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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 1917)
NOTABLE CONGRESS OF BRITISH LEADERS TO CONVENE IN LONDON r - I h rC; --w;- V-l V iH,p ! 7 .... t ; tf&'e't'' " 'v. " CONGRESS OF EMPIRE WILL MEET IN LONDON IN MARCH Leaders From Far Corners Will Convene to Discuss Grave Y Affairs of State; Notable Gathermg. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE SEES UNITY IN THIS SCHEME V.VT changes for King Oeorge's dominions, indeed for th whole world, arc bound up in the great CongreaB of the British Empire Which will start here next month. Representatives of the British em pire's leading elements hav met be fore, but more as a matter of cre irtdny than form. This time thev come to I-iondon to do thing's- They will consider and decide all Import ant policies now at issue having to i do both with present problems and ! with those which are expected to come up at the close of the conflict, j I this a foreshadow of the f uturo ; Congress of the World? Many be- lleve not ' In this unprecedented meeting, as In the several military and economic councils of the entente allies ami even in the similar gatherings of the Teu tonic nations and their allies,' experi ence is being gained which will do much to further the world wide co-1 : operation now the goal of most con structive thinkers. . Premier David Lloyd George has promised that the representatives of the dominions shall it with the inner British war board of five members not in the sense that a visitor is in vited to s)t beside a judge on the bench,; but as voting equals. The Welsh leader's, far-seeing eye has discerned' that in this way lies safety for Britain that only by mak ing, the world girdling empire an or . ganlsatlon of peers can real coopera tion and the full development of Brit ; lah strength be 'attained. Members of Council. . Here are the men who will sit in this imposing council: For Great Britain: David Lloyd George, premier: Austin Chamberlain, secretary of state for India; Walter Hume Long, secretary of state for the colonies. For South Africa: General i Jan ?.m"t8 ieJ7in in jrrenuer iouis ioma. . For Canada: Premier Sir Robert Borden. ' V For New Zealand: Premier William Ferguson Massey. For ..Australia: Premier William Morris Hughes. Fprt, India: Two members of the privy council, one a Hindu and one a Mohammedan. What the council will consider was very closely stated by Premier Lloyd George in a "statement to the Austra lian Universal Cable Service, a news syndicate in which the leading An tipodean newspapers are members. He saia: . ""This council' will deal with all gen eral questions affeeting the war. The ' prlm ministers or their representa tives will be members of the war , council. arid we. propose to arrange that alt matters of first importance .hall h nnj1r . 1 m civ .tv nicriiii8( '"Nothing affecting the dominions, th. conduct of the wsr or the negotiation-, for peace will be excluded from the scope of Its authority. There will, of, course; be domestic questions which -each part of the empire must Lf f 4--4 V "-,t' 'T-; settle for Itself. Such domestic- mat ters will be our only reservation. But we propose that everything else shall be, so to speak, on the table. "You do not suppose that our over seas nations can raise and place In the field armies containing a prepon derant portion of their best manhood and not want 'to have a say. a real say. in determining the use to which they are to be put? That seems to us an impossible and undemocratic propo sition. Entire Tmpire to Bo Consulted. "Upto the present we have shoulr red practically alone responsibility or the policy of the war. We now Ylah to know tnat 'n our measures for Prosecuting the war to a finish. In our negotiations ior peace ana m me problems arising from the war and following its close we shall be carry ing out a policy agreed to by the rep resentatives of the entire empire, sit- I ting togethe in plenary council. "Things can never be the same after the war as before it. Five democracies, all parts of one empire, cannot shed their blood and spend their "treasure with a heroism and disregard of cost beyond all praise and in a common cause without establish ing a unity such as never existed until now." Although the British Empire now presents a united front to the Teu tons such a spirit of union has not always marked it history. There have been several times when the empire seemed on the point of disrupting, when it appeared prob able the great dominions would break away from even nominal London suzerainty and set up Independent republics-- course which the em pire would have difficulty in prevent ing. If indeed It could do so at all. War trait es Empire. War has