THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners' Advocate. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1917. WAR TOPICS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 44, 8 June 1917, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN and Miners' Advocate. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1917. WAR TOPICS.

The military consequences of Russia's failure to carry out her part of the combined campaign against the Austro-German forces is referred to by Colonel Repington in a recent despatch to London. He points out that the Allies had a great lighting chance of bringing Germany to her knees in 1917, but Russia’s failure to uphold her end will at least prolong the war for another year unless the Russian armies are promptly placed on a footing to renew her mighty deeds. The fixed date for the Russian offensive has now long passed, and only four months of summer remain in which a Russian cam paign will be possible. It is slated that as the direct result of the inactivity of the Russians the Germans have been able to increase their Western armies to 156 divisions, though there is evidence enough that the Allies are quite prepared to meet the extra stiffening of the German defence.

Later news gives a more hopeful view of the Russian situation —under the influence of M. Kerensky (the new War Minister), who has just completed a tour of the whole of Russia and the fighting fronts. The Minister gives assurance that notwithstanding the destruction of the old discipline, the power of the army Was increasing daily, and was based on a new intelligence and discipline; also that fraternisation with the enemy had completely ceased.

The cheering news that the Federal Shipping Board of the United States is making plans for the construction of 1000 additional wooden ships to meet the submarine menace has had a good effect in shipping circles. Mr J. W. Isherwood, the inventor of the famous Isherwood system of ship construction, discussed the possibilities of the plan with a newspaper representative recently. Mr Isherwood has recently returned from the United States, where he was in close touch with what is going forward. The "sea jitneys” are schooner-rigged wooden sailing ships, fitted with' what are known as semiDiesel auxiliary engines capable of driving them at seven or eight miles an hour when the wind drops. There are 200 of these vessels at present on the stocks, each with a carrying capacity of from 1000 to 3500 tons. The total tonnage of this kind in hand is 412,000 (actual carrying capacity), but a very large number more vessels are on order. Of course, the addition of

another 1000 ships will present difficulties, but they can be overcome if the Government takes the matter in hand seriously, as there is every prospect that it will do. Suitable wood is plentiful. Yards arc springing up everywhere, both on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. There can be no doubt that the manufacture of engines will soon catch up with the accelerated rate of building, for the resources of the States ’ll this direction are prodigious.

The importance of the Mesopotamia campaign and the Russian operations m the Caucasus and Persia is more real tlm i it appears to the casua> observer. 'ihc seizure of the Bagdad railway —apart from its effect on the war situation— would be of immense advantage to Great Britain both now and in the future. If would spoil the German dream of conquest, and place in our hands practically a through railway route from London to India in nine days seventeen hours, and cut out more than half the sea-travelling bee tween New Zealand and England. Mr H. Charles Woods said in a lecture on the Bagdad Railway that he gave before the Royal Geographical Society recently that on the completion of the Taurus tunnels last November it became possible to travel 1100 miles of the 1500 miles between Constantinople and Bagdad by train. From a junction ten miles north of Aleppo the line from Haidar, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, runs to Eas-el-Ain, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. There is then a break of about 300 or 400 miles, followed by another 100 miles of railway from Tekrit, or Samara, to Bagdad. Mr Woods added: "Before the war it was intended, on the completion of the railway to the Persian Gulf, to run a weekly express train from Constantinople to Aleppo, and subsequently a fortnightly express to Basra, on the Gulf.”