GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 9 October 1917, Page 1

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

AIR RAID ON GALLIPOLI. Tlie Secretary of the Admiralty makes the following announcement: The Vice-Admiral, Eastern Mediterranean, reports that in the course of attacks on the enemy positions on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Royal Naval Air Service machines sank a tug lying off Chanak. SMUGGLING DODGE. The oil tank steamer Conra<| Mohr, carrying the Norwegian flag, was stopped as she was starting from New York by the Custom House officers, who discovered on her a number of barrels of petrol, in which a quantity of copper, be - lieved to be distilled for Germany by way of Norway, was eoncealcd. BROTHERS' FATE. Two brothers, Private T. Strange and Lieutenant Lionel C. Strange, of Ealing, were, unknown to each other, lighting quite close together, when they were dangerously wound - ed, practically at the same time, 011 July 21st. They sustained similar wounds, were taken to the same clearing station, and died there the following day within a few hours of one another. They were buried side by side in the same British military cemetery.

THE CROWN PRINCE'S WIFE. From a highly authoritative source I am able to inform you, writes a Swiss correspondent of the Daily Mail, that the German Crown Princess attempted to leave Germany for Switzerland, where her mother, the Grand Duchess Anastasie of Mecklenburg, is now residing. The Grand Duchess was waiting for her daughter with a motor car at one of the small frontier stations on the outskirts of Bale, but at the last moment the Crown Princess was prevented from crossing the border. The mother drove away disconsolate. It is common knowledge that the estrangement between the Crown Prince and his wife has recently become accentuated, and that they no longer live together.

SHABBY NORWEGIAN . The mate of the Norwegian steamer Ranvig some weeks ago delivered up to a German auxiliary warship a young British refugee who was on his way home from Ranvig. On the ship's arrival at Bergen, the mate was the object of a demonstration by seamen, who hissed him and threw pieces of wood and coal at the ship. The Ranvig arrived at Aalesund, and was greeted on the quay by more than two thousand men, who bombarded the ship with stones and coal, so that the vessel had to leave port in a hurry. When the ship arrived at Christiansand, workers began to discharge the ship. But as soon as they learned from the newspapers how the ship had been received at Aalesund they stopped work, and the ship had to proceed on her way with part of her cargo undischarged. A MONS GUN TEAM. Driver Frederick Butcher, R.F.A., whose home is at Straits Mill, Rocking, Essex, has been awarded a silver cup, 18in. high, as the only driver in his brigade who has continued through the war with the same pair of horses. The cup was presented to him by the general in the presence of the brigade, at a parade in France. It was delivered to the winner's mother by Captain Stokes, R.F.A., who had brought it to London to be engraved. Driver Butcher, who is still in France with his battex-y and his horses, went out with the original Expeditionary Force in August, 1914. He drove his horses through the retreat from Mons without mishap, although he had a gun blown up behind him, but the harness gave way, and his horses were liberated. He has fought through the war ever since, and has taken a gun into action continuously with the same pair of horses. Of his original battery only nine men remain, all the officers and the other men having fallen. RIVAL AIR SERVICES. In a recent interview with a Dutch journalist, General von Hoeppner, commander-in-chief of the German air service, stated that the German aviators have won the supremacy over their enemies, although the Entente airmen on the western front were numerically superior. On the eastern front, however, Germany is rather stronger, while in the Balkans the balance is again in favour of the enemy. The British, he said, showed in air fights that they are of the Germanic race, for they seek fight, and light until either they or their opponents are killed. German aeroplanes generally are better than those of the enemy,, though the new English Sopwitli triplanes are excellent. The technical preparedness of the French he ! described as middling, and that of the British inferior. "While we Germans consider every flight as a military act," stated the general, "for the British flying is but sport, and, when it comes to a fight, good sport."

"A JUST PRICE MUST BE PAID." A just price must, of course, be paid for everything the Government buys. By a just price. I mean a price which will sustain the industries concerned in a high state of efficiency, provide a living for those who conduct them, enable them to pay good wages, and make possible the expansions of their enterprises which will from time to time become necessary as the stupendous under- . takings of this great war develop. We could not wisely or reasonably do less than pay such prices. They

are necessary for the maintenance and development of industry, are necessary for the great task we have in hand.

But I trust that we shall not surround the matter with a mist of sentiment. .Facts are our masters now. We ought not to put the acceptance of such prices on the ground of patriotism. Patriotism has nothing to do with profits in a case like this. Patriotism and profits ought never in the present circumstances be mentioned together. It is perfectly proper to discuss profits as a matter of business, with a view to maintaining the 'integrity of capital and the efficiency of labour in these tragical months when the liberty of free men everywhere,

!and of industry itself, trembles in the balance, but it would be absurd to discuss them as a motive for helping to serve and save our country.

I know, and you know, what response to this great challenge of duty and of opportunity the nation will expect of you, and I know what response youu will make. Those who do not respond, who do not respond in the spirit of those who have gone to give their lives for us 011 bloody fields far away, may safely be left to be dealt \vi.i.h by opinion and the law —for the law must, of course, command those tilings. I am dealing with the matter thus publicly and frankly, not because I have any doubt or fear as to the result, but only in order that in all our thinking and in all our dealings with one another we may move in a perfectly clear air of mutual understanding.

And there is something more that we must add to our thinking. The public is now as much part of the Government a.s arc the army and navy themselves; the whole people in all their activities are now mobilised and in service for the accomplishment of the nation's task in this war; it is in such circumstances impossible justly to distinguish between industrial purchases made by the Government and industries, and it is just as much our duty to sustain the industries of the country, all the industries that contribute to its life, as it is to sustain our forces in the field and 011 the sea. We must make the prices to the public the same as the prices to the Government.

Prices mean the same thing everywhere now. They mean the efficiency or the inefficiency of the nation, whether it is the Government that pays them or not. They mean victory or defeat. They mean that America will win her place once for all among the foremost free nations of the world, or that she will sink to defeat and become a second-rate power alike in thought and action. This is a day of her reckoning, and every man amongst us must personally face that reckoning along with her. —President Wilson's Appeal to the Business Men.