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Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16234, 2 April 1917, Page 6

The British have captured a dozen more villages on ; tin© .withdrawal Jtront,, and successful fighting by the Belgians nortli ,ot of Ypres is also reported. ,i/ _iPhilip Gibbs a German communique, which claimed that a thousand . British dead were counted at one place wheye . tlio ■ British casualties were few, .and [ not one corpse was left on the ground. General Sir William i Robertson, .Chief of the General i I Staff i states that tlje German retirement is "entirely involuntary.'' The-French have made .more progress south of the Oise< The 1-Germans made five successive counter-attacks to recover . in Champagne,.; all of wliich were broken with heavy losses. • The British force which is co-operating with the Russians i north-east of Baghdad is reported tto have had various successes* though the Allies -have been subi ject to great, difficulties nn= their .pursuit of the flying, Turks. The I British" are. now holdinre Positions thirty-five miles north and thirtysix miles east, of Baghdad. German light craft hav,e appeared again off Lowestoft, sinking-a patrol trawler and" dis?--earing with the greatest sneed. v An 'Allied Fleet is sunoortir ~ General Murray's operations iji Pales* r tine: where the Turkish psitioa on the Bqersheba railway has ten made untenable, the next Turkish place of strength would appear to be Jesrusalem, distant fifty miles; from Gaza. A new: raider and submarines have done heavy damage in the Atlantic. .

It has been noted that in defining the limit of the "barred zone"' across the North Sea the nliraso >■ "zero longitude", is used in. German Note. ffhis, of -cqiirse, can only refer to tjie Greenwich meridian where it runs through the sea north of Scotlafld. It ,inust have been humiliating fop Germany to admit the world-wide importance of Greenwich in this connection, as an effort had been made to make the meridian of Berlin zero lo^ l "*itude so far as German maps are concerned. Bulb? there is little pr ospect of the /Berlin meridian ever displacing, ifcliat of Greenwich as the reference point for the world's maps and vtime.

Tlie great importance as'signed by the; German Government to Dr Bethmann-llollweg's speech, is somewhat difficult to tenderstand. The speech contained no new indication of Germany's ■no - Upy- The hypocrisy which-re-presents the Kaiser as an angel r of peace—albeit in "shining l ar- | mour''—and the Czar—or iti. imisrlit be Belgium, France, or Britain—as an arrogant' fi-Trasdw

buckler, seeking strife, is old and * fctale, and the sanctimoniousness ,which makes fl)r Hollweg address Mr Wilson ibore in sorrow tjiau |n anger is old also. The world does not need to be told that jQermany does not desirewar with the United States. It is equally convinced that Mr /Wilson does (hot desire war with' anyone, but the German Government, having ' pnade a peaceful policy impossible [for him to pursue longer, must pbide the consequences.

V The ''injured angel" fiction Ijnay be thought a good ruse to Jdeceive the German people, but they,know why they made war two and a half years ago, if they do not know why the breach with lA.merica has happened now. And, as to that, a great proportion of them must be ready and able to form their own conclusion. The Ifact that every Power in the jn'orid, except her dracrooned ollies, which daTes declare itself Jias had to declare itself against Germany, must crive them food ■for thought. The Chancellor boasted of the Success of submarining and the success of the retirement In the weßt, , which inust take a great deal oi boasting to make it palatable, and antaounced that Germany would welcome a peace honourable to both Bides, with indemnities to be ~nid by her opponents. That "eace is impossible. The Socialists, who liave combined for the first time to oppose estimates, would tently bo satisfied more easilv, but they are not the German Government. Thev are the lartrfest- party in the Reichstasr—lo7 members out of 400—but tho Reichstag itself has little nower 5n Germany. It may have more Hylien the war is ended, but the 'Allies' terms _ of "reparation, efficient < security, and emaranfcees" will not be acceptable to feny class until Germany has bean beaten to her kneea.