united the empire; first, the Boer struggle, and, second, the present titanic conflict. thendge7 of Gmtn aggression was one of the moving forces which caused the dominions to send their forces for ther assistance of the mother country. Britons believe ythe Boers would never have assumed such a hostile attitude had not. the kaiser's, agents been at work among them. " Then there wits the famous tele gram to Krueger on the morrow of the Jameson raid. In that strange mes sage the kaiser complimented the chief of the Boers on defeating the English freebooters and seemed be tween the lines to promise more than moral support. The British navy pre pared -.. for emergencies, but cooler heads at Berlin squelched the war lord and '. the ' Incident ended in ex planations. - The German-emperor's move was an object lesson for the British do- mlnlMM Thv saw. mm did the A mpri. . . I it- m Y 3 - can colonists in the War of Inde pendence, that they must all hang together or they would all hang sep arately.": : ... ,. . -.V,,,, So it was that expeditions from the Antipodes and from Canada fought side by side with the English and the THE- OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, WAR -i ( ' -- - , " ,j s i T ,v, .'. ir - "iHTif till iff g -iriiiini1"'Wffr Man i Scottish regiments to subduo the hard fighting Dutch farmers. Out of that grew a epirlt of fellowship which for a time dispelled the clouds of dis ruption that had been hovering over the empire. Joseph. Chamberlain, like his succes sor as premier, Lloyd George, had much to do with holding the colonies in line behind the Union Jack. In a memorable speech at Birmingham. England, in 1893, he broached his plan of bringing the colonies into closer touch with Great Britain. On the occasion of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee Chamberlain brought about a great gathering of British colonial premiers in London. Chamberlain's nan of Union. Chamberlain's plan of union was to be furthered by a preferential tariff system, which would favor British do minions against all the rest of the world. This he was never able to bring about. In fact, it resulted in his down fall. Free trade carried the day. as it always has since then, through both Liberal and Unionist ministries. His activities, however, not only showed the cAonies what they could gain from the mother country, but also showed Englishmen how great a strength the colonies would be in time of trouble. The two wars were object lessons for the provincial Londoners. In this war more than 1,000.000 fine soldiers have already left their homes to fight for their king in France, in East Af rica, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt and on the Gallipoli peninsula. On the latter spot they died by the ten thousand in - hopeless attempt to take impreg nable . positions. The caliber of the colonial leaders who- wil) come here Is not inferior to that of the British leaders with whom they will confer. Perhaps the strongr est and most interesting personality among them Is Premier Hughes of Australia. When he visited England for the first time a year ago he impressed Englishmen so deeply that there was some talk of making him premier In stead of Asqulth. or. falling this, putting him in the cabinet with the object of injecting a bit of "ginger" into the conduct of the war. Hughes weigh less than 100 pounds, has chronic dyspepsia, an-) shows about 10 times as much energy as an ordinary 200 pound man in full health.- Hughes' Xnmhle Beginning. He started life as an Itinerant schoolmaster In Australia, carrying a pack about the -country and teaching frontiersmen' children. Then he opened up a little general store near the wharves in Sydney, because ac quainted with the dock laborers and headed the trades union movement. He rose rapidly to be a latfor member of. the assembly of New South Wales, then a member of the Australian com monwealth parliament, then minister of . external affairs, and finally pre mler in the first labor cabinet the nation has ever known. Premier Masey of New" Zealand is an Irishman born, who went to the antipodes when six years old, and was engaged in farming before turning to statesmanship. Like many Australa sian statesmen he has persistently re fused to accept from the king any titular dignities or orders of knight hood, contenting himself with a seat In the privy council. General Smuts was one of the bert Boer' leaders In the war1 against Great Britain 17 years ago. Today h is one of King - George's most loyal and energetic subjects a wonderful tribute to tive conciliatory ability of the ' British empire.