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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16433, 29 January 1919, Page 6

One has become so accustomed to hearing of new uses for the aeroplane that the news that it is to be used by the Canadian North-west Mounted Police for patrol purposes in the far north excites little surprise. If it is feasible to employ an aeroplane for the final stages of an attack on the North Pole, as is proposed, there can be 110 insurmountable difficulties in the way of an aerial patrol of the sub-Arctic regions which tho North-west Mounted Police havo to supervise. It will be cold work, but not necessarily worse in that respect than some of the land journeys that members of that famous force havo to undertake. And it should greatly expedite their work.

How protracted some of these tasks may be was shown in very striking fashion when in August, 1917, two Eskimos were charged at Edmonton with murdering two Roman Catholic priests in Nqvembcr, 1913. To effect tho arrest of the men, whose identity was unknown at the time, a tiny patrol of the Mounted Police travelled through the barren lands, down the Peace river, past Lake Athabasca to tho borders of the Arctic Ocean. The outward journey covered more than 2000 miles and occupied eighteen months, and both going and coming tho party had to spend several months in winter quarters. The news of the crime took nearly eighteen months to reach tho ears of the authorities, and would possibly never have done so had not some Eskimo woman talked to another of seeing the priests' rifles in the hands of two men. That fireside chatter, hundreds of miles beyond civilisation, slowly drifted down from one to another over th 0 barren wastes until it reached a post of the North-west Mounted Police. And then the long arm of British law stretched out into the wilderness, plucked th<j accused from among their tribe, and haled thein back over a 2000-milo //ourney to stand their trial. The po'Jico patrol made 110 fuss about what they had done; it was all in their work. But the story of their journey is worthy of a place in the annals of tho most famous police force in tho Empire.

Some weeks ago the cables told us briefly of the exploit of soma boys in capturing the city of Lemberg, in Galicia, from the Bolshevist Ruthenians. Full accounts <of this extraordinary affair show thai; 5000 or 6000 Ruthenians, backed apparently by Austria, and supported jfjy German and Bolshevist aid, had seized the public buildings of Lemberj; and Avere oppressing the inhabitants. Then one day four boys attacked a Ruthenian, captured his motor-<;ar, and drove to the munition depot, where, after beating the sentry thej- seized revolvers and escaped. Othdr boys joined them until some sixty, ijiostly about fifteen or sixteen years of age, had barricaded themselves in a school, whence they raided other depots and secured more weapons. Their (.success in the fighting that ensued </rew recruits to their side, until some '200 boys, assisted by a. number of wo;tmen, harried the undisciplined mob f)f Ruthenians all over the city and eventually captured some machine-guns. This sort of thing went on for days, the street figh..ng occasionally be) ng very severe, until at last a strong force of Polish soldiers made its appearance and finally drove the Ruthenians out of the city. But the honours of the affair rested with the youn;g fire-eaters who initiated the revolt against tyranny.

Tho Sailors' and Firemen's Union of Great Britain j s evidently not satisfied that the Pfjaoe Conference is quite sound on the question of bringing the Kaiser to /justice. Its vigorous national organ iser, Captain Tupper, Havelock W ilsoii's lieutenant, is reported to have announced in New York that a groat international moss meeting is to bo held in London next month to demand that the Kaiser be brought beforo an international tribunal to answer a charge of piracy on the high seas, if this demand is not granted h e threatens a worlds,vide strike of the mercantile marine. Captain Tupper said much tho samo thing early last month when lie reached New York in response to an appeal by tho American Defence Society thnt his union should explain to tho American pooplo why it had placed a seven-year boycott on Germany and Germjm materials.

Tho reason for this acfion was easily explained. As we have mentioned before, the Seamen's Union in the early part of tho war conducted the camps in v.-hieh German sailors who had beon serving on British ships were interned, but whon the men in ono of these camps cheered at the news of the sinking of tho Lusitania, by which some 500 Biitish seamen lost their lives, then, said Captain Tupper, "we recognised that a person onco a Gorman is always a. German, and acts accordinglv." j.heroupon the union turned the camps over to tho military authorities. It i~aa then decided to boycott Germany i or two years, and additional crimes of U-boat piracy with an additional month

for each offence, brought the period of boycott up to its present length of seven years. "W e do not stop," 'ho said, "at a mero boycott. Our merchant officers are pledged to salut© .10 German flag in a foreign port, and to sign on no Gorman ship for seven years and our men are not to sail with Gormans or handle German cargo."

And then Captain Tupper told something or what Germany's crimes had cost British seamen. '-In all," he said hg know of ,000 or 011 r men who were murdered. For them.wo demand reparation and atonement. We make no saueal of anything that happens to the 47.000 men we have in the Xaw or its auxiliaries. War is war, and it ?s part of tho navy man's job to kill or bo killed. The boycott i s not for those of th e Navy that have been killed. It is for the 17,000 who were murdered in defiance of all international law and all law of the seas." The Seamen's and Firemen's Union, h e claimed, had a quarter of a million members and the backing of 9o per cent, or" British .'abour. The other 0 per cent, was made up of men of tho Ramsay Macdonald and Philip Snowden type, who posed as the Independent Labour Party and were really tho Bolshevik party. They wero the means of tho Trad© iJnion Congress in August last shelving a resolution in favour of the boycott, but Mr Havelock Wilson was right in declaring that tho feeling of the country approved of it. Tho seamen of France have given their support to tho movement, Ben Tillett with tho Dockers' "Union behind him is in hearty accord with Havelock Wilson, and American seamen have, no doubt beon won over by Captain Tapper"' There is, however, we think, 110 need for the Merchant Seamen's League, which Havelock Wilson formed as the executivo of the movement, to threaten a strike on the seven seas. ITnless all the omens are wrong, Wilhelm will face a tribunal.