Llais Llafur

America's War Aims. WRONGS MUST BE RIGHTED AND SAFEGUARDS CRE- ATEB. Mr Wilson. President of the United States, has sent a message to the Russian Provisional Government re-stating the objects of America in the war. He affirms once again that t.he Union seeks no mate-rial profit or aggrandisement, and that she is fight- ing for the liberty, the self-govern- ment, and the undictated develop- ment of all peoples. No territory must change hands except to secure its people a fair chance of life and liberty, and no indemnities must be insisted on except is payment for I manifest wrongs done- The following is the text of the f message:—■ In view of the approaching visit of an American delegation to Russia to express the deep friendship of the American people for the people of I Russia, and to discuss the best and mast practical means of co-operation between two peoples carrying on the present struggle for the freedom of all pcopk** to a successful consum- mation, it seems opportune and ap- propriate that I should stato again the objects the United States has had in mind in entering the war. These objects have been very much beclondoQ during the past few weeks by mis- taken and misleading statements, and the issues at stake a.re too moment- ous, too ti-eniendous, too significant for the whole human race to permit any misinterpretation or misunder- standings. -however slight, to remain uncorrected for a moment. WAR GOING AGAINST GERMANY, The war has begun to go against Germany, and in their desperate de- sire to escape inevitable and ultimate defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using every possible in- strumentality, and are making use even of the influence of groups of parties among their own subjects to whom they have never been just or fair or even tolerant to promote a propaganda on both sides' of the sea, which will preserve for them their in- fluence at home and their power ahmad, to the undoing of the very men they are using. The position of America in this war lias been so clearly avowed that no man can be exeufsed for mistakiag it. She eeks no material profit cr agran- diseraent of any kind. She is fighting for no advantage or selfish object of her own, but for the liberation of peoples everywhere from the aggress- ions of autocratic force. The ruling classes in Germany have begun of late to profess a like liberality and justice -of purpose, bnt otily to preserve the power they have aet up in Germany, and the fcelfish advantages which they have wrongly gained for themselves and their private projects of power all the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond. Government after Government have by their influence, without open con- quest of its territory, been linked to- gether in a net of intrigue, directed against nothing less than the peace and librty of the world. The meshes i of that net must be broken, but can- not be broken unless wrongs already done are undone, and adequate measures must be taken to prevent them from ever again being re- wrapped or repaired. Of course the Imperial German Government anal those whom it is using for their own undoing are seek- ing to obtain pledges that the war' will end in the restoration of the Status quo ante." It was the "status quo ante" of which this inquitous war issued forth, the power of the Imper- ial German Government within the Empire and its widespread domina- tion and influence outside that Em- pire. That status must be altered in such fashion as to prevent a<i? such hideous thing every happening again. | WRONGS TO BE RIGHTED. W e are fighting again for the liberty, the self-government, the undietated de- velopment of all peoples, and every feature 0f the settlement that con- cludes thie war must he conceived and executed for that purpose. Wrongs must be righted, and then adequate safeguards must be created to prevent I their being committed again. Remedies must be found as well as statements of principle that will have a pleasing and sonorous sound. Practical questions can be settled only by practical means. Phrases will not accomplish the result effective re. adjustments are necessary must be made, but they must follow a prin- ciple, and that principle is plain. No people must be forced under a sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. No territory must change hands except for tlio purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty. No in- ) demit-iea must be insisted on except those that constitute payment for manifest wrongs done. No readjust- ments of power must be made except such as will tend to securc the Suture peace of the worM and the future welfare and happiness of its peoples, TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT. And then the free peoples of tho world must draw together in a com- mon covenant, some genuine practical co-operation, that will in effect com- bine their force to secure peace and injustice in the dealings of nations with on another. The brotherhood hi mankind must no longer be a fair but empty phrase; it must be given a structure of force and reality. The nations niut t realise their common life and effect a workable partnership to secure that life against the aggress- iORJ; of autocratic self-pleasing Power. [ For these things we can afford t8 pour out blood and treasure, for these are things we- have always professed to desire, and unless we pour out the blood and treasure now and succeed we may never be able to unite or show conquering force again in the great cause of human liberty. The day has come to conquer or submit. If the forces of autocracy can divide us they will overcome. If we stanq together victory is certain, and the liberty which victory will secure.- We can afford then to be generous, but we cannot afford then or now to be weak or omit any single guarantees of in- justice ^nd .security.

