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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16429, 24 January 1919, Page 6

Grave news comes from Melbourne. In spite of all the wise and far-sighted precautions that were taken, pneumonic influenza has broken through the barrier of quarantine, and of twenty-seven cases in the Melbourne Hospital, already four havo terminated fatally. New Zealand has watched with deep and sympathetic interest the stout fight that the Commonwealth quarantine service has made against the attacks of the disease from four directions, and has been gratified indeed at the happy result that up to the > present, when the. worst danger seemed past, had attended the vigilant care of the Australian officials. About a fortnight ago Dr. Cumpston, the Federal Director of Quarantine, remarked that it was recognised that a recrudescence of the epidemic might occur

within a year after the original oatbreak, but it would not be likely to have such fatal results as the latter. Though speaking with professional caution Dr. Cumpston believed, with good reason, that with a continuance of ordinary precautions, the present attack had been defeated. All will hope that the present outbreak will prove merely local and capable of being kept m hand. — It appears, from wliat an official of the Returned Soldiers' Association said yesterday to one of our representatives, that some of the returned men are complaining of the way in which women are holding on to the positions in offices that they took during the soldiers' absence at the front. The same Question lias arisen in Sydney, where a lively correspondence has followed the publication of a "digger's" letter, in the course of which he said that the positions rendei ed vacant in countless houses and institutions bv the men going to war "have been filled by women on the understanding, of course, that they would make way for the soldiel-s when they came back. Have they done so?" ho asked. "Emphatically, no! The girls have apparently decided that the humdrum of domestic life is too. slow for them, the wages they are getting too high to lose."" He urged the Government to "draft out" °all women doing work that could be done by incapacitated soldiers, and thereby set an example to commercial houses and firms.

A provocative letter like that was bound to produce an avalanche of replies. One business girl asserted that the reason why women hung on to their jobs was "the thousands of Anzac brides arriving in Australia. Many girls," she added, "intended to keep positions only until oar men returned* and then to exchange them for homes of their own, but the soldiers have brought out other women for their wives, so they cannot expect that we shall also give them our only means of livelihood." On which point an Anzac officer promptly remarked that the "diggers" had earned the right to marry who, when, and where they chose, and a sapper pointed out that when the American fleet visited Australia, the local girls made a great fuss over the sauors and in a number of cases marriages took place—"it's just a matter of opportunity." ( But the defender of the business girl had many, supporters ; among her own sex, and it was plain that' the action of many Australian soldiers in marrying English girls has aroused some jealousy and no little bitterness, despite the fact that there

are some 300,000 civilians of marriageable age for the Australian girls to pick and choose from, if they do not want, or cannot get, soldier-husbands.

Marshal Foch's statement that tho Rhino must be the barrier to protect tho Allies and civilisation from Germany is apparently a reply to tho declaration by the German Governor of the Rhenish provinces that France's retention of them would ultimately lead to war between France and Germany, as the people of the Hhinoland had strong German sympathies. The terms of the armistice, it will be remembered included tho evacuation by German troops of the countries on the' left bank of the Rhine, which would be administered by the local authorities under the control of the Allied and American armies, tho latter occupying the territories, and holding the principal crossings of the Rhine, while a neutral zone would be set up on the right bank \ about ten kilometres (Gi miles) deep.'

The opinion that the Rhineland must be occupied by the French and become a secure barrier against Germany is very strongly held in France. "Alf our misfortunes, all the sorrows of this war," declared General Malleterre, shortly after the armistice was signed, "came about because Prussia, as mistress of the German people, established herself on tho left bank of the Rhine." She was thus able to concentrate a formidable army, created in a spirit of aggression and conquest, in the Rhine provinces and in Alsace-Lor-raine. "There must bo no Gorman soldiers on the left bank of tho Rhine," the General concluded; "that is how the armistice clause must be understood." That evidently is how Marshal Foch understands it, and he has a way of impressing his views on tho Allies, as well as on tho Germans.