The Man of the Moment.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 12, 15 January 1904, Page 4

The Man of the Moment.

PRINCE ALEXIEFP. THE CZAR S VICEROY IN THE PAR EAST. Among the men of the Far East whose names are just now on everyone's lips, none is perhaps more important tj»au Admiral AleviolT.i.lu; Russian Viceroy. In his hands, the okble tells us. rests the responsibility of making war in Jal>an, if he thinks fit. The following article, by Stephen Bonsai, in a recent issue of the NenYork H'eraUi, gives some interesting particular regarding him : It can be sard without fear of contradiction that Admiral Alexicfl, t'lie gt-nerairissimo of the Russian forces an' land aird sea in the l-'ai East, is the man of the hour. It is l no new thing to say that in one man power, but wbeii' in Oetober by Imperial ukase the Czur Nicholas dedaicl Iris faithful servant Admiral Alexieff to be the Vice-Czar of Greater Russia and lord of all the lands which lie between Baikal and the Pacific, and wlnkih extend from the Arctic to t'he Yellow Sea. he gave public recognition' of him as one of the-'{great-est of Empire builders, and bestowed ulpon him such measure of confidence as only an absolute monarch can give. There are many in St. PetcrsVjuirg who maintain that AkexielT's elevation means war in the Far East ; others, drawing their information from eifirally reliaftrfe sources, declare It means peace. Of on« thing only we may be sure—that the niton is in the saddle who In- common consent is viae ablest administrator that Russia has produced for many yea- s.

Those who love peace for its own sake will be pleased to know that in a dozen instances Alexisfi has shown a conservatism rarely found in men who live with half a million soldiers at their beck ami call. For ten years fit has been the actual ruler of Greater Russia, though it is only to-day that his full powers have been proclaimed. It is pleasaint to think that in all this period of storm and stress bo has never fired a -hostile shot except in selfdefence, when the Boxers and .the Imperial Chinese troops invaded Siberia and -besieged Russian towns that had b.cn in the Czar's possession for three hundred years. Alexieff is a mighty fighter when arousud, but he prefers to attain his ends by peaceful means, and up to the present this has been possible. In the spring of 1895, when Russia demanded of the Japanese the retrocession of the Liatung Peninsula, there was a moment when war seemed inevitable, ami it certainly wonikl have come but for the reserve power ami the political prescience of Alexieff. The Russian and Japanese fleets confronted each other in hostile array in the harbour of Chefoo. All the holiday gear had been rafted ashore, and there the ugly ships ream in their war paint. AVERTED BY ALEXIEFF.

The trattty of fighting possessed fche officers and men of both fleets. and the greatest naval battle of modern times seemod imminent. Alexieff and Tyrtoff had twenty-one vessels. Admiral Ito, commanding the Japanese, had only eighteen, tut tihey had b.en tried in war, and his sailors were the veterans of the Yulu flglht. The actual time allowed the 'Japanese Government in the ultimatum which Russia delivered had expired, the last message had come from St. Petersburg, and it ran tlhat war was incviti|bte, and concluded with the words, "Co with God." Tyrtofl was for sailing in. lie could not restrain himseif. He could hardly be restrained. Admiral Alexieff said :—"We don't want to make war because, perhaps, a telegiam has been delayed in transmission. Wc shall open fire at noon to-morrow, and not before." An hour later the gaoi news—good at least for the peace of the woi ldcame. Japan had yiekk-ii, and the only satisfaction that Tyrtoff got was in sending a telegram to St. Petersburg which ran, • Go with Cod yourself."

Fortunately for graft old TyrtolT, as Admiral Alpxieft ex- "jtinod," the teleglraph does not transmit the tone in which words are snoken. Again in March, 1901, Admiral Alexieff spoke a mighty word for peace, ar.rt refused to take England at the disa\l\tantaige in which a drunken officer of her Indian contin-

