The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1912. STARVING RUSSIANS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 90, 15 April 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1912. STARVING RUSSIANS.

The famine in Russia has caused great misery during the past few months, and correspondents toll pathetic stories. Writers do not hesitate to blame the apathy of the Russian .Government for a very great deal of the, distress. Food, fuel and clothes are lacking in many instances, 'and the Government apparently has refused to utilise, the .means that nane,.available to supply the needs of tho .Ip some vijiages'in the Ufa district, one correspondent states, a little fuel remains in a few of the cottages. The sick have been carried to these places, and the villagers flock to them for 'warmth 1 . They have no money and have to do without lights at'night. In the Simbirsk district the offices of the district officials- are besieged by priests, schoolteachers and representatives of the local communes,'. who are begging that free kitchens may lie opened; but there arc no funds available, since the Government has refused to help. The “Novoe Vremya” has published an article from Tobolsk, in which the callousness of the local authorities is bitterly denounced. It is stated that they will not establish free kitchens until the peasants actually begin to die, and the peasants are too proud to beg until they are reduced to extremity. The last horses have been sold in the Tobolsk region, and as there is no means of transport the few people who have little stores of wood which they might baiter for food are unable to carry their only property to market. The writer in the “Novoe- Vremya” states .that in seventy-five cottages that lie visited there was not a single pound of flour, but, notwithstanding the terrible distress, the people’s appeals for doles from the reserve’ supplies of corn were unheeded by the authorities. In another district, it is reported, the authorities vetoed charitable attempts to help the Cossacks on the ground that “it is shameful for Cossacks to complain,” and a philanthropist at Balakoff has declared that the police have prevented him from providing hot meals at his own expence in the schools.

MOHAMMED ALL

The ex-Shah has at last loft Persia, and last month, silently and secretly, lie went from Astrabad to Ashurada, a Russian naval station in the Caspian, and there embarked on a Russian vessel for Baku. Mohammed Ali’s future residence has not ...yet been announced. His brother remains at Astrabad. The financial arrangements between tho Persian Government and the ox-Shah, are, that' the ex-Shah is to have a yearly pension of 75,000 tomans (about £l-1,000), while a sum of 70,000 tomans will be distributed to his forces by the Russian Consul at Astrabad. An annual deduction of 10,000 tomans will be made from the pensions to repay the grant to the ex-Shah’s followers. Tho pension granted to Mohammed Ali in 1909 was 109,000 tomans. The 70,000 tomans have been advanced to Persia by tho British and Russian Governments. The .small island of Ashurada lies off the end of a peninsula. which almost makes tho Bay of Astrabad into a lagoon. It was occupied by the Russians about 1810, and afterwards fortified as a moans of repressing the Turcoman pirates. It

has never been ceded by Persia, and the pirates have long disappeared, but the Russian occupation continues.