PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 154, 19 March 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

It will be noted that Germany has fnade further demands on Russia, claiming the right for strategic reasons to advance her lines seven miles to the east of tho Russian positions at Pskoff. • Probably we shall hear ere long of other encroachments in other' directions, and the protests of the Bolsheviki will •receive just as much attention as it suits the. .military masters of Germany to accord them. It is of interest now to note- the Bolshevik ideas concerning the further' transfers of German forces in Russia. M. Radek, of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who took a leading part in the discussions with the Austro-German delegation in January, was interviewed by Mr. Ransome, tho London Daily News correspondent,, early in the present year on the question of what would happen should Germany persist in her advance in Russia. Mh. RanSOME wanted to know whether' the Bolsheviki would turn to tho old Allies 'of Russia for aid. "We do not want their help," was the reply. "Our-strength lies in our significance, and if we accepted help from imperialist Governments our significance would be destroyed. The weaker we are the stronger we are. They can drive us back, but what good will it do them? 'The country behind the front is stripped bare already. There is not, food for a horse there. They will not want so many million starving people on their hands. What can the Germans do V'

This no doubt was the commonly accepted idea of the Bolsheviki. l What could the Germans do to their own advantage in a country desolated by war, anarchy, and internal disorder? The Germans are showing that what they can do is to take advantage of the opportunity offered them by tho Bolsheviki to dominate tho Ukraine and secure control of whatever food supplies still remain there and to gain advantages of position which will enable them at tho worst to bargain with their enemies and at the best to open up vast territories for exploitation after the war. M. Radek displayed an almost childlike confidsncc in the belief that the German working classes would come to the rescue of Russia if the German war lords persisted in doing what they have been doing for months past and arc still doing—that is, insisting on terms of peace that ignore tho interests of Russia and study only those of Germany. Asked for the reasons for 'this belief M. Radek said ho had spent many years in Germany and he knew. Russia under Bolshevik guidance is likely to sink to oven deeper depths of degradation than she has reached if she relies on the German masses to rescue her from her desperate plight. Already German newspapers are demanding the enslavement of the Russian males in the occupied territories to furnish cheap agricultural labour for German farms. ■ The . chief hope in the Russian situation lies in the fact thai) Germany has ovorrcached herself, and that soon the Bolsheviki may be forced to realise that the best friends' of Russia aro after all her old Allies.

Though the great need of the moment from tl;e Allied standpoint is that the construction of shipping should be expedited to meet a heavy unsatisfied demand, it is reasonable to find much ground for encouragement in the statement. credited today to Secretary_ Daniels that the world's construction of new shipping now excccds destruction by submarines. In the most limited outlook this announcement definitely marks Germany's failure to achieve deoisive results in her underwater campaign, but there is, of course, every possible reason to believe that the point at which submarine destruction is neutralised by new construction marks only a stage in tho Allied progress. Losses of merchant shipping are, upon the whole, steadily declining. Submarines, according to the First Lord of the Admiralty, are now being destroyed as fast as they are built. It is now added that new ships arc being built at a greater rate than ships in service arc being destroyed. Considering that an enormous increase in the output of new shipping is in prospect and that Allied resources undor all heads for hunting down and defeating the submarines are expanding, these facts are of excellent promise. Nevertheless the gravest problem confronting the Allies is that of providing the shipping which is needed to enable • them, by transporting American troops in adequate numbers an 3 in other ways, to maintain the unrelenting pressure on Germany which is essential to victory.

Rather conflicting accounts have been given of the progress of tho United States shipbuilding programme, but according to an American correspondent of the London Observer, tho statement recently made by. Mr. Hurley (chairman of tho Shipping Board) to a Senate

Committee is the soundest warrant for optimism yet afforded. Mit. Hurley, ho said, told those who talked about "pneumatic optimism" and "cabled chloroform" that 1427 ships of 8,578,108 dt.id weight tons were under construction and contract whero 0,000,000 tons aro needed. "He tells them," the correspondent continued, "that seventyfour now shipyards have been started'in the (Jnitecl States since January 1, 1917. I was examining tho blue-prints of ono of the nowest of these yards last night. Tho whole outfit is being put together ] with - tho resultant easy-running compactness of a watch. For the yard > in question is not simply a paper incubation : there are nearly ,17,000 men 'on the job' at this hour, as busy as hornets ... On all tho merchant ships of Mr. Hurley's census taken on December 8 there were 149,272 men at work—an increase of 45.2 per cent, 'in nine weeks. In the • plant of which I have just spoken more than 30,000 mon will be employed when it is in full blast. There aro now two or three shifts where there was one in many of the yards. Mr. Hurley took hold at the end of July. Then there was a tonnage of 840,900 in 1 wooden ships under contract, 207,000 tons of composite 587,000 tons of steel ships. Since that timo the contract growth has added 3,378,200 tons of steel shipping and 504,000 tons of wooden snipping to the .above figures. On. the Pacific Coast, 'the tide has turned.' A few months ago the outlook there was not hopeful. • Now they arc turning out big ships in two months. The month of November alone shows forty-six contracts for 192 vessels of 1,054,400 tons."

Apart from a continued stir of raiding on the West front qnd brilliant achievements by the Allied airmen, few events in the war- theatres arc reported today. While matters continue generally at the stage of suspense, serious developments are threatened in Siberia. It is reported from Tokio that Germany is organising a mobile force of two army corps, together with a considerable body of cavalry and armoured car detachments, for operations in that region. Mr. Balfour was quoted yesterday as saying that he did not believo Germany intended to send a powerful force to_ Vladivostok, but German penetration would be absolutely disastrous for Russia and injurious to the Allies. It is distinctly possible that developments on these lines are now imminently threatened, and that the need for Japanese' intervention has become imperative.