- ; s - ? Qt recent Invention 'sa household water heater that can be made to util ize garbage for fueL .,." - . ZON E SCENE OF RENEWED activities have occurred on the west front in recent days ito five substance to the general belief that in the Spring this region will be the scene of the supreme effort of the war. The map re produced above shows the-Somme battlefield with lines drawn to indi cate the advances made by the jtroops in command of Sir Douglas Haig. Tb.e photograph at the left is a study in contrasts. A huge French gun of the type that has held the Germans in check in this region is shown with the ruins of a village church in the background. These are the guns, the fire from which have so destroyed the surface soil that L it will be years before the ground bo much tor the ravages of war. BRITAIN'S PORTS, 1 19 IN ALL, CHALLENGE BLOCKADE Islands So Situated That to Completely Bottle All Ingress by Sea Is Herculean Task; Nevertheless Germany Makes the Attempt. ISLANDS DEPENDENT UPON "With a decline of 3 600 nautical miles to guard, measured from head land to headland, Z0 miles offshore; with 119 ports, large and small, to seal up, 80 of which, even at low tide, are open to vessels that can navigate 14 feet of water; with a larger numbur of bays and other navigable indenta tions to watch than are to be found anywhere eloe in the. world in the same length of straightaway shorelines. Ger many's plan to blockade the British isles seems as near a proposal to ac complish the impossible as anything to which any nation -hitherto has com mitted itself. Indeed, undertaking to combat at once the sinuosities of a shoreline )end lng itself better to defense against blockade than any other of equal length in the world and the greatest navy clvilixatlon has ever seen. It is diffi cult to Imagine how success could even be hoped for by those putting the plan into execution. England Is so deeply indented that no 'part is more than 75 miles from the sea, while Scotland has the most rambling coastline of any country in the world. Ireland Is not as deeply Indented as England and Scotland, but with all that it has shores that make the way of the blockader difficult. Britain's BMpplag Snormons. The vast proportions of the British shipping Industry which the German submarine blockade is attempting to destroy defies comprehension. In nor mal years an average of Z14 ships ar rive at United Kingdom parts from fore4n waters every" day in the yer. Tn addition to that, there are ,780 ar rivals from home ports every day In the .year of ships in the coastwise trade. . British merchant ships have a greater aggregate tonnage than there of all the othercountrtea of the world together. The merchant marine of that nation Includes nearly. 12.00ft chips, of all kinds. Of these, about 2898 are sailing ships and 5300 steam 'vessels employed , in the home ' trade. There are approximately 4000 ataipj engaged in sailing between British and foreign ports. These latter have art average capacity of more than 2560 net register ton. . , " ' How rapidly Great Britain has been . SUNDAY MORNING. FEBRUARY ' 25 .1917. O BSE R VAT ON S BIG DRIVE will again be suitable for cultivation. IMPORTATIONS. OF F00D4 replacing the losses sustained by her shipping? as a result of Germany's sub marine attacks Is disclosed by the fact that at the end of Kit there were 465 steam vessels under construction in British shipyards, more than half of them bejsg ships of more than 5000 ton burden. The aggregate capacity of these ships Is 1,788.000 tons, so that both in tonnage and In number the new craft are replacing those sunk by the enemy. Zagland Dependent for rood. Few countries in the world are so dependent on the importation of food stuffs as the United Kingdom, and fur her not to possess the strongest navy m the world-would be to leave her of all nations perhaps the most vulner able. Probably 90 per cent of all the food her 45,000,000 people consume is brought In by ships engaged in foreign trade. On the other hand, the splendid coal deposits and the abundant supplies of iron make British industries iarselv free from blockade dangers. Produc ing one-fourth of the world's coal, the United Kingdom has little to fear from a coal shortage, no matter what the character of a blockade around her. The port of London handles approxi mately one-third of all the exports and imports of the United Kingdom. The ships of the whole world visit It in normal times, and there is scarcely u merchant flag that civilization knows that is missing in the Thame in other than war times. . Liverpool has some of the most mod ern docks In the world. Flanking' the Mersey river, for a distance of seven miles, the SO docks, having 26 miles of quay and covering 428 acres ef ground, are equipped with every aid known to industry for the rapid handling- of the immense quantities of merchandise. Cardiff-Is far down the list in the number of hip arriving, but ranks third In the total tonnage this being due to the very heavy coal business from that pore Cowes has 24,000 ships a year; Newcastle, 13,000; Portsmouth. 