Progress of the War.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16142, 21 February 1918, Page 6

Progress of the War.

No movements of great importance or special significance are reported from the West front to-day, although along the British front Sir Douglas Haig mentions marked raiding activity, doubtless for tho purpose of securing prisoners from whom information can be obtained as to the enemy's preparations for his coming blow. A despatch from Mr Philip Gibbs states that the big offensivo is momentarily expected. Although it is obviously impossible for anyone to forecast tho exact opening of the new campaign, the correspondents on the front should be able to gauge tho position with a fair degree of accuracy, and tho German concentration now being complete and tho weather moro settled, as evinced by the greatly increased aeria] activity on both sides, there is no reason for Germany %o with-

hold her blow, every day's delay now being a pain for the Allies, enabling them to increase their reserves, tho strength of which will probably prove to be the deciding factor in tho crucial test now at hand. The news from Russia indicates an appalling state of chaos, Petrograd apparently being the centre of a saturnalia of murder, outrage, and robbery. Tho German invasion appears to be proceeding without hindrance, no fighting beinr; encountered, xiecording to the cable?. Far from hardening up the I»us:-in;i .spirit and leading to the uniting of tho various factions to repel the invaders, the re-opening of hostilities has apparently struck terror into the hearts of the Bolsheviks, an offici.il Russian message announcing what is practically an unreserved acceptance of tho demands mado by ths Quadruple Alliance at Brest-Litovsk. The late Sir Cecil who retired from tho pest of British Ambassador at Washington at the end of last year, had one quality not common in that department of public life —that of reticence. lie was described as the most silent Ambassador that Britain had ever sent to America, for during tho whole period of tho war, until shortly before his resignation, he never made a public speech. Loquacity on tho part of an Ambassador is always to bo deprecated, but something less than the almost Trappisfc silence, would, ono would think, havo served. On the other hand, of course, America's attitude during the first thirty months of the war no doubt mado it difficult for Great Britain's representative to say anything that might not offend American neutrality. From the point of view of absolute safety Sir Cecil's attitude was perhaps tho best ,to adopt. It was at Washington that the late Ambassador began his diplomatic career, fairly low down tho ladder, and the friendship that developed between himself and Colonel Roosevelt led, in after years, to his acting as best man at the Colonel's wedding in London. Referring to the almost simultaneous retirement of the British Ambassadors at Washington, Paris, and Petrograd, tho "Daily Chronicle" pleaded the "urgent need of bringing fresh blood into a service that has long been divorced from the actualities of modern life." After remarking, without criticising any of the retiring Ambassaj dors, that speaking generally the presi tige of the British Ambassadorial servica stood none too high at present, tho "Chroniclo" declared that Viscount Bryce was the most successful representative that Great Britain had had in tho past decade, and expressed tho hope that Mr Lloyd George would follow the example then set by appointing new men. "The time has gone," it added, "when British interests abroad can be entrusted wisely to men whoso principal qualifications are aristocratic birth or wealth, and who • . . . look with disdainful eyo j 011 commerce." j The appointment of Lord Reading, Lord Chief Justico of England, as British Ambassador at Washington, seems in a, measure to answer the "Chronicle's" requirements. At least Lord Reading—more widely known as Rufus Isaacs —can lay claim to no aristocracy of birth, and in oarlicr years, before his elevation to the great position ho recently occupied, he was understood to look with anything but a disdainful eye on some branches of commerce. A man of groat natural ability, he was the maker of his own fortune. Although he will have the title of Ambnssador, his activity will be generally devoted to other matters than those of diplomacy, which will bo attended to by the Councillor of the Embassy. Of late, there has been, considerable overlapping in the operations in the United States of tho Northcliffe War Mission, the Technical, Military, and Naval Attaches' Bureau, nnd tho Embassy proper. They have all had to transact business with the various American State Departments, and the result has been considerable confusion. It was part of Mr Balfour's work when he visited the States early last year to arrange for the reorganisation of the business methods of the Embassy. The result is that the functions exercised by throe separate agencies, diplomatic, financial, and war supplies, are now combined, and to Lord Reading will fall, besides the oversight of all Embassy affairs, the financial and business problems, a task for which his tastes and training make him peculiarly fitted.

The appointment appears io be a popular one with Americans, partly as proof of Britain's dosiro to got the hcsfc men for important positions; partly because Lord Reading made himself "persona grata'' on his previous visit, and partly, as one prominent papor put it, in welcoming him, because ho is ''an evangel of the new diplomacy." Naturally such an appointment provoked a reference to the mannor in which American Ambassadorial positions are filled by the party in power, and the hops was expressed that boforo long Washington would emulate the precedent established by London, "and put at the Court of St. James an American who possesses at homo and abroad somo of the distinction that guarantees for the new British envoy a highly successful term of dutv."