DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 91, Issue 14186, 10 October 1919, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

British residents in Tokio had good reason for. some alarm Australia on reading in the Engand lish paper, the "Japan Independence. Advertiser," a sensational report of revolutionary disorders in Sydney. A message in the issue of July 15th, purporting to come from a Sydney correspondent, stated that a few days before a demonstration, "for the independence of Australia," had taken place in the city, "the greater part of the citizen* participating in the movement, and parading the streets with loud cries and songs of independence." It was added that most of the influential Sydney papers had "given out leading articles instigating the people to cut down the iron links with the British Empire." There is certainly a section in Australia that would welcome such a step, but it is a small one, and carries little weight with the sane large majority, and it certainly never organised such "a demonstration as was described. The assertion that the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph were strongly supporting the movement for Australian independence is an even grosser falsehood. The Japan Advertiser must bring its Sydney correspondent to book if-it wishes to retain the confidence of its English readers. Whether it possesses that confidence we are not in a position lo state.

The work of "the .British mercantile marine during American Tribute the war, to to which so many British Sailors. deserved tribute's have been paid, appears" to be as warmly appreciated in the United States as in Great Britain, and there is now on foot a movement to raise ten millions sterling solely among Americans for the benefit of the 30,000 British merchant seamen who were disabled as the result of the submarine warfare. The movement, it is said, owes its origin to an informal talk among some great American commercial magnates, whose gratitude for the maintenance of British sea supremacy, if based on the very material' advantage they reaped from it, is at least to be expressed in a very material way. Rear-Admiral Sims, who was Chief of the American naval operations in British waters during the war, has lent the warmest encouragement to the scheme, which is also supported by President Wilson. The movement has spread rapidly throughout the States. Mr Appleton, who went over to England in August to lift a million for the fund from Americans resident in England, declared that "it needed no dynamite to launch it." Some of the enthusiasm with which it has been received is due to the fact that behind the purpose of the gift is the hope that it will strengthen , the bond of brotherhood between the two peoples. It should certainly give the American people, another claim on the friendship of their British cousins.