The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1917. A RUSSIAN MILITARY DICTATOR.

Taihape Daily Times, 21 November 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1917. A RUSSIAN MILITARY DICTATOR.

(With which is incorporated The Tal> hapo Post and Waimarino Nows).

The Russian revolutionary storm is yet j too dark to permit the end being in sight. Those that have taken iJaIT in the melee of butchery and destruction have called a halt, not because their barbarity has reached the end of its natural bitterness, but largely because there is little or no food in Petrograd for fighters and people to exist upon. It seems evident that while the LeninTrotsky pack may succeed for a time, their following is somewhat of a local character. They liave driven Kerensky out of Petrograd, but their powers end at that, for they cannot bring bread in. The military leaders are not taking any part in the faction struggles; they are standing oil at a very long distance, controlling food supplies and railways, and they have given orders that no food trains shall proceed to the centre of revolutionary madness, with the result that the tools and victims of German propaganda cannot go any further until they get something to eat. On several occasions during the w T ar we have been made to see the part that food plays in winning battles; it is the food question that is all-powerful with the Russian people at this moment. The Lenin-Trotsky pack have demanded control of the army; have insisted upon the chief portfolios in any Ministry that is formed, but their claims and demands are mere vapourings because they do not control food. They cannot feed the army or people and they have been compelled to resign all their claims to power, and try again by effecting a union of all classes of Socialists in Russia; that is where the news distributors leave them. In the meanwhile the great army generals arc quietly but most effectually applying their strategic plans, and they are directing railways, and shepherding food and other resources, while viewing from afar the bloody vortex into which the people of Russia’s greatest city has been drawn by Prussian machinations. When this lust for blood and destruction has run its course the assistance of miltary leaders will be sought; there arc already evidences of this, as those best able to judge already assert that it will all end in a Military Dictator bbing installed, a form of Czar-ship. It is only this form of government that the people of

Russia yet understand, and it seems \ that it is only by the principle of autocracy being applied that they can be saved from destruction from within as well as from without. When the time becomes ripe for the appointment of a military dictator there will be some trouble experienced in finding the man to fill the position. It is only natural that under such circumstances of license and lawlessness the most rigid exactions should be demanded. Such a dictator w r ill have to be invested with supreme power, or the process of starvation and revolution will have to continue. The military section have an immense army organised and equipped in southern Russia, which is the storehouse of the Empire, -waiting for an opportune time to step in and wipe out the purveyors of brigandage, murder and Judas Iscariotism. That time lis \not yet though apparently near. Japan has urged that it is impracticable to send a Japanese army to Europe, but is significant that Japanese newspapers have already shewn cause w r hy armed forces should be sent Siberia. Rioting and brigandage in 'Siberian cities is such that Japanese merchants and residents therein are having to flee back to Japan for safety leaving their property to the mercy of marauders and murderers. Of course if the Russian Government cannot give the protection international law provides. Japan will use all the force that is necessary, and probably a good deal more. This will be accomplished through a proper understanding with the Russian powers tlmt be, and if treme measures are not deemed necessary the fact of having Japan on one side and Germany on the other w r ill help Russian return to a saner view of the situation. The military dictatorship proposal seems the only practicable solution of the Russian problem. I The country may submit to this form of government till the great world war has ended in universal peace, when the Russian people, by peaceable processed, can evolve the system of control that best suits the whole country’s interests.