15.000 and Glasgow and BelfastU.OJO each.. . s , .- . . t . . s Bom of Britalm'a rorta. ' With the opening of the Clyde. Glas gow has been brought into direct com munication with oversea lands. Dovr, with Its great .admiralty harbor; Chat ham, with its vast royal dockyard, where 7000 workmen are employed ev-n In normal times; Mlddlesborough, with its great shipbuilding. Industry; Bel fast, with its famous ehip builders; Portsmouth and Plymouth, on the south coast, with their extensive 'port works; Grimsby, Hull, and Aberdeen, with the largest fishing fleets in ex istence; Newlyn and Brlxham, homes of the mackerel fisheries, and Milford and Fleetwood, the port the hake has made famous, are all places full of en terprise, which have been even more active since the war begun that they ever were before a "submarine peril ' was dreamed of. As has been said, the British Isles contain no lees than 119 ports availably for commerce, and practically all of them have been developed for effective1 use. Even . If the Germane have 500 sub marines constructed for the purpose of this blockade, as im claimed, the total makes an average of only about four submarines available for blockading eaoh port. Submarines, with even the largest radius which any of these boats poe sese, are dependent upon a convenient base or upon the service rendered by a "mother eMp." They generally can carry a. moart limited number of tor pedoes, without which they are inef fective, and in addition they are severely handicapped by the very na ture of their operations. . ' -BaTtronmeat Is Adapted. British domination of the sea has not come about by chance. England's geo graphic limitations have compelled her to keep the avenue of ocean traffic open through constant readiness to render naval; protection to her carrying trade, and it is the result of her Insular poarltion that her activities have devel oped on sea and land. What nature has always done for the children of the' wild by rendering them adaptable, through habit and through equipment, to the environment in which they are placed, the English peooJe have done for themselves. Cribbed, cabined, and confined upon a group of island limited in are, ana capable Of inadequate productiveness, even with the most intensive of culti vation, they, were forced, first, to com mand the avenue of supply for them selves and. In order to meet the In creasing expense of such necessity. second, to develop their manufacturing resources to the highest degree. To this they owe the great number of ports whlcn .they now- possess and which, by thetr very numbers, render a blockade, however attempieo, a ner culeaa task. A clearer example of bow nations are limited or .advanced by their geographic environment could hardly be found. Imports by Allies Stir German Writers Berlin. Feb. 24. (L N. .) In env phaslzin; the economic importance of unrestricted U-boat .warfare, German newspapers adduce figures regarding the import during the present war of foodstuff snd war materials by England and her allies. : ; England, these figures shows, ex ported is I91i, a. monthly average of 4.000,000 toss of coat, while In 1919 she exported only . 8,(00.000 ton of eoL . Tfcl decrease was caused by the shortage Hi tonnage. - . Of this amount. England promised France 2.000,000 tons for a necessary minimum. As a matter of fact, she was able to ship to Francs altogether only, 1.500,000 tons. ' . - r m, - Three of svery four German nono genanans are women. SOMME BATTLEFIELD BRITAIN INVINCIBLE ALLIED ARMIES ON WEST 1 ! FRONT WALLOW IN MUD Great Holes Torn by Artillery Fire Impede Progress of Army in Marked Degree; Surface Soil Destroyed,- SOMME BATTLEFIELD' IS MELTING POT .OF' NATIONS f Ry Ellis Ashinead-Bartlett. AT THE end of October last the armies on the western front sank deep iato the mud. Except for the second French ofefnslve at Verdun in December and the British success ful advance north of the Ancre there has been very little movement since then. All the combatants are prepar ing for the coming spring. X Could we have put back the clock for three months I am convinced that rront and Vaux and the quarries , of the struggle, as far as the western Hardenmont. but they suffered twlo front is concerned, would have been , as many casualties from shell fire,, over before Christmas. But we had not j deaths by drowning and frostbite ba the powers of Joshua at AJalon, and ( fore the positions wer firmly con-' therefore the final lsse has been de- j solidated. Think