ge»t Irad placed her by seizing a section of the Tientsin railway that was in possession, and under the protection of the Hussian- forces Fortunately for the peace of the .world the troops this jackanapes commaniuJ were Sepoys, and the Cossacks drove them from the disputed siding, only using sticks. The Russian Aug had been torn down and in other ways the incident niiight well have furnished a casus belli, or tooted a do/en of them. Four months later Lord Lansdawne admitted in a public speech how serious had boon the crisis. He Bright liave said, had he been entirely frank, that war would have faeun certain but for the conciliatory attitude of Ale-viefl once Russian rights wore safeguarded, and the inwilt to Hie flag apologised for HOSE FROM OBSCURITY

tit*: manner in which Aluxiefl ro< to power from tho position of aa, c| r.cure navy lieutenant, without fortune or family interest, is instructive in many ways. It should be pjcuharly interesting to Americans Jljeause it was in the United States that he won his spurs and became a man marked for rapid promotion and great responsif/iiities. Some years ago, in the conning tower of the bank-ship Hurik, he toM in a lew simple words how it all happened. J

He had laiidoJ at San Francisco, retaining fro,,, a tuur of d along the then almost unpopulated shores ol Siberia. Then Dalny, ttagreat emj>orium of tlie East, was a waste place, and Vladivostok an.l Port Arthur were but fishing ham-

"lt (had been a lonelv cruise " eaad Ak--vierr, - alJ:1 it ' years. I wa„Ud t„ see a lot of p,opJe, so I come home bv wav nr America." *

The •day ho banded in San Francisco the papers were full of war rumours. Hostilities between fv land atd Itussia seemed inevitabfe *lymg Mopadrons were being mob - .sed at I'artsi.wutl,, ami u de>nand for war a-cdits was expected ho.n-y mr the House of Commons * *» r , s ™™ «as occasioned iL% I™ JC " i ' K -' idvnt °" thl ' frontier of Afghanistan, or about the Balkans and the n.goriations leading up to the Congress of Berlin but this point is immaterial-it i« only interesting to know how UexjefT acted in the emergency. It was a time when few' subaltern oflicers would have dared to approach the Minister of the \anT even by cablegram, except humbiv to fflk for orders, but this is what AlexiefT cabled :-

"Why not empower me to i-- uv commerce destroyers to prey upon in Uish commerce?"

And the answer came back •-"Excellent suction, but .o time. War matter of hours, not divs " ™ n,,t ' tV h * P« oil. He persisted and sent another cable It read :-"Pennit me to sav most d™T tfU !' J ; Ulat y°° r Excelled t*,. knoW A "*«ca. Let me

Arod the answer came back, "Try " He tried, and he succeeded th'orpwehly, Within ten days, with

ample funds that were caMed for his purpose, Alexieff tad purchased eight commerce •destroyers of considerable speed, which, with full steam up, ready to go to sea the moment war was declared, awaited orders. Throe rendezvoused iu Frenchman's Bay, off the const of Maine, ami three outside the Delaware breakwater. HEADY FOR THE BRITONS.

"We wo'uld haive swept the British commerce oh' tile Western Ocean," he said, and his eyes flashed with the memory of Iris first achievement. "I bought niost of the rfhips by telegjraiph as 1 came steaming across the continent, and fliey all pruned good purchases. Three (Jays after my arrival in Pluiladell.ijia I cabled the Minister of the Marine :

"Have six ships ready to sail and two mo-re will be ready in four days. (Jive me twelve hours' start on the declaration of war." The war cloud 'blew over, the emergency was past, ami Alcxiclf wsvi empowered to sail his siiips again. ■Yilien lie ivoclkk! St. Petersbuig he was askexl '— "\Vsrat can we do for you '.'" "Give me a sl.ip," he answered ; niniJ thoy gave it to him with the rank of a post captain. In tlnee years he was an admiral. Pi-acti-oaliy from that day to this he has only taken orders from the Czar. Woids aire powerless to descivbo whut has taken place in Russian Asia under the Ale.viefV regime. Perhaps the progress can best be shown by the'agency of ptotogn-apjis. The other day a friend who has recently completed a tomr of the world by the no longer unusual way of the TransSiberian, showing me pictures, said : "And this is Khabarovsk, the capital of Greater Russia."

Ami so if was, but I never rouk have recognised it, though I knew il flashing well hi 189K, spending mam melancholy days there, the nielnn ilwly day.= we spend in (-he cities o the futuj-e.

