Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

22 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

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NOTES OF THE DAY. :

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

NOTES OF THE DAY. from our London RAIDS ON LONDON. London must now be regarded as a City in the War Zone. Far several nights -in succession it lias "been bombarded by Ger- man aeroplanes, who took advantage of the brightness of the harvest moon to sally forth from Belgium on their mission of destruction and death. Aeroplanes can only be effectively attacked by aero- planes, but in the moonlight our .airmen have the .greatest difficulty in finding the enemy, and it is practicably impossible to distinguish friend from foe. Jn these circumstances we have to rely ^chiefly for defence 011 anti-aircraft guns, with which the inner and outer zones of London are now girdled- The gunners cannot see the enemy planes and have to -rely on the eSect-of a sustained barrage of shells, the menace of which hampers and ihinders the attack and sometimes beats it off entire- ly. Undoubtedly the barrage up to a point, has been effective, for comparative- ly few of the raiders got through; but the rear of the guns kept up sometimes for a -couple of hours has had a terrify- ing effect on the nervous section of the population. On the whole, however, London has been wonderfully calm under the "strain of this double bombardment. The amount of damage done by the enemy in -these night raids has been quite sur- prisingly small. No important building has been struck and no 'military damage of any kind or description has been sus- tamed, but unfortunately a number of people have been killed and injured, all of them non-combatants, and most of them women and children. Barbarism. All the world is horrified at the bar- barism of these aerial attacks on a civilian population. It used to be the tradition in warfare to spare the non- combatant. The Germans have changed all that, and seem to take a fiendish de- light in letting the horrors of war descend upon the most helpless and unoffending sections of a belligerent people. A loud demand for reprisals has found expression I in the British Press in the past week. That demand is natural enough. There is no reason why it should be withstood, though it would be a manifest mistake to weaken our aerial strength on the military fronts, simply in order to gratify feelings of revenge 'by the bombing of German towns. Tfte Mosaic Law. I From the speech delivered by General Smuts en Thursday, it would seem that the Cabinet are fully alive to that danger. At the same time he made it plain that the British Government will no longer be restrained by its old scruples from the adoption of a policy of reprisals. As he truly said, we are dealing with an enemy whose culture has not carried him beyond the rudiments of the Mosaic Law, and to whom you can only apply the maxim, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for' a tooth." But it is the Germans who will be respon- sible for any intensification of the horrors of war. Their "Lusitania" sinkings, their poison gas, their aerial attacks on open towns have branded them with in- delible shame. We are dealing with a nation whose morals are those of the wild beast of the jungle. Ceneral Smuts. What an admirable speaker is General Smuts His address to the Chambers of Commerce, so calm and wise, so full of pith and displaying so masterly a grip of the essential facts of the present situa- tion, will enhance his fame. One likes too, its impersonal note, the entire ab- sence of egotism, and the moral idealism that shines through it, with a clear and steady flame. For my own part, I find more nutriment in the speeches of General Smuts than in those of any British states- man. Mr. Lloyd George can be witty and incisive, eloquent and coruscating, but the texture of his speeches is often very thin and the tone sometimes mean and trivial. Mr. Asquith can be gravely eloquent and is always dignified, but his mind is that of the Nisi Prius lawyer, without richness or glow. Mr. Churchill is a great artist in words, but his flam- boyant periods please the ear, without giving satisfaction to the mind. On the other hand, the oratory of General Smuts sustains and inspires. There is a solid core in his speeches and listening to or reading them, you, realise that this man has both political philosophy and moral idealism, and that he surveys the prob- lems of war and peace as a thinker and a doer. It would bo greatly to ,the ad- vantage of the Empire if this sagacious .and powerful mind could be retained in London after the war for the service of the British Commonwealth. I Food Supplies. I I understand on high authority that there will be no shortage of bread or meat during the winter months if only the people keep their consumption of these commodities down to the lowest possible limits. What is troubling the authori- ties for the time being is the anticipated deficiencies in butter and margarine. A -1 1- falling off in our importation of these commodities to the extent of at least 50 per cent. is a certainty of the immediate future. Holland which used to send great quantities of margarine to this country, is producing less owing to the restriction on sea traffic diminishing the supply of her raw materials. She will now want all the margarine she produces for her own consumption. Denmark, whose people in the past were large buyers of Dutch mar- garine, will have to- substitute for it the butter which they formerly exported to Great Britain. Therefore, for some time to come, we in this country will get, no margarine from Holland and very little butter from Denmark. It is a great mis- fortune that our own production of mar- garine is not nearly adequate to the needs of the British market, and the more deplorable because the constituents of margarine are only grown within the British Empire.

IMATCHES IN MUNITION FACTORY,…

WORI(INC AN UNFIT KORSE.I

BRITISH AND FOREICN SAILORS'…

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A ,.Factory Assault.

Lieutenant's Tragic Death

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To Burry Port Pacifists.

"Simply Quibbling/' -0

Family Notices

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Fire at a Munition Dump

I THE "BHOYS" OF THE LABOUR…

WOMAN'S BAD RECORD.j

THE VISIT OF LORD ROBERTS.\

! B.W.T.A.

ASTERISKS.

I ST. JOHN NURSING BRIGADE.

.Water for Burry Port. I II