Germany’s latest

Neutral nations aroused

Plain warning from New York

Heavy fighting in the east

Hate, someone has remarked, is the child of fear and this explains with simple brevity the attitude of Germany to England.

That fear also expresses itself in other ways including the breaches of international laws and the wilful blindness to the consequence.

Their latest blunder, the proclamations of the waters of Great Britain and Iceland as a military area and the amazing threat to torpedo neutral ships because of an imaginary instruction by the British Admiralty that our merchant ships should use neutral flags, has aroused the indignation of the world.

Hitherto neutral nations perhaps not wholly alive to their obligations in respect to sundry scraps of paper have held aloof. If Germany persists in her mad course protests will soon be flying around.

Moreover the sinking of the first neutral ship should lead immediately to the participation in the war of the nation affected.

It is to be hoped the German public will have an opportunity of reading some accurate translations of the comments of the Unites States and other newspapers.

It was suggested yesterday that before settling down to the inevitable defensive, Germany would lash out vigorously on both fronts either simultaneously or successively.

The news of the last few days suggests that the latter method has been decided upon and the indications are that the first great offensive is already being directed against Russia.

The special telegrams which reached us yesterday afternoon contained brief but thrilling stories of the fighting going on in the east and there is good reason to believe that the Kaiser has issued one of his stereotyped at all costs orders, the name inserted this time being Warsaw.

Russia is probably selected for this initial effort in this last desperate gamble because even now the difficulties of equipping the Czars armies have not all been surmounted.

All the same the effort seems doomed to failure. At one time it appeared likely that the pressure on the Carpathian front would yield good results for the enemy but the official report issued from Petrograd yesterday shows plainly that the Russians are still well placed in at lest one of the more important passes.

There is no record either of retirement for the Dukia or Lupkow passes and indeed the evidence is all in the direction of a successful defence of the major portion of the positions already occupied.

The Austro German forces have lost heavily here as elsewhere and though the heart has not entirely been taken out of them the loss of men is likely to be followed by an evanescence of morale and then once more the Russians will be ready to descend into the Hungarian lowlands.

It is quite sufficient for the Russian purpose to capture the heights and force one of these passes but if they can steam through the whole of them from the Dukia down to the Borgo they will sweep over the plains like a devastating flood.

The most important statement in the Petrograd communique relates to the fighting in Poland and the desperate battle raging 30 miles from Warsaw.

Here again it is evident that the German losses have been horrific and altogether on a battle front of little more than six miles the Germans have lost about 30,000 men.