The Cambria Daily Leader

BIBLE CONFERENCE. I Llandrindod Wells Meetings. I The Rev. J. Clifford Banham, M.A., London, was the preacher at the Bible Conference at Llandrindod Wells on Wed- nesday evening, and he said he believed the greatest danger in which the nation etood at the present moment was that it might go through the valley of weeping and fail to make it, what God intended it to be, a place of springs. He could not yet feel that they were ready for victory. He read the story of that magnificent ad- vance with a strangely sinking heart. The heroism of their men surpassed all praise, and they had every reason to thank God for the measure of victory which had been attained; but it would be an awful thing for their sons to give their lives for a victory of which they, as a nation, were not worthy. Did anyone think they were ready for it? Were they satisfied with the religious condition of their land—with the Drink Bill; with that moral condition of the country? There were more young girls on the streets rr i^idon for an im- moral purpose now than ever before, and their men from over the seas who came to London for their leave were meeting temp- tations which they never ought to have to meet. There were houses of entertain- ment in London which were open sores. They ought to pray for their nation and preach for souls as never before. In con- clusion, he appealed for a re-c-tandardisa- tion of the basis of life, and for national and individual repentance. Other speakers included the Rev. J. A. Button, M.A., D.D.. and the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, M.A., D.D.

CURIOUS APPEAL CASE. II The Dependency of a Welsh IIII Child. A curious question with regard to the II dependency of an illegitimate child was considered in the Court of Appeal on Thursday, when an appeal was heard by Constance S. Taylor, an idfant, suing through her mother, from the decision of the Merthyr Tydvil Judge, by which the Powell Dutfryn Steam Coal Company, Ltd., of Ystrad, were ordered to pay to the eltild as compensation for the bth of Norman Frederick Price. Counsel for the infant said the Judge held she was only partially dependent. He submitted she was wholly dependent. The child's mother was a married woman whose husband deserted her. Subsequently Mrs. Taylor went to live with Price, and the appellant was their child. The Master of the Rolls said this was one of the most curious cases he had ever met. Mrs. Taylor was deserted by her husband, who disobeyed an order to pay allowance for maintenance and enlisted. Being a married woman with three chil- dren, Mrs. Taylor received 23s. from the War Office. Mrs. Tavlor. however, went to live with Price, who paid her the whole ■ of his wages. His Lordship declined to assume that the money paid to Mrs. Taylor for the maintpnance of herself and th ree legitimate children was brought into the common fund. The appeal was accordingly allowed and the case was sent back to the County Court Judge to fix the ) amount of compensation on the basis that appellant was totally dependent on Price. I

When alighting from a tramcar at' Wood Green, Henri- Powell, aged 11. j slipped and fell, a. cl was run owr and 11 ^'killed bv a motor 'bns.

TEMPLE STREET. Jury Fees in Arbitration I Proceedings. A meeting of the .Swansea Finance Com- mittee was held on Thursday, Mr. W. W. Uoljnes presiding. The Borough Treasurer (Mr. W,. H. Ash- mole) reported that the sum required by the Harbour Trust, £ 20,000, had been re- ceived. In reply to Mr. Devonald, the Borough Treasurer said the total sum required was E150,000, and 285,000 had been paid. Some conversation took place regarding all item in tlwcash sheet of E42 for jury 1'-('5 i P. connection with the recent case in caurr. t-lie Temple-street property (Photo Supply Co.) The' Chairman asked by what commit- tee's ^utiionty the case came into court, and Aid. Devonald replied it was through the Estates Committee. The Chairman said ti^re was a great deal of feeling in the to*n about it. The Borough Treasurer reported that the receipts on the whole were satisfactory j and the rates were coming in rather better than they did this time last year. He ylso reported that they had renewed three loans at 5 per cent., which were previously borrowed at 31 per cent.

PAINS AFTER | EATING WIND IN THE STOMACH-ACIDITY, jj HEADACHES—CONSTIPATION [j ARE SIGNS I j OF INDIGESTION. U Indigestion—the complete or partial failure of the digestive processes—fre- quently throws out of gear the whole machinery of the body. You can't enjoy the vigour and vitality of good health J unless your stomach, liver and bowels do their work regularly and emciently. 5 do the d;;qentlv. SEIGEL'S I SYRUP 81 As a digestive tonic and stomachic remedy, Mother Seigel's Syrup is esteemed in tens of thousands of homes, wherever the English language is spoken. If you suffer much or little from disorders of the stomach, liver or bowels, try the effect of taking 15 to 30 drops of this famous remedy in water, after meals, for a few daya and note its beneficial effects. ASSISTS n DIGESTION U The 2/9 size contains three times as much as the l £ size. U t:=:J8 C===:J «

