12 APRIL 1919, Page 1

It would be quite wrong to regard the retirement from

Odessa as a great military success for the Bolsheviks. Apparently the retirement has been caused, not by any means as the result of fighting, but because of the difficulty of feeding the troops and maintaining a comparatively small garrison among a population honeycombed by Bolshevik propaganda. Still, the fact is disagreeable, and we have to set alongside it the failure of General Smuts's Mission to Hungary. In such circumstances as these he would be an unpatriotic man who undermined the authority of our British representatives in Paris by unnecessary criticism. The situation might of course become dangerous

enough to make outspoken condemnation a positive duty, but that is not the situatio now„ and we hope it never may be.