The Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15th. 1917. RUSSIAN STORIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1917, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15th. 1917. RUSSIAN STORIES.

The Russia pictured in “Russian Court Memories, 1911-1915,” by “B. IV” is very different from the Russia which revealdd itself last March. Still there is no reason to doubt cither her bonafides or her sincertiy. As in the French revolution, so the court society of Russia of 1910 probably never dreamed that they were on tho edge of a volcano. Their immediate entourage was ns deferential as ever, so they took the goodwill of the rest of the people for granted. The mutinous murmurs from without seldom pass tho palace doors, and there is always the censorship. It is interesting to take these chapters one by one and examine them in. tho light of what we know now. When the author wrote there were certain rumours of abuses too v loud to be ignored. She discusses some of these only to wave them aside as unimportant. Take, for instance, the cliargo of German influences at work u. tho very highest quarters.- She admits that- there was such a party. The nobility of many western provinces was largely German in origin, education' and sympathy. In some families there were sons fighting on both sides. The Russian wife of the Governor 01 Courland would neither speak Russian herself nor allow it to be spoken in her presence; German was the official language in the gubernatorial circles controlled by her. Instances of tno kind qpuld be multiplied, but the author insists that the Germanophile party was of no- great consequence. Already tho breath of slander had not spared tho Czarina. “8.W.” therefore undertakes her defence. Here again her protestations are doubtless sincere, but are unconvincing at this time of the day, and when sho has so many sensational to veil m highly-placed officials and their aristocratic wives proved guilty of espionage and others forms of treachery, one j feels that much of her adulation is < more creditable to her heart than to J her head. For the root she repeats ' the gossip current in camp and court, ! and for what they are worth, her impressions of people and ovents are not. uninteresting. Sho says that the appointment of tho Grand Puke Nicholas to the supreme command was in accordance ivith an arrangement made with General Joffre some years before. Up to a point Joffre’s hopes were amply, fulfilled, but eventually the Grand Puke failed through ovor-oonfi-dence. It was said'in Russia that after the capture of Przemysl he. should have rested content for the. time being,

and that the attempt to cross the Carpathians was a woeful Mistake. After the fall'of the town, so runs the tale, Rouma'nia offered to join and to attack the Austrians, on condition that Bukovina was cedod to her. The Grand Duke refused the offer, because he thought that Russia could gain her objects' unaided; so Roumama » assistance was lost at a time when it would have been of immense value, and before long Russia had reason to repent her action. There arc many tales of this kind. ■