MR ASHMEAD BARTLETT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16666, 11 April 1916, Page 7

MR ASHMEAD BARTLETT

ARRIVAL IN NEW ZEALAND. 1 IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR. SPEEDT TERMINATION IMPROBABLE. (FbOM Odß OwH COBBESPONDENTj i i WELLINGTON, April 10. ' . Mr Ashmeadl Bartiett arrived from, Syd> ney to-day. Some interesting opinion* . about affairs at Home and the situation ia i tho Balkans were given by him in an interview "The situation at Home has been improved enormously, , ' he said. "The passing of the conscription measure has cleared it up. It has done away with, a lot of uncertainty, and has shown that the Government is united in its determination to carry the war through. Those who are not on the spot get a bad impression of English politics because there always seems to be an under-current of party conflict going on. Thie is true, but it means nothing, because the British people would be utterly miserable if they had to dxop then own little party controversies during tho ■. war. All the time they are absolutely ' , united in their hatred of the Germane and in their determination to carry the war> ' through, but they are also determined to ,r r etkk to tho Englishman's birthright—to have a dig at their political opponents and their political leaders. " I think a mistatco was. made at the beginning of the war, when we could have got everybody in without uny conscription on the first wave of enthusiasm, but it was utterly impossible to handle tho mase of : men coming forward, as we had no arms and no .equipment and no barracks to put ? them in. We had to take them in bunches, so to speak. Meanwhile, the reorganisation of industries began, and workrain were told ; by their political leaders that any man who was making anything connected with thu ' war was doing his duty just as patriotically ' as the man in the trenches. At the eame time there came an uiipi-tscediri-tod weteaso in wages, and there were thousands of men who had come forward in 'the first place, and who suddenly found themselves earning more than tOey Lad ever earned before, with a certificate of patriotism from . their leaders at the earns tune- In these circumstances it was only human nature that a number of Deople should prefer to ■ stick to these jobs rather than take their places in the bring line, but towards the . end of 1915" the situation changed. W« \ were able to handle ail the men who could , come forward, and we needed more recruits to keep np oar army, eo that an interesting process at once began—namely, ,' the taking away of great numbers of the*a' men who had been engaged on Government _ > work and transferring them to the ranks. Naturally, after the war had dragged on ! for so long, you couldn't expect to hnd the ■ - same wave of enthusiasm as there was at c the beginning-. It seems to me that sow we are getting all the men -we need, and I ask you, What other countries in the world, r ,' could raise men under the volun-' | tary system to fight on foreign soil? It is ', '•- a very different thing when your own fireside is in danger, and when your own women .and are ibeing murdered v and outraged; but that had never been the ,-■ f case with us, because our coast is protected , i by our fleet, and has never been m the slightest danger since the war began. It will eurely go down to history as one of the finest efforts on behalf of civilian ion-, " and the maintenance of certain ideals ''hat/ ",* the whole nation should have come iorwarJL ■' ~ as it has done, ' *, ' / " Now, if this is true of England, where' we ore quite close to the scene of hostilities, and where large numbers of our K. population have seen and, to a certain ex- '/- tent, realised'the horrors of Prussian nul-, - tary government, it is even more remark- , able how tho dominions have come for ."£ ward to fight on Belgian and French 'Soil* ~> r ,\ and} in the Near East on behalf of the Allies, whom they have known little in tho ! ' past, and with whom they never thought they had any common interest. I doaV, V ■ think any one fact in the xn* n&3 done , '.; more good than the manner in which Aus , - ,, tralia and New Zealand accepted the inevitable and acquiesced in the evacuation- l of Gallipoli. You might well have said.- , - ? > '' We", have done our bit; you have-; made mess of it, and wo can do nothing*more.. v ) Instead of this, you said: 'Lef us wipe the slate clean; make a fresh start, and we will ~* send you two or three times as many men > i .as we originally intended.' This will never be forgotten by the people at Home, and » it was an immenso incentive m itself to recruiting." , Mr Bartiett is doubtful of the efficiency, , k>l any from Salonika ( without t&er ' co-operation of Rumania. '• Bumania holds' „ * all the keys of the situation in the Bal; kans," he said. "If she coincs in Bulgaria 'J , will be obliged to give, in, and will prob-, ",; ably be only too glad to make peace on, ,'*' any terms. The Rumanians mvadied Bulgaria in 1913, and occupied her northern ■> ' territory by throwing two great pontoon, .>. bridges across the Danube. If \ again; the Bulgarian Army will be" crushed?-.' ' between the Rumanian forces and our own * advance in conjunction with tho French i from Salonika. Germany and Austria, can't '/ spare men And material to assist their Allies in the Near East. If we press them '?, hard on the western end eastern points, eliminate Bulgaria, and we have only the' ' * poor old' Turk left to deal with,, and, ,L .'■ think he'would then be very glad to sell* his services and fight on our side if we pro-" > mised him a further lease of life after the j war. V; "It seems to me that an unknown factor ;;• in the whole situation at the present tune pa- * ~ the state of the Russian Army. How far, - , will their armies be able to recover from-, ' the tremendous hammering they received; '•» last year and press the Germans on the." J ; eastern front? We are apt always to talk"" only of the Germans, but we must not i forget their extremely powerful Allies, the.,Austrians, who have still . 3,000,000 'or / 4,000,000 men under arms, much better led ; and better organised! than at the beginning . '> of the war. In fairness to Russia this fact ' should be remembered, because Russia ha*' to look after the Austrian Army as well as the German. • " The year 1916 certainly opened well for, us, with the capture of Erzeroum, and the German offensive against Verdun. This at- , tack by the Germans is placing into our ( "* hands. Wo can only hope 'that they will continue to attack, and save us tho neces- i t sity of assaulting their entrenched positions.. This, I know, is the nightly and morning prayer of all the French generals and of our own. , ' " No one should expect a speedy tormination of the war. It is bound to drag on, for a long tin>e. We should come out vid- / torious even if wo fail to win those great _ - - and decisive victories in the field which so. '' many hope to see, but which are, as a-' matter of fact, almost impossible of attain- , meat under modern conditions of lighting. We enjoy every advantage on tho t«-onomio side, and, although jt is deplorable that we, are obliged to spend immense sums ot money and) aro accumulating such a hugo debt, there is no reason why we iJiould not_ - recovar rapidly when tho war is over if " satisfactory economic arrangements for pre-: ferential trade and for a great attack on the neutral markets of tho world are made amongst the Allies. Tho Geiman mcrcan-' / tile marine is already bankrupt, .ind, we' ' ought to be able to destroy it completely and resume our old position as the world 3 great carrier, which was being slowly undermined before the war." „'