Though claiming no power to peer into the future, a Glamorgan lady, I who: is in her eighty-fifth years, has given several war forecasts which have boen literally fulfilled. She is the mother of Miss Rosma Dai vel. a well-known missioner, who vouches for j theh accuracy of the statements. In addition to pred'c?ing a Europ?aa con. flict, she made the foJimring state- ment tlit-ea day. before the disappear- ance of Lord Kitchener: "The wax wil not progress until we are deprived of Lord Kjtehencr. Aga.in, on the morning iollowi)? the Battle of Jut-! Ian d, before thp, newspapers had pnb- liHhed the factfc^ she came downstairs j I \ith the ne,s "tlla t a tcfr?Me battle had boen fought at sea. Sh? pers?t?d in her statement all day, and then it WxlS confirmed hv tlHi paper. was confirme d bv I

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Welsh illiners' Achieve= ment. t- -9' I Their Part in Biasing Messines Ridj. e. Local tV en in the Tunnelling I Cimpinies. Mr. V ernon Hartshorn, J.P., the I miners' leudcrx, in an interview, stated ) that the South Wales coalfield has reason to be proud of the part playe-l by Welsh miners in the splendid achievement of blowing up the German position along the Meesines I'idge. "The tunnelling companies which did the work of boring under this Gwrman stronghold were recruited largely from among the Wulsh inicet-i-s. Early in the war, when the fighting geitded down to trench w;'rf;>r', the Germans In-gan mining for the purpose of blowing the lii-itisil olit of fheir deduces. rilie Bri- ¡ tish military a-ufbont-ies in greit need of men evtpr.hic of coantering the German plan, and of blowing up the positions which barred the way t" the j liberation of the invaded territory. "There was a groat shortage $f mHi- tary sappers, but the miners of the I country, with tlieir skill and experience I in all forms of underground work, cams to the rescue. "It mu"t not ht- forgotten tlllt thk great military ei liieveuient of blowing 1^1 the Mesuiies l»id»e was don. large- ly by men "ill", with the exception of those taken out of ordinary br-tt;-Iious, were not trained soldiers, but .t*nply Working miners. It was fOlllld th., t:, this work of mkiing was liost dotte bv men who came straight itom the mines with the methods of their ordinary work in the pits of South Wali>B and the otker coalfelds. "The tunnelling companies weve com- posed of ordinary men, like the men the public of South Wales coalfield see going to their work every day; but they have rendered a great military service to the Allies, and, perhaps, they have burrowed and blasted a way to final victory. The response to the ap- peal for recruits for the tunnelling companies was splendid, particularly in South Wales. About a year ago Capt. Edward Gill, M.C., Abertillery, a mem- ber of the Executive of the South Wales Miners' Federation, who was afterwards severely wounded at Mara- et.z .Wood, carried out a special re- cruiting campaign in the South Wales coalfield, and the response for remits for the tunnelling companies had to be stopped very soon. Captain Gill. had valuable co-operation of Captain Gib- bon, of Maestcg, son of the late Mr. J. P. Gibbon, general manager of North's Navigation Collieries." I HOW THE MINES WERE FIRED. M. Andres Tude«<| writes in the "Journal'' :—A machine gun officer who was standing on Messines liidge in order to give warning of German gas shells which bllnt woiselessly,. told me the story of the huge mines which were exploded as a signal to begin the great attack. "Nearly a year ago," he said, "a demand was made in the South Wales coalfields for 200 expert miners skilled at digging and in the art of explosions. They worked for about six mouths at digging for a length of two kilometres (Ii2- miles) under the slopes of the ridge 19 mine chambers under 19 of the most formidable cemente(I and armed fort- resses constructed by the enemy. A gallery for advancing had to be dug for 140 metres, and quadrangular pits, similar to the case of a lift, were con- structed, crammed with high/ explo- sives—25 tOJL,) of them. The electric wires which were to cause the fatal tipark on one second were ready at the end of last winter. Since the 1st of January German Ifroops have been liv- ing without knowing it above a sleep- ing inferno." M. Tudesq remarks upon this story: "Such was the