I ALLIES' SHELLS INSPIRING STATEMENT ON OUTPUT BY MR. LLOYD CEORGE I Press Bureau, Thursday, 7.50 p.m.—The Secretary of the War Office forwards the following for publication:— I CONFERENCE ON MUNITIONS. A conference to discuss the equipment of the allied forces was held at the War Office this morning. Mr. Lloyd George, Secretary of State for War, presided. Those present were M. Albert Thomas, representing the French Government; General Beizaeff, representing the Russian Government; General Dellolio, represent- ing the Italian Government; the Right Hon. E. S. Montagu, Minister of Muni- tions, representing the British Govern- ment, together with representatives of the War Office and Ministry of Munitions. The Secretary of State for War wel- comed the Allied delegates in the name of his colleagues in the Government, and in- vited a statement of the requirements of each country. He then said:— "Since our last munition conference held in London there has been a consider- able change in the fortune of the Allies. At that date the Champagne offensive had just failed to attain its objective, and the French and British armies had sustained heavy losses without the achievement of any conspicuous success. In the east th" enemy had pressed the gallant armies of Russia back some hundreds of miles, and the Balkans had just been overrun by the Central Powers. I need not dwell upon the improvement which has since that time been achieved in the fortunes of the Allies. The overwhelming victories won by the valiant soldiers of Russia have struck terror into the heart of our foes, and those victories, coupled with the im- mortal defence of Verdun by our indomit- able French comrades and the brave re- sistance of the Italian troops against over- whelming odds in the Southern Alps, have changed the whole complexion of the land- scape, and now the combined offensive in east and west has wrenched the, initiative out of the hands of the enemy, never, I trust, to return to his erasp. We have crossed the watershed, and now victory is beginning to flow in our direction. ENORMOUS IMPROVEMENT. _I It is relevant to the object ot this con- ference to inquire why our prospects have improved. The answer is, the equipment of our armies has improved enormously, and is continuing to improve. When we met last the Russian armies were facing a hailstorm of iron with fieSlh and blood; the British troops wese condemned to en- forced inactivity because our munitions were not equal to sustained attack; and although France had bestirred herself early in the campaign, and under the guidance and inspiration of M. Thomas had achieved prodigies in the way of equipment, still even her resources were inadequate to the task in front of her. In this country we were in the process of adding to old factories and setting up new ones. We had ordered the machinery with which to fill them, but few of these fac- tories had then been erected, and not one of them was completed for work. I think it right to point out at this juncture that the Navy until recently absorbed more than half the metal workers in this country. The task of building new ships and repairing old ones for a gigantic navy, and fitting and equipping them, occupies the energies of a million men. At the beginning of the war the Army numbered a few hundred thousand, and our ars-enals and equipment of the Army were in proportion to its size. We had, therefore, to create out of next to nothing arsenals to provide munitions for a huge army now in the field, whilst at the same time the bulk of our best engineers were working to maintain and to increase the Navy. Most of our new factories are now complete, and most of the machinery has been set iij). Hundreds of thousands of men and women, hitherto unaccustomed to metal and chemical work, has been trained for munition making. Every month we are turning out hundreds of guns and howitzers, light, medium, and heavy. Our heavy gtuis are rolling in at a great rate, and, as for ammunition, we are turning out nearly twice as much ammunition in a single week, and, what is more, nearly three times as much heavy shell as we fired in the great offensive in September, although the ammunition we expended in that battle was the result of many weary weeks of accumulation. The new factories and workshops we have set up have not yet attained one- third of their full capacity, but their output now is increasing with great rapidity. I TASK BUT HALF ACCOMPLISHED. I Oar main difficulties in organisation, construction, equipment, labour supply, I and readjustment have been solved. If officials, employers, and workmen keep at it with the same zeal and assiduity as they have hitherto employed our supplies will soon be overwhelming. The fact that after months of most appalling and unceasing expenditure of ammunition at Verdun France has still a sufficient reserve to con- duct an independent offensive on a con- siderable scale is the best 1 roof' of M. Thomas's efforts. I cannot he'p thrnking that the improvement in Russian ammu- nition has been one of the greatest and most unpleasant sUfPes our (r" lUll has sustained, and we knew ihe efforts Italy has put forth and- the a.<-ppy ren It c'f these efforts in the reecnt struggle in the Alps. Still, our task is -out half ac-cm- plished. Every great h.ittle furni>l es an additional proof that tnis is 1 wtr of equipment. More ammjuyt;o:i means more victories and fewer "as"alti«^ He then dealt with tie needs of the Allies and added: Thse are the main problems we have to consider at ti 65e conferences. We must 'ietD eah other to a solution by mutual effort. Lot us I;rf.i,-e thoroughly the requirements of the various armies. Let us help each other to supply these requirements. Y it-tor y anywhere means victory ever vi've/ After a discussion extead-.ng 4VH seme hours the conference was a Ijourned until to-day (Friday).

