WHAT AMERICA IS DOING.

Taihape Daily Times, 13 March 1918, Page 6

WHAT AMERICA IS DOING.

America is certainly making a magnificent contribution to the war; she is not only doing more, but is doing it sooner, than she herself, or the rest of the world, expected. She is sending 70,000 men a month across the Atlantic to the Western front, and it is one of the numerous examples of the irony of history in which this war is so rich, that,she is using the great German liners which were interned in New York harbotur, when war "was declared, to do this. The " Vaterland'' for example, the biggest merchantship afloat —54,252 tons —has already made five trips across the Atlantic, carrying men and munitions to help to fight Germany! The "Amerika" of 22,622 tons, is occupied in the same interesting traffic. The Secretary for War announces that America will have 500,000 men at the front before the end of February; 1,500,000 more are ready to follow, and will be able to take part in the fighting of this year. "Many times as many men," he says "are now in France as had been originally planned to reach there at this date." Meanwhile', General Pershing has been authorised to buy equipment in England and clothing in Spain for 20,000 soldiers. In January, America bought 620 of the famous 75-millimetre guns from France, who, it seems, Is able to make more than she needs; American engineers have built 600 miles of railways in France; Congress has voted in all, £500,000,000 for the construction of merchant : sh'ips. This is the largest sum that any nation has ever spent, in a single effort, in shipbuilding. Incidentally, it will leave the United States, when the war is ended, with a bigger fleet of merchant-ships than any Power owned before the war began. This means that, at a very early date, there will be a vast slump in the cost of sea-transit.