BRITISH VESSEL CAPTURED.
UUNS ABANDONED. (Received Maul) US, 11.51 p.m.) LONDON, March 16. The Japanese cupturtd tlf IliifisJi slcaiiuT Tacoma, with contrabtn 1 - for Vladivostok oil board. The ltar.y Telegraph's St. Peters- , burg correspondent says the general staff state that heavy and iiOO field guns w ere abandoned during the • cetreat. i TIIE KI'SSIAX ARMY AND THE ! PKOPLK. ' Referring to the incident on the f Xeva, the military correspondent of i the Lbndon Times states " that the f excesses which have been committed t .-r by - troops had been of. a t far more serious nature than had t been allowed to transpire, and, t whatever the real explanation of the t extraordinary affair of last Thursday may be, "no one acquainted with v the modern Russian army would feel
any surprise to -find the artillery implicated in the first serious movement of revolt.
But, apart from this, it is necessary to remember that the demands u;>on the Russian population during the past year have been very heavy, 'Hie contingent for 1901 was Used at ; 117,30:2 men by a,nkasc of June 20 i of last year, a figure representing- an ]
increase of 12(5,5 il> men over the numbers for 1903 ; whereas during the last twenty years the average increase of-4 he contingent has stood at about 5000 men. In addition to this drain upon the people, there have been the successive partial mo uo to and inclusive of that of I>e cember 15 lust, to which we have already alluded. Out of the 701 recruiting districts, all but 250 have been already bled for men, some once, some twice, and in a few cases even as many as three times. The exact taken for despatch to the East, and to fill the place of ' units tlespatched from western garcannot at present be given with the desirable accuracy, but it would appear that, out of an ave- ' rage of 5,000 available reserves in i each district, nearly one-hall' have ■ been already -withdrawn from the districts affected by the mobilisation orders. The youngest classes have, of course, been taken first ; but* it seeius likely that the order of mobi- i lisation carried out last month art- 1 ected a much larger number of men than any previous order, and that it - has entailed the employment of an unusually high proportion of mar- - ried men. According to the writer's ' information, the number affected by I the December mobilisation •was- 237,000 which is more likely to bv cor-, rect than the figure of 320,000 given I by foreign professional journals, and i confessedly only a rough approxima- I tion, - i | These ijoitfjlp demands of increased contingents and endless drains upon ' the reserves must necessarily have a i deplorable' influence upon the ijopuln- i tion of Russia, and it is well known ; that mobilisation during winter has a particularly cruel effect upon the • peasants, since they have often to , travel long distances to join their j headquarters, and generally .find no | means of restoring their treasured sheepskins or, fur coats to their fa- j milies. These valuable possessions are generally sold for a song to the local Jew, and only; in rare instances are returned to the peasant's family. The unit of labou# in Russia from time. immemorial has been a man, a wonfan, and a horse. The removal of so many working hands jnust affect a scattered agricultural poinmunity very "seriously, and, as all evidence shows "that the war grows more unpopular every day, there may be limits beyond which oven Russian autocracy cannot safely travel. This general disturbance of the social life in agricultural centres has now been rendered more dangeroustoy an extension of the unrest to the manufacturing classes of St, Petersburg. The workmen of 'the OboukJipff foundry, of the I'utiloff manu-factory,-of the Lezner and Stieglitz establishments, and, lastly, of the Neva dockyard are all out on strike, apd, if the railway employes join in the movement, a very grave national danger will confront the Russian Gpvcrnnient. Hip solidarity of labpuf in Russia and the close attachments between the workmen In the rural districts and the towns explain the sudden and notable outburst of something that already resembles a general revolt, and, if the 10,000 men of the garrison of the capital are perfectly capable of suppressing . an outbreak, it is also necessary to remember that the Ist Army Corps
of the garrison has been sent Kast and their place has been taken by reserve troops, and that it has yet to be proved whether the army can be trusted to put down a movement which has a political complexion ant* is either openly or secretly favoured by nine-terichs" of the Uussian people. Those who have seen a Russian mob driven about like s-hcep by a couple of Cossacks, armed with nothing more formidable than the nagalku, or Cossack whip, may indeed doubt whether Ilussians have the 'gejiius of revolution, but tlie J.jberal movement has been ao rapid, its d<>minanve over'opinion so, marked, and its effects so widqsprotad, that no o|le will pife to foretell the future, or to aflifiu that the in(riests of a small and partjy clfrle gowpii-ig class are pertain tp overcome tlie desires, the demands, and tlm Resistance .of a gfeat people.
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Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7765, 17 March 1905, Page 3
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874BRITISH VESSEL CAPTURED. Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7765, 17 March 1905, Page 3
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