ChelEea Hospital for Women has re- ceived donations of £ 1.000 from two anonymous donons to establish memorial beds in the new haspital. There were 275 babies on view at the annual East Ham municipal baby show. They had all been under the care of the medical officer of health at local infants' clinics. Mr. J. J. Virgo, of the Y.M.C.A., who is leaving on a world tour, has been aeked to convey the King's congratulations to the various Y.M.C.A. organisations for their successful work during the war. July 18 has been fixed for the nomina- tion of candidates for Berwickshire. It is expected that Mr. II. J. Tennant. wl,-o is seeking re-election on his appointment as Secretary for -RqotlAiW. will be opposed.

I "GOINC OVER" II THE FASCINATION OF RAIDING GERMAN TRENCHES I I TEDIUM OF TRENCH LIFE The Press Association has received th9 following from a reliable source:— It used to be said that trench warfare had a tendency to destroy a soldier's keen- ness in attack. Nobody who talks with the wounded can think it ha6 had this effect on the new army. Officers and men all speak of the excitement and delight of; "foing over." That is the universal) plirase. One officer put it. f' Going over! means to us a dash into the open air and freedom after the tedious cramping Iiie of the trenches. We were all fed up with the trench life. We had been shut up I behind the bars of our trench all these months, and now we are free. There was no need to urge the men on when they were climbing on and up. They were wild to get out." This was the view of a man from Bed- ford, who was full of enthusiasm for tie great push. It was as though the war had become sleepy, he said, and it was time something was done to end it. The bombardment was wicked." We fired twenty times to their once. But the noise was cruel. We felt it, I can tell you As for the Germans, when we took them, it seemed as if the sound of the guns had got into their heads. They were dazed, more like children than men. Whenever you got near them they began crying, Mercy, kamerade," but when the bom- bardment ceased and we left the trenches! we ware like schoolboys. I had been waiting for this for a year. I shall never forget it. We had been afraid we were never going to get at the blighters, and) there we were in among their trenches. Didn't we let them have a bomb or two. I guess that their Kaiser is not the man was. A "SORT OF PICNIC." In tho same strain an officer from Kent spoke of the fascination of raiding. These little raids are regarded as a sort of picnic amid the tedium of trench life, and a fairly cheap picnic too. He had taken 35 men out on one of those expeditions near Armentieres, and had brought them all back again, one man with a bullet in the log and himself with a bullet in a shoulder. The excitement becomes a kind of passion, he explained, and there is tremendous keenness among the men for the job. Some soldiers want to be always at it. The fun of the whole thing is the look on the scared faces of the Bosch es when you get to their trenches. He thought these raiding tactics one of the happiest in the operations of the war. They had broken the monotony of trench life and kept the Bosches in perpetual suspense. People used to wonder how clerks and the factory workers of Lanca- shire would stand military life, and what kind of soldiers they would make. There can be no doubt of the answer after the events of the last wee k and the wonderful fighting of the Manchœters, I was talking," he said, to one cf the wounded Manchester?, one of ten men employed in a weaving mill before the war. His bat- talion was to start at 8.30 to take a village. another battalion starting at 7.30 to take the trenches. The 7.30 men were to put bridges across the trenches when they had taken them, and the 8.30 men were to follow on and sweep over the trenches into the village. The first rush was an immediate success, and before the 8.30 I men started German prisoners were coming in in great numbers. CHEERFUL PRISONERS. It was a curious spectacle, for the Ger- man prisoners were so relieved to find themselves out of the bombardment that they were laughing and joking, so every- body was in the best of humours, for the Manchester men, all agog to get off, were amused by the sight of the cheerful pris- oners, and they began to think that per- haps the Germans holding the village would be just as happy to be made pris- oners. They started, and they ran straight into a. storm of machine-gun fire. But they went on in little groups of five or six, with cigarettes between their lips and Lancashire jokes in their mouths. Of course they had casualties, my friend among them, but not a man faltered. What will happon to all these spinners and weavers and clerks after the war ? Will they go back to the factory or the warehouse? My friend was doubtful. The charm of the open air was strong on him, and though he wanted something a little quieter than war he didn't much like the idea of going indoors if he could help it. LUXURIOUS DUG-OUTS. An officer in the Lancashire Regiment gave all amusing description of a scene in a trench abandoned by the Germans. Another regiment had been sent to take a certain w. and they had taken over a thousand prisoners. The officers were described as looking as if they were dressed for parade, with their uniforms auite clean. When his battalion relieved this battalion they had to drive the Ger- mans from another line of trenches. When this was accomplished successfully they entered the trench and dug-outs belonging to the officers and men who had sur- rendered and they found them fitted up like dressing-rooms in a hotel. There was elec.tric light, a great water pump, and an abundance of clean linen, boots, washing and shading gear, cigars, cigarettes, and food. It- looked aA if the German officers had expected to be there for manv a long month, and they had never expected this beautifully appointed place to fall into the hands of the British. SINGULAR INCIDENTS. An officer with an eye for the* mys- terious noted two strange incidents in the _I great push. Just before the offensive four dogs came out of the German lines and crossed over to our lines. The Ger- mans whistled and shouted, but the de- serters held steadily on. Our men, of course, hailed it as an omen. The other incident was still more curious. In this war-scourged zone there is a road called Crucifixion Avenue. When our men reached this road they found every tree destroyed by the bombardment, but the large crucifix still stood there, and when examined closely it was impossible to find a single trace of shrapnel fire.

