The Examiner, PUBLISHED MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY. MONDAY, MAY 10, 1915. The Week’s Cables.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4627, 10 May 1915, Page 2

The Examiner, PUBLISHED MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY. MONDAY, MAY 10, 1915. The Week’s Cables.

THEY have brought the lists of our wounded and so alleviated some anxiety. There are those in the Dominion to whom the week's cables have been momentous indeed. PERHAPS the most momentous of the advices received this week was that which told of the torpedoing of the Lusitania._ Can America any longer maintain the neutrality that has already cost her dear ? the world is asking. Early in the week the sailing of the liner became a matter of cabled import through the messages her passengers received online pier- Civilisation looking on, smiled at this apparent bluff. Saturday's cable has changed the smile to horror. Perhaps no more ruthless and deliberate an insult was ever hurled at a nonbelligerent nation, and it seems impossible that it can be overlooked. It is Germany's intention to goad the United States into taking a part in this colossal conflict. Yet although President Wilson has been almost universally blamed for his nttitude of cringing neutrality it is difficult to see how either side will ultimately benefit by America's appearance, if she appears, at this juncture. At first the gain will undoubtedly be with Germany. In her own esteem she will swell enormously when she can claim the west with the east in arms against her- It will make a better story in history —this counts for much with the Teuton fighting machine—when Ihe debacle is recorded, that she fought against overwhelming odds. And it cannot be forgotten that the enforced neutrality has held bound some millions of Germans who are prepared to make a descent on Canada. The latest outrage has little of impulse about it. Germany is determined to force America into the war- Indeed, one wonders whether America can stay out and retain a scrap of self-respect. Yet her intervention may only extend the battlefield to little purpose.

ITALY is still on the brink where she has been the last ten months. That she manages to balance herself there still speaks volumes for Italian strategy. She is as near to the German boot as Turkey was, but the toe is suspended in air. Indeed, Germany has refrained from insulting her neighbor neutral in a way that adds indignity to her behaviour to Washington, and that gives point |to the reflection that the Country of Machiavelli has proI ciiuced the greatest diplomatists tin Europe. Will the Teuton over get in her kick, or will Italy 3 ise without actual provocation ? only the memory of these years of Austrian aggression arming he hate that is the more deadly because it has been for so long subdued! Or will Italy,_ like 'her own leaning tower,maintain her equilibrium, though it looks impossible r

Mr HELAIRE BELLOC, who genirally knows what he is talking a bout, tells us that the mean of the war news is-to be found in tables from Berlin. Without accepting his dictum as final — 1 ;r he has suffered much at the hands of the English censor and perhaps is biased —we may con--5 ider there is more truth in the I German accounts of the advance | into north Russia than English I advices allow, and we may dis- | count some of the complacency I with which Pcirograd regards her position in the Carpathians. Khrograd is so far front the lighting line and communication is so broken. And Russian statistics we have noticed before are not quite trustworthy. Her scale of enemy losses would depopulate mid Europe shortly, if ike war is prolonged. But the Russian front is firm. We have Inj cause for anxiety there.

I MUCH more disquieting is the cabling re English workers. The Chancellor is now in the maelstrom of liquor legislation. If I English democracy refuses pre- ■ cautions that have been found so efficacious in Russia and France, it will reflect on itself. Surely loyalty should not falter before demands for self denial, when actual warfare is claiming _ self immolation ! And the military authorities are unanimous as to the need of both.

NOT Belgium nor East Prussia has been more torn by devastating armies in the past than has the peninsula. The Australa.s:ans are planting guns and

seizing ridges ou the hilly fringe of a land of historic battlefields. A few hours’ journey would take them to either Marathon or Thermopylae, and it is a source o i pride to their Dominions that their deeds will rank with those of Leonidas. Apparently their position is secure. It is not a far journey to Constantinople now.

CHINA has accepted the Ultimatum, and Japan has deliberately broken all her protestations, in war, as alas ! in peace, greed and cunning know nothing of covenants. Meanwhile we hear little from Japan —and shall hear less of the actual settlement.

HILL 6o is not ours again yet. It is well to remember that even official reports can be trusted only so far as they go. The world last July was reading uncensored cablegrams, but few readers guessed that August would plunge us into war. Diplomacy has its secrets in times of peace —how much more must it hide when war is here ? As far as trustworthy news of this epoch-making struggle can be counted on it is questionable whether cablegram readers of to-day are any better off than their grandparents in the days when Napoleon held the place now filled by the Kaiser or than their grandsires, who awaited despatches from the front a worldfront even then, stretching from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the shores of the Bay of Bengal.