CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 6, 10 April 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

i There is little fresh news from the various seats of war. In the West the Germans claim to have ejected the British from a small lino of trenches at St. Eloi, which were captured at the latter end of March. St. Eioi is 66 miles north north-west of Paris. • Of Bussia, and the Balkans there is practically nothing with the exception that there has heen a flood on the Baltic front, and that the arrest of a Greek spy had been made presumably in Salonika. Holland does not exhibit a great deal of the hysteria mentioned a day or two ago, but is calling up her reserves, and is asking for the return of the documents seized by the British aboard the Dutch vessels. From South Africa and Mesopotamia the very satisfactory reports of last week have been confirmed. The United States appears to have been bluffed again by the Germans, who now say that, the Sussex was neither sunk by a German warship nor submarined. The'.task of proving that the vessel was torpedoed has now to be shouldered by the States. In the words of the song, he (President Wilson) dunno we're 'e, are! In,:connection with the report that Mr Elihu Root is to be run for the Presidency of the United States, although the statement may be premature, it is worth while looking into the conditions attached to the office and the Constitution of the Land of the Stars and Stripes-." -It was on July 4, 1776, that the United States were consisted by the Declaration of Independence, and is a confederation of fortyeight North American sovereign States united together by a federal bond for Imperial objects, the local administration being in the hands of each State. The;government is entrusted to three separate authorities, viz., the Execu- • tive the Legislative, and the Judicial. The'first is vested in the President, who is elected on the first Tuesday in November, every leap year, for four years, by electors appointed by each . State. TKe salary attached to the position is £15,000 per annum and a travelling allowance of £SOOO. The President is commander-in-chief of the national forces and has a veto on all laws passed by Congress, although a bill may become law in spite of his veto, on being afterwards passed by .a two-thirds majority of each House of Congress viz. the Senate of 96 mem<bers, and the House of Representatves, of 435 members.

President Woodrow Wilson's term of office expires in March next ? and the first report of pl-obabie aspirants lor the office come over the cables to-day in the form of a movement to run Mr Elihu Boot. At his age, 71, most men would shrink from an office to which such responsibility attaches, but he is a man of line character and a brilliant administrator, having seen much ser A k vice. He is a lawyer by profession, and besides having been Senator for New York since 1909, he was Secretary for War in 1899 and' 1901-3, and in 1905 followed Senator Hay as Secretary of State. It will be noted that this "Boot" is not an quantity, and also that he cannot "satisfy" the political equation by making both sides equal! Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, in spite of the fact that some of his alleged friends are supporting Mr Hoot's candidature, may take on another fight. Roosevelt, who is ten years younger

than Root was President in 1901-9, and is recognised as the most powerful statesman of modern America. On the outbreak of the Spanish War, he sesigned office as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, raised the "Rough Riders," and led them to the front in Cuba, where they became the most famous regiment. He was vice-President in 1900 and on the murder of President McKinley in the following, year he automatically succeeded him, but was elected by an enormous majority for the Presidency when he stood in 1904. At the conclusion of his office as President, he went to Africa to hunt big game, when his adventures were bruited round the Globe. It has been generally believed that Roosevelt would be the next Republican candidate for the Presidency

Admittedly', the Germans are a resourceful people. In the prosecution of the War they have had many opportunities to cultivate this faculty, and they have not been slow to take advantage of them. Glycerine, as readers well'know, is indispensable in war time, nitro-glycerine being the basis of dynamite and other explosives. Now, the soya bean, which is a fruitful producer of glycerine under special treatment, forms onjs of the largest export's 'from China, in value, about eight millions yearly. Here is where Germany comes in. It has re* cently been discovered that she imports the great bulk of China's crop, for reasons which are obvious to all.