Australia has subscribed over 93,000,000 'to patriotic funds. According to the Amsterdam Tele- graaf," last Tuesday night sorae 5,0001b.. of soap and fat were smuggled into Bel- 1 gium.—Reuter.

STUDEBAKER li: 15 CWT. DELIVERY VAN  P«'CE ?270 COMPLETE. I STUDEBAKER, LTD., 117-123, Creat_t!'8O", W i

I A COUNTRY WiTH EYtS FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE FRONT A" UNCEASING WATCH (By Captain C. E. W. Bean, Official Press Representative with the Australian Forces.) BRITISH HEADQUARTERS, France- Rich green meadows. Rows of tall slender eim trees along the hedges. Low stunted and pollarded willows lining some distant dileii with their thick trunks showing notched against a distant blue hillside like a row of soldiers. Here and there a red roof nestled- among tho hawthorn under the tall tree-s just burst. ing into green. Violets—great bunches of", them—in the patches of scrub between the tall trunks and yellow cowslips and white and pink anemones and primroses. You see the flaxen haired children out in the woods and along the roadside gather- ing them. A rosy-cheeked woman stands in the doorway of a farm at the cross roads and a golden-haired youngster, scarce able to run as yet. totters across the road to her laughing. Only this morning, as we passed that same house, there was the low whine of a shell and a metallic bang like the sound of a dented kerosene tin when they try to straighten the bend of it. Then another and another and another. We could sec the white smoke of the shells floating past behind the spring greenery of a hedgerow only a few fields away. It drifted slowly through the trees and ther: came another salvo. There were eomt red roofs near—those of a neighbouring farm—but we could not see whether they were firing at them or at some sign ol moving troops or some working party if there were any; and I do not know now. As we came back that way in the after- noon there was more shelling further away. Tho woman in the doorway 6iniply turned her head in that direction for a moment, and so did a younger woman who came to the doorway behind her. Then they turned to the baby again. A NIGHTMARE DESOLATION. j Through the trees one could see that the farmhouses and cottages further on had mostly been battered and broken. There was a read running at a little distance and every roof and wall in it had been shattered. There was a feverish insane disorder about the little groups of build- ings there all shattered, burnt, and gaping, like the tangled nightmare of desolation on the morning after a great city fire. Further on was open country again, where the long communication I trenches began to run through the fields- but you could see none of this from where we stood. Only in the distant hedgerows perhaps we might have noticed, if we had looked for it, an occasional broken tree trunk—snapped off short or broken down at a sharp angle by shell fire. Those distant trees would be grow- ing over our firing line or the German. It is a more beautiful country than any we Raw in Gallipoli in epite of its water- logged ditches and the rain which has fallen miserably almost every day since we arrived. There is green grass up to within a few yards of the filthy mud of the front trenches, and not a hinterland of powdered white earth which was all we had at Anzac or at Helles. Here you have hedgerows just bursting into spring and green grass which on a fine day fairly tempts you to lie on it if you are far enough avVay from the lines. The country is flat, and you see no sign of the enemy's trenches or your own-the hedgerows shut them out at half a mile as completely as if they did not exist. WATCHED. But you realise when you have been in that country for a little while that you have eyes upon you all the time—you are being watched as you have never been watched in your life before. You walk along that country road as you would walk along the roads about your own homo until sooner or later things happen which make you think suddenly and think hard. Ycu are passing a dozen of you together instead of the usual two or three, through those green fields by those green hedgerows when there is a sharp whizz and a crash and a shrapnel shell from a German seventy-seven bursts ten yards behind you. You are standing at a corner studying a map, and you notice that .some working party is passing that corner fre- quently on some duty or another. You