The results of the tests are hailed by scientists as a distinct step forward toward errorless calculation of time and distances. It is approximately 4,000 miles from Washington to Paris and the greatest distance over which previous tests of a like nature has been made was 600 miles.
England Training 1,250,000 Soldiers.
All England is talking of the stirring address which Lord Kitchener, the war secretary, made at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, in which he combined high praise for the army now in the field and appearing for war, with an appeal for further recruits to carry the arms of Britain to success.
Lord Kitchener said:
“The British empire is now fighting for its very existence. I want every citizen to understand this cardinal fact, for only from a clear conception of the vast importance of the issue at stake can there come that great national and moral impulse without which governments and war ministries and even armies and navies can do but little.
“We have numerous advantages of resources, men, and material, and that wonderful spirit of ours which has never understood the meaning of defeat. All these are great assets, but must be used judiciously and effectively.
“I have no complaint whatever to make about the response to my appeals for men. The progress of the military training of those already enlisted is remarkable, but I shall want more men and still more until the enemy is crushed. Armies cannot be called together as if with a magician’s wand. In the process of their formation there may have been discomforts and inconveniences in some cases—even downright suffering. I cannot promise that these conditions will wholly cease, but I can give you every assurance that they have already greatly diminished, and everything that administrative energy can do to bring them to an end assuredly will be done.
“The men who have come forward must remember that they are enduring for their country’s sake just as their comrades are in the shell-torn trenches. The introduction of elaborate destructive machinery with which our enemies had so amply and carefully supplied themselves has been[Pg 63] the subject of much eulogy on the part of military critics, but it must be remembered that in the matter of preparation those who fix beforehand the date of war have a considerable advantage over their neighbors.
“So far as we are concerned, we are clearly open to no similar suspicion.
“Our losses in the trenches have been severe, but such casualties are far from deterring the British nation from seeing the matter through. They will act rather as an incentive to British manhood to prepare themselves to take the places of those who have fallen.”