I recognised the spacious waterways, which mark the place M the St. Louis' of Siberia, the "new America," as the Silurians love to call ttoeir home. There it stands at the junction of the Amur and t-he Ussori, and close to the S'ungari, which penetrates into the heart of Manchuria. I recognised the lay of the land and the flow of the waters. Uit as for the test I couM not believe my eyes. The magnificent wharves, the iniI»osinig administrative buildings, the great stores and the animated could not be found on that frontier station three hundred miles intend from the Pacific which I remembered ! And Mien the civilised shaping aloM'g the water front, where I had only seen Chinese junks armed with ginlgialls and other mediaeval weapons, and manned with piratical crews, lint the change lias I/am wrought, and more than any other one man Admiral Alexieff has dona it. Girts Wanted. The New Zealand Times pub'Hahes the result of interviews with the Labour Department amid registry of-Iree-keepers on the present scarcity of domestic servants. We make the following extract, which shows that the servunt proiblem is very acute in Che Empire City :

. . . "And we can't get a girl anywhere ; it's so annoying'." Heard everywhere. " Wanted General Servant.'— Read everywhere. Pick up the daily papers, and see it spread all over two' or three columns ; see it plasteied over the boards that hang outside the city labour agencies. It is the prublem of a thousand; households.

"Will you tell me," said the pressmen to the ollicer in charge of the women's branch of the Labour Department, ''if the domestic servant l.us gone oiut of fashion, or if she is all married, or if she is all dead ?"

"Well," replied the officer, " tire inquiries lor her are something enormous, and there is no doubt that she is very hai'd 'to linti. Wellington gi'i-ls do not go into service at all, nowadays ; they prefer to go 10 factories, especially as they are r.a:id now from tlie time of entering, lfc girls who go into service are mostly from OtajiO, West Coast, JS'eL■KMi—tte Sauth lhTund guncrally—a few from Aucklan-J, Australia, and ihe Old Country. It isn't as if the >vuyes were low, either—they aver■4e from 12s to 17s Cd for generals, 2'm to 30s for female cooks, 8s bo 12s for useful girls, and 10s to 15s .'or numie-giirls. The weekly halfl.oli'Jay is generally given, a:n»i there are mamy privileges that were not formerly given. , , "

"Anid mistresses—what is youi experience ?"

Jtey treat their girls ,„ os t rea-soimMlv-Mah is, the aveiug* mis-tress-amj are willing to meet their wishes as far as possible."

"Well, how ■do you account for che shortage in the output of Marv Jane?" J

r,lre girls prefer the factoricsUio hours are defined and sterter the wages arc higher, and every minute of overtime is paid for." Next, a lady who controls a big icgastry allice was sought out and 'lie said that ■"good" peoplo have no difliculty in procuring, girls, but chere are a great miniber of mistresses who cannot treat a girl so ifaatjihe will stay in the house, and

■"That is where all the complaints of a shortage come from?" ••Exactly. Those people are markod by servants, aiisJ their rcjiutar ticti passed round until no girl will SO to them. There are some ladies in this city who cannot get servants for love or money. 1 know one house that can always keep a girl l'oi IBs a week—uuil that is very low as wages are—arjd another cannot get a girl to go to her house far twice tho money. Jt serves 'em right • :hey sltou-ld treat the gj r ] s better. ■ . •. Some livhrLß-NSes ure awful'. Ir.vy think if tlwy give a girl two evenings a week oft' and every other SiiDfluy they are exceptionally liberal, i'hey 11 luaive lm- waiving at 7 o clock in the morning ; the laidv will nut lunch herself, and when the girl has fiivishvd a hard day at the tub ■she has to wash- up all the dwv's dishes. There are plenty of women ivho expect their servants to he marines, and don't give them enough lime even to Ik bealthv. I've no IWitiencc with them ! "(Jirls won't S,*\ '"i" "'KI the quicker rustlesses learn that the better for tliemselves. Another didicultv that .aces the private emplover is th-ul servants prefer hotel work, and will wait for places in a public-house if necessary. Why? Because thev are are better treated-the wages' are fetter and the hours denned. Once a girl has g „ nc lnio sm ,. hotel she will aot go tack t » private house."-