WAR IN THE EAST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 99, 30 April 1904, Page 3

WAR IN THE EAST.

JAPANESE MOBILISATION. \iE4NESE TRANSPORT SUNK. The Japanese on the 20th" W. mobilised the fifth, tenth, and eleventh divisions, constituting the third army, and numbering 75,000 A Russian general staff-officer declares that Japanese attompts to cross the Yalu are feints, and that the real objective is Port Arthur. Paris telegrams declare that General Kuropatkin recalled troops pouth of the Yalu, Russian torpedoers sank the transport Kinschi llaru, with a landing party, which refused to surrender. Admiral Jecszcn cables regarding the incident on the night of the 36th that two torpedoers encountered at sea an armed transport of 4000 tons, laden with coal, military stores, and troops, intended as a landing party, and that 17 officers 20 privates, 82 coolies, and 65 of the crew surrendered. The rest obstinately refused to surrender or go aboard the Russian cruiser, and were sunk with the transport.

THE LATEST NEWS, (Received April 29, 10.50 p.m.) LONDON, April 29.

Admiral Jeszen reports that he sank the 220 ton steamer Nakamuramuru and rescued the crew.

Two hundred perished in the sinking of the Kinshuinaru. (Received April 29, 11.56 p.m.) LONDON, April 29.

Further crossings ol the Japanese forces have taken place above Wiju. The Russians are withdrawing hoping to attract the Japanese into more open country.

Mr Bennett Burleigh reports that the Jeszen has passed the Japanese squadron and regained Vladivostok. The Times, commenting, says it docs not believe that the Japanese officers left two hundred in the lurch aboard the Kinshu Maru, or that the latter resisted after the officers surrendered. It hopes that the slander on the officers is due to misinterpretation of tho despatch. The Russians explain that Jeszen was unable to spare a prize crew or hamper a swift squadron by taking the Kinshu Maru, which was of slow speed. ~ Captain Mahon, in a contribution to the Times, says that the Yalu Is destined to become the centre of the struggle. Tho Japanese plan is to •trike on shore before the Baltic fleet appears or Russia can add materially to her army, which is still infeHor to the forces Japan is able to place in tho field. The Japanese are determined to capture or closo Port Arthur, land at Niuchwaug at the earliest moment and niako tho main attempt from Yalu. There is reason to believe that the position between Mukden and Niuchwan-g may be turned from either side.

RUSSIA'S GREAT TRIAL. GLOOM OF HER PEOPLE. "NOT A PICNIC,'* A message to the Express, from St. Petersburg, dated Feb. 24, says: - Hussion feeling regarding the war in the Far East has undergone a far-reaching and significant change. Where a week or two ago the struggle was viewed with the utmost oj>thnism, a deep gloom is now to be found.

When war was talked of, and even when it bad actually entered upon, Russian opinion of every class was ligiit-bearted and optimistic. Japan under. Russian Government was seriously discussed. "The little yellow monkeys of the West Pacific" would, it was freely predicted, bo quickly wiped out of existence as a nation, and Russia's nower in the Far East would become impregnable.

The fleet in the East would soon put all Japan's ships out of action, and then proceed on a holiday cruise bombarding Japanese towns on the sea coast as on occasional pastimo. "If England could send huge masses ol troops 7000 miles across the seas and conquer u sturdy, hardy race such as the Boers," it was said,

"surely we, with our magnificent railway line to take us right on to the field of battle, and our millions ol men, can easily answer for Japan's pinnies."'

But this feeling of confidence has now given way to one of the deepest gloom. The fleet on which so much depended has been hopelessly beaten, and the railway, which was to make the war a picnic, has proved entirely inadequate for the task.

Officially everything ia going well. Reports are daily circulated of great ■Russian and every effort is made to convince the people that the optimism so freely expressed betor the war began was fully justified. Jlutthc truth is leaking out. and 90 inuch has already become known that any report coming from an official quarter is at once dfsrredited. The nation, both rich and poor, is realising under what terrible handicaps it entered into the struggle. Stories of tons of food and ammunition needed by the army in the Far East and yet piled up around wayside stations on the Siberian railway, without any chance of reaching their destination, ar« in constant circulation.

Not only is it realised that the Siberian railway itself has broken down, but that the transport facilities nearer home in the eastern provinces of European Russia have also proved inadequate to even a tenth of the military needs. Troops, instead Of getting through to Manchuria are being starved and frozen to death on the roads.

Inaaditlon to this, Russia finds herself unable to feed tho peoples of her legitimate Far Eastern possessions. The Siberians are literally starving.

All Russian convicts have been drafted into the army. They have to be fed somehow, and the Russian Government have decided under the Circumstances to make them active units of the army in return for their food,