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GENERAL NEWS NOTES OF THE DAY. Plans for taking over for operation all American ocean goiiig merchant ships soon will be announced by the shipping board. Charters will be requisitioned under a recent act of Congress authorizing the president to commandeer tonnage for government uses. The program is preliminary to putting Into operation an agreement between the American and British governments for Joint control of the worlds shipping. It will give the shipping board control of ocean fricght rates charged by American ships and a rate basis being worked out will be used for building an international rate schedule. The plan is to commandeer charters and, wherever advisable, let the ship Itself be operated by its owner under a government charter. In this way the government, will direct operations and specify services in wliich ships shall ply and at the same time avoid expenditure of the vast sum of money that would be required If the hulls themselves were taken over. AVhercver operators full to carry out the shipping boards regulations, charters will be taken from them and given to others. Presumbably because of the great allied drive in Flanders, Kaiser AVilhelm summoned a special meeting of Germanys war council in Brussels yesterday. Field Marshal von Hindeuberg, chief of the imperial general staff; Gen. von Ludendorff, the. quartermaster general; the German crown prince commander of the German forces In the Champange; Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, in command of the Belgian front; Grand Duke Albrecht of AVurttemberg, and Aice Admiral Edward von Capelle, minister of the imperial navy, and others will be present. Late dispatches emphasized the importance of the conference in indicating that every German military leader of any importance would be present. Kaiser Wilhelm has just returned from the Galacian front, where he witnessed the advance of the Teutonic armies in that section. General Alexis A. BrussilofT, commander in chief of the Russian armies, has resigned. General L. G. Korniloff, commander in chief of the Russian armies on the southwestern front, lias been appointed generalissimo. General Tcheremlssoff, commander of the Eighth Army, has been appointed to succeed General Kornilolt on the southwestern front. Foreign Minister Terestchenko sent a circular to the Allies declaring it was necessary to take steps to restore the combative strength of the armies. The government, he said, will not be deterred by any difficulties regarding the prosecution of the war to a final triumph. The reorganized and regenerated armies, he said, will at the appointed hour resume their onward march to victory. The military critic of the Muchener Netieste Nachrichten regrets that British diplomacy has been more clever and successful than the German. He says it has been constantly making new allies, until now there are 1,350,000,000 foes against Germanys 150,000,000 and declares that Great Uritains greatest gain in this respect is America. Nothing is more foolisl than arogantly to underestimate Americas entry into the war, he says. "Economically, politically and financially an Anglo-Saxon circle has now been formed and threatens to rule the world unless Ave oppose a central European and Asiatic combination against it. The military importance of America is equally great. She requires only time to become effective." AVith the basic elements of new revenue levies decided upon, the Senate finance committee revising the war tax bill has begun the task of working out the details by which it is planned to increase the bills total from ,070,000,000 to about ,000.-000,000, chiefly through additional taxes on intoxicants and on personal and corporate incomes. The committee hopes to raise the total to be carried by the bill to at least ,99S,000,000, of which about 04,000,000 would be raised by the new levies on intoxicants and on individual and corporation incomes. Additional new taxes are under consideration to raise the balance of 3,400,000. The resolution requesting the President to negotiate revisions of treaties so alien slackers may be drafted into the military service of the United States, was adopted by the Senate AVednesday afternoon by unanimous vote. This is the beginning of action by Congress to reach the men of military age of the nations allied with the United States in common warfare against the German empire, who are enjoying safe asylum from any military service in the United States and permitting the young men of this nation to be drafted to fight their battles for them. . There are 1,200,000 aliens of draft age in the United States. A London dispatch of yesterday says: "Looking from the broadest aspect at the events of the last fortnight in Russia," said Maj.-Gen. Frederick B. Mauriee, chief director of military operations at the war office, in his weekly talk today to The Associated Press, "it will necessarily mean a prolongation of the war. AVe cannot longer count on any great material assistance from Russia. This means a greater burden on the other entente allies, and for the United States it means that she must come into the field as soon as possible and with the greatest possible force." America played a small but important part in the battle of Flanders. A number of American "surgical teams" who were brohght to the front from the base hospital by the director general of the medical service worked side by side witii their British allies in caring for the wounded. Each team consists of a surgeon, anaesthesist, nurse and and orderly, and they have been doing excellent work. The Roumanians have made a twelve mile breach in the thirty mile German front in Rouiuania, according to dispatches received yesterday at the Russian embassy. The Roumanians In three days fighting captured seventy cannon, 100 machine guns and 4,000 prisoners. The Austro-German troops are reported as retreating in disorder before the Roumanians. General Pershing gave the American expeditionary force an example of the strenuous life by sweeping through nearly a dozen villages where United States soldiers are living in France and visiting liearly all training centers, which have been established from Americas first great contribution for the war for democracy.
