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Otago Daily Times, Issue 17104, 8 September 1917, Page 6

Tub interesting announcement is made that Germany and Austria are subjecting 'Poland to a fresh partition on the basre that Germany takes one-tenth of Russian Poland while Austria takes the remainder. It is also stated that the Austrian Emperor will become King of Poland, including Galicia, and that the new Polish State will have its own Government and Parliament, but that its military and foreign policy will be " imperially controlled" and that Poles will bo liable for servke in the Austrian army. Poland has had experience of so many partitions that the addition of another to the list will presumably be endured with her customary stoicism, while the sequel to the grandiloquent AustroGerman proclamation in November, 1916, of an independent kingdom of Poland will cause no great surprise to the maryj ysha

at tho time found in that proclamation no more than a piece of solemn mockery. If the Central Powers aver that the failure of the scheme for an independent Poland rendered the present repartition necessary, they will not be accused of lack of .subtlety in ensuring that failure. They have now thrown off the mask. Germany is to add lo Prussian Poland a portion of Polish territory wrested from Russia. Austria ia to take the rest and assume sovereignty over it. The chimera of Polish independence is dissipated. Tho national aspirations of tho Poles were not satisfied, as a matter of fact, by the Austro-German proclamation of an independent Polish kingdom, for this did not offer a reunion of Prussian Poland and Galicia with an independent Russian Poland. The Poles dosire to sco their country a sovereign State, and they dasire this State to include Galicia and, above all, the Grand. Duchy of Poson, as well ua Danzig aa the Polish seaport. In short, they want the independence of the whole of Poland, which carries a population of more than twenty millions, over eight million Poles being in Galicia, over two millions in Poznania, and over ten millions in Russian Poland. It was their united feeling in this matter that dictated their attitude towards tho specious proposal of the Central Powers to create an independent Poland on circumscribed lines.

Remembering the horror and indignation of the Poles when at a certain earlier stage of the war they realised the grave danger of a fourth partition of their country in the apparent designs of the Central Powers respecting Russian Poland, we can imagine what their feelings will be at finding that the old menace has materialised in the division of Russian Poland which Germany and Austria have just been arranging. While the Central Powers have their feet on conquered territory and console themselves with a " war map" victory, there is nobody to interfere with them at the moment in bargaining between themselves over the spoils, and in bartering away the political liberties of nationalities that are incapable of resistance. But the hope for Poland lies in the fact that the war is still in progress, and that by the time it is ended the Central Powers will be in a very different position from that which they occupy at present. One of the great causes for which the war is being waged is the succour of the small States from just such an oppression as Poland is enduring. Russia had promised to do the right thing by Poland, but, through her reverses, has in the meantime lost all power of fulfilling her undertaking. Germany and Austria are settling the question very prettily between them, but they are so doing regardless of the fact that the- future of Poland is not to be decided during the war, but, as the Allies are fully determined, will be a matter for settlement in the peace treaty deliberations. Poland has assumed a new significance on the European map, and the Allies are bound to consider very seriously her future importance as a " State, and her position in relation to the maintenance of the balance of power. "The Poles stood, and stand," Dr Dillon writes, "for a force in Europe. They are among the most valiant soldiers and most intelligent officers in the armies of Austria, Germany, and Russia. Reunited and fused in one compact State, including Silesia and Danzig, they would serve as" a granite breakwater against the eastward flowing tide of Teutonism. The birth rate of these twenty-three millions is so rapidly growing that Prince Bnlow compared them to rabbits, and invoked this as a justification of his brutal policy of uprooting them from the soil and turning them adrift. If the Poles came into their own the loss to Prussia of the Silesian mines would almost deprive that kingdom, and therefore Germany, of the materials indispensable to war and to the successful pursuit of a policy of domination."

The latest German air raids on British towns—that on Chatham being the most serious on account of the bombing of the naval establishment there—-will doubtless be followed by a fresh criticism of the British air defences and probably by demands for reprisals, in kind or otherwise. The discussion as to the means for their prevention which the air raids have excdted should by this time have served the purpose of revealing the problem in its true perspective to all reasonable persons. The sporadic raids by German airmen on British towns have been too destructive of life to be dismissed as immaterial incidents of warfare, but tihose persons who witheringly inquire what Great Britain is doing while these things are happening betray a somewhat narrow outlook. The fact is that the German raids on Britain attract a great deal of notice, while the frequent British raids against German establishments, particularly in Flanders, are merely noted in passing and forgotten. The German aerial activity is probably not really comparable with British activity in point of effectiveness, but it is not difficult to understand how the fact that it involves an invasion of England and losses of civilian life has brought it much more into public prominence. The persons, however, who'have argned that the raids on England ought to be stopped at a-ny cost have shown no real conception of what they have been demanding. They have had to be reminded in plain terms that to weaken the air services at the front in order that a greater number of machines might be retained in England for defensive purposes would be folly. It is only after tihe German machine has got clear of its base on its raiding errand that it becomes dangerous. If, therefore, the Germans were pinned to the ground at the points at which they launch their raids so that they could not possibly reach England, the military problem of defending British soil against air-raiders would be solved.