of the fate of some layed. It wss the mud and wet which j of the unfortunate Infantry. They ad alone prevented the allies from press-1 vance to the attack carrying a dead ing home their successes. In every j weight of over 00 pounds. ' engagement more positions are won and i There Is a natural inclination ' (s' more prisoners are taken, but at pres-Jdive for cover when the shelling be-, ent stste of the ground renders opera- comes heavy. A man drops into the tlons at all times difficult, and very nearest hole. He finds himself in flv', often Impossible. . Those who have not , or six feet of mud. He cannot extrl-. been on the Somme or before Verdun . cate himself, and slowly sinks to his tan have no conception of what the : death as if he were on quicksand. " mud is like. The Bomme BattisOela, , ." it may be argued that there has been mud in every war, and the great Napo leon after his experiences in Poland de scribed It as the "fifth-element." But no general who ever led an army either "B. C." or "A. D." ever had to faoe the problem such ss It exists now. It Is a new factor which hss not been experienced before. The terrible mud of the Somme and Verdun is created by, modern shell fire. In normal times the roads might be muddy and the fields heavy, but this would not stop an army. It is the concentration of modern shell fire on restricted areas which brings about these abnormal conditions. hall Xoles Overlap. Modern artillery fire leaves not a yard of a 40 acre field untouched. The shell holes overlap one another, for each cannot find an Independent bed. They make crater six to 12 feet deep, according to the caliber of the shell. The terrific explosions scatter the sur face soil and bring the under stratas to the top. All this ground on which the armies are now fighting will, according to the agricultural commission that visited the front, be utterly useless for year after the war. The surface soil has been so utterly destroyed that no crops or grass will grow there until time and nature eventually provide a fresh deposit. - . - Aa soon as the rain falls these cra ter become filled with thick mud cd water to depth varying from four to eight feet.. It Is over ground In this I stats, that '.all Infantry-, attacks have, new to M iuai ii inn season or toe year. . - The artillery smashes the enemy's trenches to mud and pulp. Tour In fantry . are then launched to-the at tack. " Then .they reach their , objec tive. What 4 they find? Simply the battered outline of what - was one line of trenches and hundreds of Ibese giant holes filled with, mud and slim. They, must lie out in the enes or on the edges of these crater, exposed to a merciless fir from . the enemy's 7 INDESCRIBABLE TO BLOCKADE guns, which have the exact rang until some kind of a fresh trench has- been dug amidst the ruins of the old. . Cost to Xold Vosltiom Xmmemsev. -Consequently in all these latter at tacks it has cost very few men to take a position In comparison with what it costs to hold It afterward Many hundreds of men have - bees, drowned in these latter advances. For instance. It cost the French under 2009 men to retake the positions Of Doua-. , u i- .lmc-at impossible to attentat- to describe the battle of the Somme;. the task Is hopeless; Its dimensions have become too monstrous, its same ness I as wearvlng as " twice told tale vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man," and its manifold horror . wilt, not bear constant reiteration. It la divided Into various subdivisions of scientifically organised slaughter. It is almost Impossible to see or to de scribe what happens on the many sub. divisions of this huge battle front. But day" after day, night after night, , hour after hour, the grim work of gradual attrition goes on. The whole extent of the front- 's swept by two vast semi-circles ef ar- tillery fire. You cannot lose your way. to this International holocaust, for you are guided "by a cloud of smoke by day anda pillar of fir by night." Miles from the front the air vibrates, whilst the rumbling and roaring never', ceases. Some mighty storm seems to be breaking on an Iron coast. At night' the horison glows like some Titan's forge, whilst the sparks that fly from his giant hammer blows make the most awe-inspiring display of pyrotechnics the world has ever seen. Some four or five million men of three Christian nation have been thrown into this huge melting pot, our of which is to emerge a brighter and a better future and a permanent peac. The process i awfuL and other gener ations must judge of the future. .-, , A plow drawn by a motorcycle ha been Invented to keep the ice on skat- , lag rinks smootn. FOR THROAT AND LUNGS wrtmwm oovon us colds - 25 I SOXJ9 BT AX& XAATJIira 2&USQtSTS