RUSSIA AND JAPAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7928, 8 October 1904, Page 5

RUSSIA AND JAPAN.

Doomed Port Arthur:

Fighting Near Mukden

{By. Electric Tel egrs-pK—Copyright)

- (Per. Pres'a Association. y

LONDON, October 7. / Desperate "sorties of the Port Arthur garrison are. taking place. * ■-;.'•

There are fresh indications that their ammunition is short. . *..'.•

General Kuropatkin is reinforcing his left wing. '

Captured documents reveal that many Russian.infantry officers have made complaints of ."the-inefficiency of the cavalry scouts and the un.reliablencss of the information they obtained. '■-..•' One of General Stoessel's despatches to the Czar, was so confidential regarding the situation that copies on flimsy were entrusted to three officers with instruc-. tions to swallow if captured. Two were captured and a third reached St. Petersburg. The information has not been published.'

Heavy skirmishing has occurred at Hunkopo, south of Mukden.

Count Okuma, addressing the united clearing houses at Tokio, said it was impossible to foretell the duration of the war, but predicted that it would last- two years, and that it would cost Japan two thousand million yen, and had cost Russia three or four thousand million roubles. Russia, he said, had reached the limit of her powers of borrowing and taxation. Japan, in 1905, would borrow five hundred million yen. If she were to .secure one hundred and .fifty million abroad, she must face a depreciation in securities,-and he urged the nation, to husband its resources'. He had the fullest confidence in ultimate tictory. •~- ' • BRISBANE, Oct. 7. The cruiser scare is beginning to be regarded as a hoax.