It is at present much easier for the German, airmen to attack English towns than to attack French towns, for in crossing the Channel they fly over what has been compared to empty country, and though they may meet British patrols in the air, the risks are small beside those they encounter in flying over land occupied by troops and bristling witih guns. Moreover, air raids cannot be entirely presented so long as hostile machines are able to get clear away from starting points within raiding distance of their objective, for the direction of the flight of machines wnich rise 1500 feet at the outset cannot generally be detected, and it Is very much a matter of chance whether they can be reported in time for aeroplanes to climb to the . necessary height to be able to engage them before they release their bombs. In the case of aerial fighting such as ensues when German air raiders appear over British soil the defence is at a disadvantage. " The cause of the inferiority of the defence to the offence," writes Mr Harold Wyatt in the Nineteenth Century, " is very clear. The defence knows nob where the offence is coming. If the enemy devoted a hundred or a thousand machines to the work oi destroying us here, and we devoted five hundred or fivo thousand to the duty of meeting their assault, that number would yet be quite inadequate to protect us. For the aeroplane possesses a mobility irs ericseding

that of any other instrument of war. Fleets of flying machines can scatter as they will—scatter and reconcentrate. Wliat would be the chance of equality at any given place possessed by our aerial guards against a large force of aerial cnemios, oven though the former, if gathered together, would outnumber the latter by ten to one?" No sophistry' can obscure the reality, arenas Mr Wyatt, that one machine actively employed against the enemy on the Continent is worth more than five machines employed at homo.

' M'l the- soundness of this reasoning seems (irmly established on the ground, that the only effective defence on the part of Britain against air raids must be offence — offence on the Continent, such as she is already able to achieve.

"If "wo can drive the Germans out of Belgium," Kays another authority, "we shall have virtually solved the air problem so far as it concerns people in England." The view which has been warmly o-poused in many quarters that there should be British reprisals in kind, against noncombatant populations in German towns, carries weight only if it can bo demonstrated that the effect would be to divert tho Germans from their purpose in sending raiders across tho Channel. It may be questionable, however, whether their own " frightfulness " turned against themselves would deter the German authorities in the least from the practice of the methods which they have made peculiarly their own. The cry of their own civilian- population would probably fall on deaf ears, and if that were so Britain would merely be wasting energy in adopting reprisals in th.it form. That reprisals in the way of counter raids should achieve the maximum of military usefulness seems to go without saying. It cannot be doubted thr.t every available aeroplane that Great Britain can spare is required by her for offensive service in co-operation with the army and navy. Some of the demands that hawe been made for the special aerial defence of London prompted the Spectator recently to the rejoinders "The German aerodromes in Belgium, or places' not far from them, are the true defensive lines of London. From that cluster of aerodromes radiating lines of possible attack by German aeroplanes spread out like the evokes of a wheel from the hub. It is obvious that the further away from tho hub we place our defensive patrols the more ground, or rather the more air, we shall have to cover. . . The Germans have misread our psychology if they think they can induce us to keep aeroplanes at home which ought to be at the front. They are trying to provoke us into playing their game, but we must not play it. Whatever degree of German power to strike British towns from the air remains when our defence has been interpreted in terms of offence, and our counter-blows have been delivered near the hub, must be endured patiently. What may be called ' scattered defence' is madness in aerial fighting as elsewhere. A concentration of strength is tihe only sound strategical principle, and our concentration must be as near the enemy's lines as possible." In such conclusions the strategical aspect of the air-raid problem seems to be admirably summed up.

The perennial interest of colnmns in The Times devoted to announcements of birtßs, marriages, and deaths—knqwn to the trifler as " hatchings, matchings, and despatchings"—was pleasantly varied by a " centenary" notice, inserted by the centenarian herself. This incident, if not unique, must be very rare; though of course such announcements, as items of news, with pretty domestic embellishments, are not uncommon. Or, at least, they are as common as centenaries. One always expects to be told, at, any rate in .the case of a man, whether the centenarian smoies and drinks; and smokers and anti-smokers, teetotallers and non-abstainers, smile or frown according to the trend of the revelation. The Times's centenarian makes no impertinent revelations, indulges in no conventional embellishment; she takes just her half-guinea's worth of quiet com-' memoration: Centenary. Clutton, Louisa, of Vungay, Surrey, daughter of James and Mary Garrould, of Stexhall. Born June 8, 1817, who now' commemorates her hundredth year. In all seriousness we admire the terse dignity of that unusual notice; and we trust that the aged gentlewoman, born (think of it!) when Waterloo was a matter of but two years back, may live to hear of peace on earth again—a better peace than the peace which followed Waterloo. In the same number of The Times there is a commemorative notice which we are. tempted to reproduce, partly because it is typical and symbolic of many things in these days, partly on account of the fine suggestiveness, the happy audacity, of the, quotation from Kipling. In Memoriam. Butt. —In proud and affectionate memory of Capt. H. A. Butt, The Gloucestershire Regiment, late Assistant Master at Clifton College, killed in action in France, Bth June, 1916.

Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled— Farther than ever romet flared or vagrant st:ir-dust awir!ed — Lhro such n_s forght and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

And ofttimes cometh our wise Lord God,

master of every trade, And tells them tales of His daily toil, of Edeng novvly made; And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid. "In proud and loving" (or "affectionate") " memory" has come to be an accepted phrase in these matters in England; and certainly it combines warmth of sentiment with comeliness of diction. It is a difficult and delicate point to touch on, but perhaps it might be wished, speaking generally, that the commemorative notices inserted in New Zealand papers were marked by a quality of higher distinction, especially as regards poetic quotation.