WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1916, Page 6

WAR NOTES.

TARANAKIANS IN COMMAND. Writing from Ismalki, Egypt, under date January IS, 1910, a correspondent says:—

; At present the four companies of the Wellington Battalion are all commanded by Taranaki officers, as follows: 1 Wellington West Coast CompanyTemporary Captain Narbey, Eltlmm. Hawke's Bay Company—Captain McDonnell, late Art; itnnt Xlth Regiment, New Plymouth. I Taranaki Company.—Temporary Major Weston, New Plymouth. : Ruahine Company.—Temporary Captain Urqulurt, Toko. The Adjutant, Temporary Captain McColl, and the Quartermaster (Lieut. Dallinger), are also Taranam .micers Of the four battalion commanders of the N.Z. Infantry Brigade, three are from the Wellington Battalion. HISTORY WILL REMEMBER. "The plain fact is this," says the Nation, ''that while Germany cannot put more than from 10.7 per cent, to 11.4 per cent, of her population into the field, and France only about 10 percent., we, without conscription, have had 14.2 per cent, of the male population of military ages spontaneously offering their services. This is a fact which history will remember. It is a demonstrable teaching of history that little over io per cent. >of the total population can ever be placed in the field. If wc neg. ilcct Ireland, we have little short of the proportions actually available. And because it is possible that 'a handful more may be obta-ined, the order has gone forth to tinge our peculiar glory with shame and to prejudice our hope'of victory by rending the country into factions. No tax, however heavily it reduces the income of the 'reserved' or 'indispensable' rich man, will ever balance the inequality of sacrifice which robs the conscript's home of its breadwinner, or brings him back maimed or blind," adds the Nation. The utmost that can be done is to abolish, while the war lasts, the spectacle of offensive luxury, to shear away the superfluity of great incomes, and prevent the accumulation of private fortunes by the conduct of trades which are starred as national services. The young professional man who is conscripted will often have to break up his home from mere inability to pay 3iis rent, or else run into debt, or quarter his dependents on his elder relatives. His neighbor, whose business is "starved," not only does as well as usual, but makes his extra profit."

HOW BRITAIX SAVED FRANCE. Senator Barenger, in the Paris-Midi of December 22, says that France is now turning out of her arsenals and factories as many guns, shells and other munitions as Germany, and more than England. "Wo are manufacturing shells cf all calibres by hundreds of thousands per day, cannon and machine-guns by dozens, powder and explosives by hundreds of tons." But if the British record is not equal to the French, France none the loss recognises her indebtedness to her "faithful and courageous Ally." "We can never put too highly the services Britain has rendered a'nd is rendering. They are fundamental and incomparable. Without British ships, without the colossal fleet, which has paralysed the colossal fleet of Germany we should have enjoyed neither the freedom of the seas nor th c security of our coasts. "Without the hydroearhures of Britain, without her benzine and toluene, we could not have manufactured our melinite and our other nitrate explosives. We would then hav e been strangled at the outset and compelled to sue for peace after a few months of war.' "Honor, then, to Britain, which has set herself, on land as on sea, to second and support us'until the well-earned d*y of decisive victory I"