that tho Constitutionalists captured Saltillo and Tepic, after heavy losses. The Constitutionalists are now marching to Guadalajara, on route for AJiexico City.

THE MEDIATION CONFERENCE (Received May 22, 11 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 21.

The Constitutionalists will send Senor Joe Vasconcellos to the Conference at Niagara Falls to place their position before the mediators without binding them. Mr Bryan declares that the conference is working smoothly. The points on which an understanding is sought are the kind of Government which must be, established in succession to the present regime, and a guarantee that agrarian and other reforms will be carried out speedily. GENERAL AND STAFF EXECUTED. “ Times ” and Sydney “ Sun ” Services. (Received May 22, 6 p.m.) MEXICO CITY, May 21. Villa captured and executed at Saltillo General Ozorno, of the Federal Army, and his staff of thirty-two.

THE VERA CRUZ INCIDENT.

ON THE VERGE OF WAR

APATHY IN THE UNITED STATES. (From Our Correspondent.] NEW YORK, April 24. We are on tho eve of war and for the last twenty-four hours there has beon talk of scarcely anything else. Our marines have landed at Vera Cruz, seized the Custom houso and Government offices, shelled the streets and taken tho lives of hundreds of Mexican soldiers. That is tlio situation as it stands to-day, and not one man in a hundred believes it can mean anything else but a war at least as serious and as. costly as that of our conflict with Spain which began just sixteen years ago. In startling contrast with what R was sixteen years ago, when the Spanish war was declared, is the state of the public mind to-day. Evidently we are becoming a less excitable people. The startling news from Vera Cruz. lias been taken with surprising coolness. Even tho newspapers seem to have lost the sensationalism that characterised them after the destruction of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbour. Sixteen years ago the. streets of New York- were full of excited crowds and the ’ war news was flashed upon bulletin boards twenty feet high in front of every newspaper office. To-day there is not a sign of the slightest excitement, the bulletin boards are about ■ one-quarter their former size, and. the size of the news headlines are extremely, modest considering the news developments. The day the Maine, was blown up-- one New York papercame out with just one word on its front page, “ War ’.’ in red ink. In that particular newspaper office it was regretted that there were not two front pages for these three letters, which filled the entire form from -top to bottom. There is no red ink , in evidence to-day, except in very;' small block type for baseball bulletins. Indeed, it is a question whether tho ball games do not share equally with the war news in public interest. There is a very wide difference of opinion among authorities as to how long hostilities will continue in c.'.so Huerta ronjains obdurate, and persists in his refusal to salute, the American flag, at Tampico. Mr Lind, who lias, beeiT President Wilson’s special emissary to Mexico, says Huerta can at most count upon tho support of aoout five thousand troops; plainly if ho must depend upon an army of this estimate he is not in a position to hold his own for long, against our‘coercive measures and against the even more threatening intentions of tho Constitutionalists. If he yields of course that will be the end of the matter. If he does not, there are many military authorities in this country who are convinced that there will be a long drawn out and extremely expensive war before us. Most foreign experts seem to be equally pessimistic in tlieir views. Lord Atlilumney, a reserve officer in tho -Coldstream Guards, who fought through three Egyptian campaigns, the Boxer rebellion and the Boer war, declared before sailing from New York to Liverpool yesterday that he thought the United States was in a had hole oyer the Mexican situation. “ I have ridden through Mexico on horseback ” he said, “ and to march through it will, iu my opinion, be worse than what wo experienced in tho Boer war, going up the coast into Natal, because it is more mountainous. The troops will have to carry every pound of stores they will require, as tho country has been swept bare of food supplies by the Federal troops and the rebels! .1 think, too, that if Villa and Carranza do not lend their aid to repel the enemy, their troops will leave them.” Not a bit more cheerful was tho view of tho situation taken by former President Taft, when ho was called to the door of his home at New Haven by two thousand Yale students who were marching through tho streets to show their patriotism. Mr Taft declared that war with Mexico would be a much more serious matter than most people supposed. He had been told that very night, he said, bv an expert in military affairs, that such a war - would bo likely to last for eight years i and cost at least a billion dollars.