barely noticed that there was a house near you. Twenty-four hours later you hear that that house was levelled to the ground next morning—a shrapnel shell on each side of it to get the range—a high explo- sive into it to burst it up—and an in- cendiary shell to burn the rubbish; and one more French family is'homeless. It takes you some time to realise that it was you who burnt that house-you and that working party which moved past the cross roads so often. Somebody must have seen you when the shell burst alongside that hedge. Somebody must have been watching you all the time when you were loitering with your map at that corner. Somebody at any rate must have been marking down the distance the party mov- ing round those cross roads. Somebody in the landscape is clearly watching you all the time. And then for the first time you recall that those grey trees in the distance must be behind the German lines; that distant roof and chimney notched I against a background of scrub is in Ger ? man ground; the pretty blue hill against which the willows in the plain show out like a row of railway sleepers is cut off from you by a barrier deeper than the Atlantic-the German trenches; and that from all yonder landscape, which moves | behind the screen of nearer trees as you I walk, eyes are watching for you all day ling; telescopes are glaring at you; brains behind the telescopes are patiently recon- structing, from every movement in our roads or on our fields, the method of our life, studying us as a naturalist watches; his ants under a glass case. Long before you get near the lines, away over the horizon beforc., oii, there in tioal- j ing what looks most like a fat white gar- den grub—small because of its distance. Look to the south and to the north and you will see at wide intervals others, one after the other until they fade into the distance. Every fine day brings them out as regularly as the worms rise after rain, they sit there all day long in the sky each one apparently drowsing over his own stretch of country. But they are anything but drowsy. Each one contains his own quick eyes, keen brain, his telescope, his telephone and heaven knows what instru- ments. And out on every beautiful fresh j morning of spring some the butterflies of j modern warfare—two or three of our own jj planes, lown down, and then a white in- sect very, very high—now hidden behind a cloud now appearing ag-ain across the rift. It is delightful to stand there and watch it all like a play. The bombs if they drop 11 'm are worth risking any day. THE REASON FOR CAUTION. But it isn't the bombs that matter, and it isn't you who run the risk. The ob- < -x U"irok "to -+. I cases but to watch, watch, watch. A motor standing by the roadside, a body of men about some work, extra traffic along a road—and a red tick goes down on a map, that is all. You go away. But next day, or sometimes much sooner, that red tick comes up for shelling as part of the normal day's routine of some German battery. So if these letter from France ever seem thin remember that the war correspond dent does not wish to give to the enemv for a penny what he would gladly give a regiment to get. On our way back is a field pock-marked by a hundred ancient shell holes around a few deserted earth- works. Somebody in this landscape put a red tick once against that long forgotten corner, [We are indebted to the courtesy of the High Commissioner for Australia for the foregoing article.—Ed.]

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i. -u Princess T Arthur of Connaught opened the Church ArmTs Babies' Hostel at St. George s-square, Primrose-hill, on Thurs- day. A taxicab owner stated in the Shores- ditch County Court that on a recent omi. sion he had two jobs, one for Brighton and the other for Newmarket, and that. after deducting running expenses, he had a profit of JB7 for the two days, Distribution of 1,000 oxen to 2,000 Ar. menian families in 4-6 villages in the Rus. sian Caucasus is announced by the Ameri- can committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.-Reuter, Cesare Battisti, an Italian of Italia Irres denta, who was member in the Vienna Reichsrath for the Trentino, and who fled to Italy when the war began, has been killed at "Vallarsa while leading a com- pany of Alpini. Printed and Published for the Swansea Press, Limited, by ARTHUR PAKNELZ4 HIGRAIL at Leader Buildings, twuHta,