RUSSIA AT BAY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2612, 6 November 1915, Page 6

RUSSIA AT BAY

A PEOPLE DEEPLY STIRRED PASSION AND GRIEF IN THE HOME (From Stephen Graham.) Moscow, September. There is a dark cloud over Russia. The great defensive fortresses on which the people's mind relied even after the evacuation of Warsaw havo fallen into the enemies' hands. Tho barricades ancl walls of Poland arc broken down and the real Russia is open to tho spoiler, the great sanctuary of the nation threatened by barbarians. There is great passion and grief stirring in men's hearts. There is prayer and sacrifice. Tho women, who at tho beginning of the war lay; down in front- of trains to stop tlie departure of their loved ones, now bid thoir wounded return, and send with them their young ones not yet called to servo their coun-

try. They weep and cry, and yet through their tears tliev look out with bright, passionate faces and cross themselves and say, "Go!" "Go, my darling!" In tho hospitals and lazarets, where lie so many thousand wounded, there is a daily anxiety over the news, and a forgetting of wounds in tho wish to get suddenly well and go out again to the terrible front. In tho streets of towns and villages tho new recruits, the novo-brantsi, make merry with concertinas and balalaikas and wild songs, singing and demonstrating . all _ night long, collecting round the buildings where the wounded lie. And inside m the hospitals tho. pale-faced, wide-eyed warriors stare at the dim ceilings and are anxious and consumed with thoughts. There is talk of 1812 "and of Napoleon and tho arming of tho people. One old patriot 1 met at Rostoff told me that he was ready to so out with picks and forks. "Thoy will never conquer us," said he ; "for the people will not give in. This is a people's war. Let them take Brest and Vilna and Minsk and Smolensk, yes, and oven Mother Moscow, .every mau will arm; we will burn everything, sacrifice everything, _wo will lay all on tho altar of the nation. . . ." Tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. Close Links With Britain. . Englishmen and Russians shake hands when thoy meet, with that cordiality and assurance that comes when friendship is being confirmed in tho hours of trial and suffering. It has come to he Russia's portion to suffer most, to havo all that she counts most dear threatened. But. thero is no thought of reproach. I have noticed that when in private life a friend is by chanco the witness of a death or of a groat sorrow in a family, he is as it were brought into the most intimate inner, circle of the family life, and becomes of one kin and one blood with -them. So with 'England in tho house o'f'Russia these sad days.

, Tho news from every front is read with passionate interest in the home each clay, and in somo towns whore the morning paper conies out at midnight on tho night before, tho people wait up to buy it, and the head of the house reads all the news aloud—from Russia, France, England, Italy, the' Dardanelles —and the rest of tho family, mostly girls, stare at him apprehensively and eagerly as lie reads. ;

I lately journeyed from the Caucasus to Moscow, and all the way wo -went we listened to cries of children trying to shout to us from the harvest fields. For. somo time I could not make out what they wore saying, and then at last I understood—"Gazota" "Gazeta!" They wero crying for newspapers. Whole newspapers were continually thrown out by passengers to these boys, and whenever we got to a new station wo bought new papers and read them, and then threw them out on the wind as our express rushed northward. In tho villages they want papers, and every scrap of print about the war is read aloud by the literate. Eyes on the Dardanelles.. Hop- anxious we all are may bo judged by a recent incident in Moscow. One evening, just as I had got in my samovar, I heard uproarious cheering, and, going to my window and listening, I heard the populace of tho main street near by singing the Russian Anthem. I. left my tea, put on my hat, and rushed out. Whatever was the news —had the French or tho British begun their great forward movement, had the Russians brought off a great victory even in tho hour of defeat? What was it? No,'neither of these tilings. But the Dardanelles had "fallen." So every one assured me. The police, the postman, the newspaper vendor, the man in the'crowd, all said the same thing, "The Dardanelles have fallen. Isn't it splendid ? The Dardanelles have fallen and that makes the German victories as nothing." When I got back home I was rung up on the telephone to be told the same thing. The news had been published, by a Moscow evening newspaper. For my part, in spite of the clamour, I wotild not believe it, for though tho newspaper said it had the news just as it was going to press, it had six articles ou the significance of the victory over tho Turks. One article said-. "Make a note of this day, August 23, for your sons and your sons' sons will remember it!"

