Progress of the War.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16263, 13 July 1918, Page 8

Progress of the War.

Apart from the Italian operations in 5 Albania few military movements are 5 recorded to-day. According to a Wash- " ington message the Italians have made j another substantial advance in South-1 ern Albania, progressing fifteen miles on a fifty-mile front towards Bera:. 3 On their right the French are also » making good progress and, judging l>y } the extent of the Italian gains and the 1 French report that the Austrians are ' retiring in disorder, it would appear ' that the Austrian defence has been 1 broken through, affording a possibility I of another great Italian victory if Aus- ' trian or German reinforcements are not hastened up in time to prevent'' the present disorderly retirement develop- ' ing into a rout. As in the case of the : recent Piavo debacle, the Allied siig- ' j cesses on their Balkan front will doubt- : j loss add to the troubles of the Central " I Powers ijy increasing the prevailing discontent in Austria and further weak'j enir.'g the moral of her armies. Local s j operations on the "West front continue, I I but they are of no special importance ! or significance. South of the Aisne ■ the French have carricd out successful ■ minor movements and have advanced ' their lino at soveral points, including the " capture ot' Corey. No material change is recorded in the situation in Russia, though the re-appearance of General 1 j Korniloff with a large force at Rostofi: ' mav be the forerunner of important 1 developments. 1 ===== Among the romantic episodes of the . war, the flight of the King and Queen of Belgium by seaplane to England, ' their appearance beside the King and Queen of England at the Albert Hall, • and their rapturous reception by the i groat audience assembled to do honour ; to gallant little Belgium, will always , stand out as worthy of note. Lord . Curzon aptly remarked that King Albert has become a symbol of the world's ' freedom. Like King. George, King Albert has, by his conduct, demonstrated the value of the monarchical institution, at the time when tho unbridled . ambition of the Kaiser has brought it under the keenest suspicion. 9 Mr Massey's suggestion that the Dominions should be represented in the national flag together with the United Kingdom appears to us a little premature. The Union Jack is the flag of the United Kingdom, and the Dominions have their own flags, with the Jack in tho corner as the symbol of their allegiance to the King of England. Tho United Kingdom is entitled to its own flag, and it is not more logical to improve it with badges of tho Dominions than it would be to improve our own flag with badges of the other Dominions. There is spmething to bo said for an Empire flag, in which all tho Imperial partners shall be represented, but - an official Empire flag, it appears to us, ought to wait until the constitution of the Empire is changed from tho present arrangement, which the existing flags represent very accurately. ♦ In a speech on May sth last Lord Newton, who for the past two years has been chiefly responsible for all questions connected with prisoners of war, and who has managed the various negotiations -with Germany in this matter, strongly condemned reprisals against prisoners. The most vociferous cries for retaliation, he said, came from people who wore not personally concerned, and were in no danger themselves. ally he believed that the general principle should be to treat priloners of war well.. "It was good policy, and it paid best." Retaliation, however, could not be altogether ruled out, although it should be employed only as a hist resource, ami then not for the purpose of revenge, but solely to ameliorate the condition of our own men. When he spoke retaliation had been in progress at one German officers' cahip in Britain as a conscquence of the persistent refusal of one German Commander to remove tho grievances of English officer prisoners. One of the difficulties was that every German corps commander was a law unto himself, and only responsible to the Emperor, "that Imperial hypocrite who had ncvei'lifted a finger to alleviate tho sufferings of a j single British prisoner." Lord Newton incidentally mentioned that it is "a , complete fallacy" that British pri- i soners of war are worse treated by the i Germans than prisoners of other nation- 1 alities. j British authors are complaining that j in dealing with the paper shortage the i British authorities are not putting first 1 things first. At the annual meeting of ' the Authors' Society, Mr Bernard Shaw 1 declared that for other purposes than literature there was an unbounded supply of paper, and ho seemed to at- , tribute this to the fact that the people j in charge of the rationing, being prac- I tical business men, comprised "totally illiterate peoplo, quite unconscious of the 'intellectual life of the community, j and ready to sacrifice education or 1 literature for the immediate purposes ' of the war." One can sympathise with ' Mr Shaw, but the blame does not rest c entirely with the illiterate business j men. The publishers obtain enough ; paper to print almost any amount of : inferior novels. Few novels published ( nowadays have much greater merit than ' a kinema film, and some have not even ! ) so much. It is the public that gobbles 1 i the novels that should boar the blame I r of injuring literature. t r ■ 1