CURRENT TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 66, 22 June 1916, Page 5

CURRENT TOPICS.

Events are moving with great rapidity in the Russian advance into GaJicia, and a close study of the map isnecessary if one is to be in a position to intelligently follow the operations. To-day the cables inform us that General Kaledin is pressing west and south of Vladimir-Volynsk (mentioned tho other day) towards Lemberg between Vladimir-Volynsk and Sokal, which is a town of 12,000 inhabitants on the river Bug, forty-five miles north by east of Lemberg. The importance of the advance lies in tbo fact that the extension of tho Russians' front a distance of eighty miles indicates the near junctioning of tho operations of the army from Brody, which is fifty-three miles east northeast by. rail from Lemberg, and lias a population of IS,OOO. The immediate objective, Lemberg (Polish Lwow) is the capital of Austrian Galicia, situate 355' miles east north-east of Vienna. 1 ' The'population is about 210,000, including 30,000 Jews; Our enemies are so alarmed at success of the Russians' that that 'they have drawn reinforcements from almost all the other fronts. Evert Asia Minor is affected, as all the German officers and noncoms, engaged i nthe defence of the. coast have been recalled to Germany. Then, Bulgaria lias refused to send aid in response to an appeal from Austria to Bukowina. On top of all this, it is very satisfactory to read that •Hiindenberg has received a sanguinary check in his offensive movement at Smorgon, which is east of Vilna, on the Yilna-Minsk railway. We may htill congratulate the Russians on tho splendid fight they are putting up on their long trout in their own country.

Gumurjina (.or uuinurahma, as 'tUe

caoies spelt tuu nburu;, niucn nus oeen

seriously uamageu uy nu attaeK or

x>i:iti»u aeroplanes, is h town ol aOoUt

youOv' ininujitaiiLs «iii 'uiw vu,t>et oi

-Acu'ianopie., ■rs n:Uc-s ' s--iiutu-ivost ut

tii« toivii m .ciumuiujj.i.- uii iJiu uedea-

■gaten-saioniMi ■ mitA'ay. ihe airmen 1 are reported to nave uone «ork,

destroying cut; provision ana munition depots. nu 6 is ail xiio news

irom the Baikan a relating to active operations, but the policy of the biocKado is evidently acting sorely upon tlie country, rim gram supplies in Athens are very low, experts estimating that the supply will bo sufficient only for anotner week or so. "After tins nothing will be left," is the startling conclusion of the cablegram, 'me reported resignation ot M. Skoutoudis, Greek Premier, is all right, though ins successor, M. Zainus, lias not many tickets on the Allies, but it i s quite iikeiy that the policy of the extreme enemy Government is gradually being toned down to suit the requirements of the Allies. An entirely now Cabinet i s to be formed.

The trouble between Hiexico and the United States has not so far developed into active fighting, but all amounts point to a conflict being inevitable. Many .Mexicans are rusiirig to join the colors, and anti-Amovican feeling runs high in the country. Britain and France are reported to be trying to pour oil on the troubled waters, though it is feared any efforts at mediation will be unsuccessful, in an article in this column on Tuesday, the area of Mexico was given at 767,001) "acres" instead of square miles.

German-Americans are bitterly hostile to Mr Roosevelt because they know very lve ll that Roosevelt in the

White House would mean something very close to war between America and Germany. Yet by no means all the. "hyphenated Americans" who arc of German blood remain pro-German. Some have adopted an attitude, of complete detachment from the great struggle, and a few have become so de-hyphenated as to wish success to the Allies. Of this a recent outstanding example is a letter by a Mr ,). A. Scherer, to the Now York ''Times." Mr Scherer is the president of a college of technology, and he speaks of himself as "bearing a German name, ordained to a Lutheran ministry, and formerly president of a college established by German-Americans, and maintained by their descendants," He goes on: "Until a few weeks ago 1 had so far regarded President Wilson's early appeal for neutrality as to observe, witli the most scrupulous care, in every public or published utterance, the strictest abstention from tho expression of opinion on tho war. But the President's 'Neutral' course, lias at length filled me, a,s an American, with humiliation and shame. For fully twenty years my education was solidly directed to the glorification of everything German. Above all, T was taught to admire the German Reformation, and everything that came of it. Moreover, whenever it seemed to mo that its fruits in this country did not quite square with the claims that were made for the tree, I was told that in order for Teutonic institutions to be properly appreciated they must be observed growing on their own native soil. In 1907 I made my first visit to Germany. The result was a violent disillusionment. In my opinion Germany is clutched in the grip of a, Prussianism which, so far as my own eyes can see, gives not a fig for Luther's faith or for vital Christianity of any kind. If a tree is to be judged by its fruits as' I found them in Germany—contrasted with such countries a s America and England, Holland and France—then the tree which I have been taught to regard as tho veritable tree of life would seem to have had something wrong with it."

It is hard for a New Zealander, harder for an Englishman, harder still for a Russian, for a Belgian or a Frenchman perhaps quite impossible, to take a really unbiassed view of Germany. And most of the neutrals are prejudiced one way or another. But if a man of German descent, a college president in America, brought up to. revere things German, with friends and relatives who have German sympathies—if a man of this kind feels himself impelled to side with tlie Allies, to attack Germany and the German spirit, one can hardly accuse him of doing so lor biassed reasons. Here is some of what suck a man has lately said, in a letter published by the ".New \ork Times." He Had just returned from Europe when war broke out. "Startled," lie says, "by the apparent rashness of the outbreak, I shut myself in my study for a fortnight and tried, for the sake of old blood and old tics, but above all for the sake oi fair play and justice, to get the modern German point 01 view regarding this war. . . The further 1 read into German books, seeking the German point of view, the more was I led by these writings themselves away from all possibility of sympathy to a conviction which has gradually become most profound, that the German Government, with its highly efficient Kultur, has, in deliberately willing this wholly unnecessary war, with its much boasted 'frightfulness,' reverted to a barbarism infinitely more revolting than that of the pre-Christian epoch. To say that England and France are fighting our battle on behalf of freedom and justice is to state a truism. ¥et Mr Lansing impartially measures out multitudinous words of protest to England about mail bags unci cotton bales with the .same carefully calculated passion with which he addresses Germany on the subject of murdered infant's. I think the time has conn lor us people who have been trying to maintain respect lor the President of the United States to begin writing a few notes ourselves, and also to ascertain the whereabouts of a certain well-known Dutch gentleman who, whatever his faults, backs words with deeds, and believes unreservedly in that defensive Big Stick without which wo ourselves shall certainly fall before Germany should our defenders, France, and England I'ftll."