THE PERSIAN CRISIS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 156, 30 December 1911, Page 5

THE PERSIAN CRISIS.

RUSSIANS DRIVEN BACK.

WELCOME REINFORCEMENT.

By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received 30, 1.5 a.m. Teh; ran, December 29. Mr. Smart, British Consul at Shivaz, was only slightly wounded. The armistice arranged at Tabriz hae proved welcome to the Russians, who were driven back, and were only just holding the camp when reinforcements of 5000 arrived'. Desperate fighting was resumed. OPPKESSING WEAKER POWERS. RUSSIA'S DOGGER BANK COMPENSATION. The nearest modern parallel to Russian aggression in Persia (says a writer in an Australian paper) is furnished by the United States —whose rule of policy, according to Colonel John Hay, Secretary for State under MeKinley and Roosevelt, is "Do to others as you would that they should do unto you"—when, in 1891, under threat of instant war, it compelled Chili to pay £200,000 compensation for the death of an American seaman and the injuring of several others in a brawl in a drinking saloon in Valparaiso, at the close of the Chilian civil war. But the Hague Court was not then in existence. It was, however, when, without a "by-your-leave," the Republic practically annexed the province of Panama from Columbia, in as open contempt of its authority as Austria showed when she robbed Turkey of Bosnia and Herzegovina three years ago. or Italy exhibited in her invasion of Tri poli the other day. When the Baltk ileet made its infamous attack on the Grimbsy fisher-boats, Britain, rather than go to war, accepted a compensation which can only be called derisive as compared with what Russia has required from PeTsia for a trivial insult and no real injury at all. On the scale the St. Petersburg Government has made out its bill Britain ought to have claimed a million and a half for the Dogger Bank attack, instead' of a few thousand pounds."