The Otago Witness. (WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1918.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3364, 4 September 1918, Page 36

The Otago Witness.

(WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1918.) THE WEEK.

WITH "WHICH IS ISTOOBPOBATED 3313 SOTJTH3SH MBBOT7BI.

"Wunquora allud natura, allud lapleatla ttiilt- - ■-JUTSXIL. "OooiJ nature ana good lent* mart •rer Join.' tan.

-"Thanks to the brilliant leadership of Marshal Foch and the Allied generals, and the splendid valour and enthusiasm of all the Allied troops, the German armies are now in retreat. I feel sure that this is the beginning of the end of the dominance of German militarism." In these words Mr Lloyd George replied to the congratulations of Signor Orlando, the Italian Prime Minister, upon the British successes upon the Western front. The dramatic change in the situation brought about by the brilliant manner in which Marshal Foch has turned the tables upon the enemy is summarised in a few sentences by the Washington correspondent of the New York Times: "Paris is no longer threatened. Direct rail communication be : tween Paris and Calais and between Paris and Nancy, has been re-established. The Allies have wrested the initiative from the Germans, forcing the German High Command to fight a defensive campaign and admit the seriousness of . the situation." This -seriousness is already reflected in the note of depression sounded by the G erman papers. The terrible extent of Germany's losses • is . now admitted, and the Augsburger Post Zeitung goes' so far as to counsel "peace with renunciation" as preferable to the continuation of the war for another year. It may be doubted, however, whether this expression of opinion represents the military mind of Germany ; and not until the people of Germany manifest a mind of their own as distinct from the mind of their military masters is there any likelihood of an early peace. It is such a consideration which has prompted President Wilson to avow that he "solemnly purposes a decisive victory at arms, and deliberately proposes to devote the larger part of the nation's military strength to that end." In which connection the warning uttered by General Maurice is entitled to consideration —rviz., that the present offensive, great though its promise is, lacks weight to carry us to complete victory." One of Mr Philip Gibbs's vivid' dispatches reveal the conditions under which the British troops have maintained and sustained the rapidity of the advance, continually harassing the retreating enemy and not giving them time to save guns or munitions. "Throughout this week," writes this correspondent, "the young Londoners who in April last helped to break the German assaults at Arras by most exalted courage have again been fighting with hearts that have never failed, though some of them have suffered from an agony of sleeplessness, and lain in ditches under the sweep of machine guns." In- another of his pregnant paragraphs Mr Philip Gibbs says: "Our men are marvellous—■ Highlanders or Cockneys, Welsh or South Country, Lancashire or Yorkshire. During the last three weeks they have for ever destroyed all German hopes of victory. By the strength of their souls they have done this, and by the risk of their bodies and by the last limit of human pluck, fighting most of all against fatigue and a Jlesire for sleep, more terrible this time than the enemy ahead." It is such sidelights as these which show the tremendous strain which the present offensive is placing upon the British armies, and it prompts the question which, according to General Maurice, is being anxiously-asked in France: ' 'Will they keep up their drafts?"

Germany in Retreat.

Tho brilliancy of the beginning of Marshal Foch's offensive is admitted An Essential on every hand, and all will to Complete echo Mr Lloyd George's) Victory. hope that it may prove to y>e "the beginning of the end." Everything now depends upon the ability of the Allies to keep the enemy on the move. If from sheer exhaustion on the part of the troops who for the past three weeks have been incessantly fighting, and in the absence of fresh troops to put into the fighting line, the pursuit ceases or slackens, the German High Command will at once take advantage of the lull to establish themselves in their strongest defensivo positions, with the shortest possible battle front, and the war will bo correspondingly prolonged. This is tho meaning of General Maurice's insistence upon the keeping up of the

strength of the British armies as an essential to complete and speedy victory America, is doing wonders, but already the American troops are being brigaded into a separate army, and are taking over from the French their own particular section of the battle front, which means that the help given to the British in their hour of need is now being withdrawn. General Maurice declares that reliance on the annual contingent of 19-year-old youths and the recovered sick and wounded will not be sufficient to maintain the British forces at full strength, and that failure in

thi3 important respect must mean the prolongation .of the war. Ultimately, no doubt, the Americans will provide the needed accession of strength, but the pre 'sent time is so favourable for taking advantage of the demoralisation so apparent in the German armies that the opportunity should be utilised to the utmost. To this end C4eneral Maurice points to Ireland and to the overseas dominions, and especially to Australia, a-s convenient recruiting grounds. "While Ireland is out of the war," he ejaculates, "we are not doing our best." And again: "If Australia could see at work her glorious troops who saved Amiens in April, and who are now, with reduced ranks, driving the enemy along the Somme, the Australian ranks would not long remain unfilled." These appeals have ah especial significance to this Dominion, for, so long as Ireland and Australia fail to realise the full measure of their responsibility in regard to man-power, so long must New Zealand continue to carry more than her fair share of the Imperial burden. For the present, at least, General Maurice's plea for complete victory would seem to make effective reply to those who argue that this Dominion should now cry a halt in the matter of sending more men to the front.

The novelty of the police strike in the Homeland, coming so The Strike swiftly upon the strike of Symptoms. the women transport workers, and taken together with the threatened strike among the coal miners in this Dominion, suggests the urgent' need all over' the Empire of Capital and Labour coming to a better understanding than at present exists among them. The . disease of discontent among the workers, of which the continually recurring strikes are but, a .symptom, is engaging the attention of leaders of thought and action, not only in Great Britain, but in America. President Wilson's Labour Day message sounds a true note, since it appeals to Labour to help to secure complete victory over German militarism as the essential prelude to progress in other directions. "To fail to win," declares President Wilson, "would imperil everything that Labour has striven for and held dear since freedom first was had." President Wilson has made an appeal which deserves to provoke a universal response not-, only throughout America, but all over the British Empire. Speaking of Labour Day, the President said: ' 'Let us make this a- day of consecration, in which we devote ourselves without pause or limit to setting our country and the whole world free. The nation is of a single mind in taking counsel with no special class, serving no private or single interest. We realise, as we have never realised that we are comrades dependent on one another, irresistible when united, powerless when divided. So join hands and lead the world to a new and better day." President Wilson also emphasised the truth that this is as much a workman's war as a soldier's war, implying—if not expressly stating—that the workmen will claim proportionate rewards with the soldier when victory comes and peace is declared. Mr Lloyd George made a similar point when, referring to Labour's part in the war, he said that "victory meant more to those to get their bread by the sweat of their brow than to any other class." And Mr Arthur Henderson at the Labour Conference at Birmingham uttered the same truth from a different aspect when he declared that "Labour desired a victory for its ideals, riot the smashing of Germany and a peace dictated at the sword's point." There may be discerned a reconciliation in these several points of view,, and now that the appeal has been made to Labour, it may he hoped that Capital will exhibit the necessary fraternal proclivities.