FIGHTING IT OVER AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 131, 5 June 1919, Page 6

FIGHTING IT OVER AGAIN

If the American Admiral Sims' would shoot General Maurice, what would he do with Lord French? There is, of course, a big difference between the two casos. The ex-Director of Military Operations wrote his notorious letter while he was still in the military saddle, and while the war was in progress; and the ex-Commander-in-Chief in France addressed the world, through the DailyTelegraph, after the Franco-Belgian operations were over, and long after his recall from the French command. Still, Lord French remains a highly-placed military servant of the State; and people unversed in the disciplinary law of the army may well wonder whether and why that which- is unpardonable iv a Director of Military Operations is defensible in a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Apart from the questions of discipline and propriety, the French " affair" is remarkable for the conflict of evidence it reveals. Mr. Asquith and 'his Commander-in-Chief have practically reached, the relationship of the lie direct, not only concerning Lord Kitchener's mission to France—the evidence of which is partly based on oral exchanges—but also concerning the subject-matter of written communications about which there should really be no reasonable doubt at all.- In due time impartial analysis of these writings will be forthcoming, and one or other of the protagonists will apparently have to rest under a sentence of conscious sentation.Lord Northcliffe's shell campaignhigh explosives v. shrapnel—against the Asquith Government was alleged to have been based on information obtained by Lord Northcliffo from or through Lord French at the Army Headquarters in France. Consistent with this is Mr. Asquith's reference to (and denial of) Lord French's " charge against the Liberal Government of callousness in. failing to supply sufficient guns and shells." In' support of his refutation of Lord French's charge, Mr. Asquith quotes a letter from Lord Kitchener, in which Lord Kitchener "said that Lord French had told him that with the existing supply of ammunition he would have as much as the troops were able to use for the next attack." If this is Lord Kitchener's version of an oral .statement by Lord French, it may not be "evidence"; but Mr. Asquith backs it up with documentary testimony that in November, 1914, " Headquarters asked the Government to reduce the percentage of high explosive' from 50 to 25 per cent." Also, Lord French's assertion that before the war he advocated high explosive instead of shrapnel is "flatly denied" by Mr. Asquith, who adds that he recalled Lord French for reasons that " had no more to do with shells than with the eclipse of the moon." In short, the ex-Prime Minister demonstrates—to the apparent satisfaction of the press, apart from.the Northcliffe anti-Kitchener papers —that the Army did not unfairly suffer because Lord French made high explosive demands which the Government blocked. Lord French's present criticisms appear to run counter to his own eulogies of deceased soldiers and deceased Governments. If the criticisms are not the product of a changed mind, cynical inferences must be drawn concerning the candour of eulogistic eloquence. The dispute is not edifying, but it may result, some day, in a real history and a balanced verdict. At present the inference upborne by mutual recriminations is that at the outset none of the big men was very well fitted to his task. Neither the politicians nor the Generals were trained for war, and opportunist tactics proved a poor substitute for knowledge-of-the-job. The same disadvantage will occur again unless (a) all standing armies are reduced to vanishing point, or (b) Britain maintains a military establishment'equal to that of her rivals.

Advances in prices reported by the Mercantile Gazette this week are in rice, starch (50s per ton), soap, pearl and seed tapioca, desiccated coconut, and hops. The New Zealand Trade Review observes :—"The following retail prices will demonstrate the householders' difficulty in providing a moderate meal at a mod.rate cost:—Sheeps' tongues 2s 3d, salmon Is 8d to 2s, bacon Is 7d, cheeso Is 2d per pound, eggs 3s 6d to 3s 9d per dozen, and canned fruit Is 6d to Is 8d per tin. At thc3e prices the average consunlgr Must curtail cmisumption ( atld tha ei.a.t U Wub {sit itt tlie whol-sals .teftd*,"