patient preparatory to the outburst of June 7th, this convul- sion of the old earth, vast as a super- natural cataclysm, wrecked the hill, filled up marshes, and changed a wood into a lake of rusty green colour. The mines, in exploding did not make those deep craters which were seen at Pozieres. In this case great masses of earth were violently hurled into the nir and fell back slowly in showers of dirt on trenches, fortresses, aJd their garrisons. "It can be easily understood tint the scene of each explosion became a ceme- tery in which the frightened rats ran between the stones. Twelve hours after the attack repeated dull sounds from the TPmninsof a dugwut were heard bv some soldiers, who informed their offi- cer. Digging was hastily begun, and in, the pit were found four wounded Ger- man officers'dying of suffocation. TheT were sived, and since then along thu whole vast ridge soldiers are listening between the crash of shells for cries of frightened humanity which seems to come from the ot her world." MONSTROUS PITS. Walking about those monstrous mine craters which we tore out of the earth at dawn on June 7, and across the old German lines beyond St. Eloi on the left of our attack, southwards by Wytschaete and the lower slopes o £ Messines (writes Philip Gibs in tlio "Daily Chronicle"), I pititd any human souls who had to suffer what these Genuan soldiers must have suffered in t the agony of fear before death came [ to many of t i. All this great stretch of country is blasted and harrowed and holed with monstrous pits. There was at least one great shell to every nine yards, and at 200 yard? its living steel has a killing power. No idea of it can be conveyed bv many words describing this upheaval of sand- bags and barricades and trenches and redoubts, and this sieve of e.rtli, pitted by countless shell-craters. All the woods where the Germans lived—Oaten Wood f.ri'l Damstrasso Wood and Ravine Wooti. down to Wytschaete Wood and He)) Wood—are but gauiit stumps sticking out of ash-grey heaps of earth. German dead lie here and there in batches or in rows as they were shot- down by enfilade tire, but I have seen verv few bodies, for the most of them werd buried in the upheaved earth,. as otio can tell by the foul vapours which creep out from the s*iaslied treneliOo, where the great dug-omta have collapsed and tunnels have fallen, in, so that all this battleground is a graveyard of men, buried as they died- or before they died. Three men escaped by some wild freak of chance from a mine crater under the Mound by St. Eloi. I stand> on the lip of it to-day, high above its shelving sides, and find it hard to be- liere that any living thing could have* escaped from its upheaval. But the* Germans had many dug-outs in the o)(! craters which existed here before this last one was blown, and after that. ferocious fighting a year ago, when wo- lost this gronnd. One of those dug-outs remained firiri when our mine was touched off, and out of its mouth crept, two days later, three haggard men, still shaking and: dazed, who had been deep in the- grouiid when all about them was hurled skyhigh, with a rush ot gas and flame and a monstrous uproar. They were' unscathed, except in their souls, where- terror lived. By my side as I looked down into this pit of hell, stood a man who had worked for a year in the making o £ it. He stood smoking his pipo on thè- I edge of 4he shell crater, and said \u a cheerful way, "It is good to be in. the fresh air again."

1,250 women fre stated to be em- ployed in men .<r places on the British railways. Mr. Vernoij Hartshorn, the miners' leader, has accepted the invitation to join the Labour Unrest Commission. Seventeen munition workers wer& fined sums ranging from JS7 to C'-) at- Llanelly for having matches or cigar- ettes in their possession at the works. Viscount French is expected to visit Merthyr shortly to inspect the 2nd Battalion of the Glamorgan Volunteer Regiment. Five loaded trucks, set in motion at the Emlyn Coliierv? Penvgroe*, rfttt wild, but feitunately were nirned nsido before reaching the main colliery line. I They crashed into two empty trucks.

I W. A. WILLIAMS, Phrenologist, I cau be consulted daily at the Victoria I Arcade (near the Market), Swansea. I Printed and Published by "Lias Llafur" Co.. Ltd, Ystalyfera, in the County of Glamorgan. Jum. HI, 1917