The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1918. DISQUIETING NEWS FROM RUSSIA.

Taihape Daily Times, 10 June 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1918. DISQUIETING NEWS FROM RUSSIA.

(With which is Incorporated The f&i hape Post and WalDrail-uo News).

The matter of Allied assistance in Russia is again brought under consideration by the arrival in London of a Russian officer who has been sent as a messenger from the great Russian generals, Alexieff, Kaledin, Korninoff, and others, to make the strongest appeal to the Allies for armed intervention in their unhappy country. It has long been an enigma why the Allies were permitting Germany to exercise a free, unobstructed course over a vast field of food, riches, and over a possible recruiting ground second to none in the world. Russians are a strong, brave people, and their ignorance makes them easy victims to German promises of good pay and plenty of loot. It was expected, nearly a year ago, that the Allies would send a Japanese army to stem the wave of Hun invasion before it had time to seize food and oil and raw material wherewith to nullify the blockade that was being maintained. It seemed folly to keep up a strict blockade in the North Sea while countenancing a wide open door that led to supplies of almost every conceivable kind, and, not least, to an immense field for recruiting in Russia. It was contended by some that all the small Transcaspian States, Siberia, Ukrainia, and even Rumania, might have been saved had Japan been permitted to take active part directly after the great collapse occurred. There were those who argued otherwise, and who thought the Allies could win the war without Japan. It was believed that America could easily win the race for predominance on the Western front against the forces that were available for German organisation in Russia, consisting of hundreds of mililions of starving Russian peasants, who would become easy victims to the corrupting tongue of Germany. It has been impossible to get truth from Russia about the progress of the German armies, and their subordination of the Russian people, as all means of communication have been under German control. Now, a messenger from Russia's greatest generals, after several months travelling .eluding Bolshevik surveillance, evading the Bolshevik assassin, making many hairbreadth escapes from losing his life which was thrice violently attempted, coming via Siberia and India, has, at last, reached London, and has presented his petition for Allied help that will enable Russia to once more hold up her head as a nation. He gave details of German schemes, organisations and operations which leave no doubt about enemy intentions, or about their determination to be masters of the whole Far East. A course, colossal and .comprehensive, is rapidly being persisted in that is to shut the Allies from the sea in the east, and also to cut away Russia's northern access to the ocean. In fact, the domination of Asia and the complete subjugation of Russia will be accomplished beyond recall unless the Allies intervene at once, another year will be too late. This is indeed disquieting intelligence, but what will the Allies do? No one seems to understand why Jap-' an has not been let loose in Siberia. In America it has been suggested that the Japs are not to be trusted, and that if Japan refused to take her armies out of Siberia and other territories from which Germans might be ousted, the day of the "Yellow Peril" will have dawned; that a struggle for supremacy between eastern and western civilisations will have commenced. The German peril is, however, very real and dangerously near, while that from Japan and China is only assumption. Therefore, the dictates of common sense are to destroy that which is real and thereby conserve strength to meet any materialisation of present fears about what might come. There is nothing on the Western front to indicate that America can throw in sufficient forces to win the war this year, and, if this Russian officer's story is true, next year will enter with an im-mensely-reinforced German army on the Western, as well as on the Italian front, and the position in Russia and in Asia will be past redemption. If the Allies continue to maintain an attitude of indifference to what is obtaining m Russia, it can only be taken to mean that they are quite confident of achieving such a crushing victory

in France and Belgium as will place them in a position to dictate to Germany any conditions they may choose with respect to Russia and Asia. The world's future is in the "balance and ever so little may affect the ""counterpoise. It may be mentioned that the Allies have not yet disclosed any war policy in which Japan figures witn land forces, and it seems to us tha» the Yellow Peril aspect would be just as menacing if Japan and China were left with their complete armament while western nations are exhausted and thrown into the last stages of military and economic debility, as it would be if it were weakened by being thrown into ending the struggle in the shortest possible time. What Japan did would result in savings of western life and strength. This Russian messenger from Alexieff, Kaledin and Korniloff has drawn a picture that cannot help causing much anxious thought to all the Allies, buf as it is not known what is influencing the collective mind with regard to the Russian and Far Eastern situation, it is impossible to form any approximate idea of what action that picture will induce. If the Allies do not feel quite sure of securing complete and decisive victory this year, we shall soon hear that Japan has found it imperative in self-preservation to vigorously commence wiping out German interference, at least, eastwards of the Ural Mountains. Sane Russia is waiting to welcome any such help; Armenian, Georgian, and other armies now fighting against the Germans and Turks are hoping that Japanese help may yet come to their succour. To them nothing can be worse than the TurkoGerman heel. There are all the inTlications that very large forces would link up with the Japanese, perhaps more so now than when intervention was first expected, but, so far, nothing is known of the Allied war policy in the East.