It was a shameful exploitation of popular feeling, and a dreary disillusionment awaited the people on the morrow. Progress in the Dardanelles is slow, say the serious gazettes. We must not expect much before the autumn.

The anxiety and feverislmess can only be stilled in prayer and in work. There is a feverish activity in homesj factories, and workshops. One of the commonest notices is the emblem of a sword and a hammer crossed, and tho words, "All for the War," and 0110 reads everywliero quotations from tho Tsar's "Tho enemy must be broken; there cannot be peaco till then"—and, translated from some speech of Mr. Lloyd George—"Let there be no home,.no workshop, not taking its share in the general straggle!" ' Tho spiritual barometer rises rapidly when one passes into Russia. TJngeni, on • tho frontier, was calm, Odessa calm, Moscow calm. The same life in the everyday of tho great city, and nothing except tho shutters of German-owned shops and the absence of young men in the streets to tell of any change during the six months I had been absent from Russia.

Yet, of- course, there are many real changes. Food has become much dearer, not because' it is less plentiful in the country as a whole but because tho trains which in time of peace would be carrying provisions are now yi use for the transport ofmilitary stores, reservists going to tho front, and wounded coming back. Sugar is a penny a pound dearer, bread ja dearer, meat haa been very scarce, fruit, except where it is grown, is very dear. Coffee has almost doubled in price, tea is deirer to tho extent of a threepenny tax on a pound. Railway travelling is 25 per cent, dearer, and train comfort loss. Post and telegraph aro dearer. All imported articles liavo increased in price, and ono pays sd. for a lemon and 7{d. for a packot of envelopes. Then the rouble has docreased in value, and whereas it was onco at 2s. Id., it i 3 no a- rapidlv descending towards Is. This exchan'go is not, however, affecting tho rates of wages or internal trade generally, and fow Russians know to what an ext-eni-their money has depreciated in valuo The banks will not buy foreign money at the present ruinous rate, and you .have .to bajsain, at their, fiounjgrs for st.

nominal rate. Thus for £10 you have difficulty in obtaining more than 120 l-cubles. Gold and paper have the same exchange value, but ono never sees any gold in Russia now. In the 'currency have appeared many antique silver roubles long sinco called in, but now liberated once moro by tlio Treasury, and there are also great numbers of the old one-rouble notes which in July, 1914, were only nsxl on tlio Mongolian frontier for trading with tho Chinese. Tho deliberations of finance committees indicato how difficult is the position of tho Russian Government as regards tho invention and collection of neiv war taxes. Tlio maintenance of tho enormous Russian Arn.y would strain tho financial resources of any nation, and Russia began tho var with tho elimination of the one fr.iitful means of taxing tho masses of her population—tlio selling of vodka. I was curious to see how the vodka : edict was working. When in Bucharest they told mG of riots, massacre, and revolution. I asked myself how such tilings could take -slaco without vodka. I was assured that vodka was being sold off and on. _ That also was a. proGerman invention. Vodka-drinking lias disappeared from tho land. In a. month spent in vsrious parts of Russia I havo not seen one drunken man. Tho Government remains wisely firm ill its bar on spirits, and although illicit distilling and trading has broken out in some parts, every effort, is mado to bring offenders to justice. Russia seems to take to testotalism very cheerfully. There has been a great increase in the manufacture of aerated waters, and it is somewhat astonishing to see officers in fashionable restaurants with lemonade on their tables instead of wine. Everybody is drinking citro. Following tho reverses in tho field three Ministers retired from office, and tho working men SBttled down to their duties in the factory once moro. The Tsar made Ms proclamation to the effect that Russia would fight till tho end. The Duma, though meeting in a critical spirit, announced from all sides its unanimity. Bourtseff has boon pardoned, Vera Figner allowed freedom of residence in all parts of Russia, tho promise of the Grand Duke Nicholas to the. Poles has boon crystallised into tho word autonomy. The workmen are back in the facx)rios and Russia is organising her industries. Organise, organise is the social watchword of the hour. _ And though Warsaw has fallen and Riga is in danger, Russia remains calm.—"Tho Times."