WAR NOTES

Taranaki Daily News, 6 March 1916, Page 4

WAR NOTES

BRITAIN'S WAR machine

We seed make no excuse for r»pr»> during here a passage frow an article in the Revue de Paris, written t)y M, Andre Clievrillon:—England's war; machine is mounting up; every day that pastes adds to its size. There you have the thing that frightens the Germans most. She is now at the height of her effort; sho is still capable of hurting but the wear and tear on her resources fit now visible In everything. Her human fuel is running put at a terrifying rate, and its quality is going down; it i« possible to calculate the date when th« actual shortage will begin. Meanwhile, England'* strength is process of being got together—silently, without vain words; and this silence, as anyone who knows England can say, is far more disturbing than all the German tumult of hate. The fourth million of men is being prepared. Strange, ridiculous, "amateurish"—in such terms nay the professionals of Germany have dismissed the Derfjy scheme. What do they think to-day of its success f At the moment, when four-fifths of their t»wn wounded have had to be sent to the front, when the German peeple is talking of nothing else but peace, aid believes that the war is nearing the end, what must their feelings be at the spectacle of these five hundred thousand new volunteers raised in three days, at these crowds besieging the recruiting offices in the sixteenth month of the war!—of masses of men «till pressing forward at two and three o'clock in tM morning to raise their hands, and, (ft batches of ten to a hundred, to take tfct oath that makes them soldiers? The 12,000 or 16,000 facteries that, according to Lord Kitchener, are tuning out munitions for six million Men in the spring, the five millions of pounds sterling that England spends daily without visible effort; this i< England's force: hitherto we have felt it as latent ami diffused; now it is being transformed, day by day, into energy that is actual and real and disciplined for com Sat. It is good to read this French acknowledgment and te feel that it really represents French epinion.

RUSSIA'S WAR ORDERS,

Most of Japan's war profits h»ve com* from sunplying inanitions to Russia : and th<? public here is disposed to regard tli» limit of Russian demand as to some extent an indication of h#w lotig tin strnjrgle is expected to last, wrote I)r. .T. Insram Brvan from Tokio on Tv cem W 28. While ordinary transaction* between Russia and Japan continue brisk, it is'noticeable that since Noveipber iiwt war orders have materially decreased. Though some orders for niore woollen cloth and fuses haui been reeentlv placed, there are now practically iio war orders arriving from Russia. A conversation with General Somonoff, th» !?"«• sian agent in Japan, conveys, the impression that for the present Russia is not placing more orders; and the reasons he gave may in some measure suggest what Russia thinks as to the duration |of the ivar. He intimated that the Russian authorities had now sufficient sup[plifcs to last until September nextj and : the question of replenishing war stores would be considered again onto after (fc wa4 certain that the Avar would 1w prolonged beyond that date. The Russian army was contemplating the mightiest campaign of the war, the hottest of the fight to be in progress about March or April next; and until the outcome of that struggle could be learned, Russia did not intend to lty in further supplies. ,As the opinion expressed by the Russian agent tallies with the information Japanese merchants arc receiving froin Pi-Ire-grad, it seems possib'e that Russia '* not placing more war orders for U.» present.