RUSSIA AND THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1917, Page 5

RUSSIA AND THE WAR.

i OUR ALLY'S GREAT WORK. ) Mr J. Oswald Forsyth writes to thej - S,ychii'> Daily Telegraph from Vladivoa* - toek, Russia, December 19, 1916: ; "As a trade unionist of some fourteen years' standing, and as a resident in Rus«. sia for ton years," I feel it my duty to contradict statements that no attempt • . has yet been made to exhaust the great '. reservoirs of men to be found ill the ' : sian Empire. > .Juttl "Having resided in this country since, . February, 11107, and having travelled' in the course of my business throughout /"■ these outlying provinces of the Russian Empire, I am in a position tq know facts. During the first and secondj' mobilisation I happened to be travelling from Blagovctchenek along the rivej Amur to Nilcolaevsk, and several time 4 ' i from Habarovsk to Vladivostok, an* ' saw what men wove taken from thetg ' sparcely populated districts, and iowm '■ only old men and women available i .harvesting. I have seen tottering 4J] women, who should have been'restiue tn! their old age, attempting to gather in? *. \ {•ufnoient crops to prevent starvaffenj during the winter. 1 have seen an old] woman of seventy years weeping aftd ■ wailing at a railway station at) thai departure of one of her sons—a man o£ j about foity-five years-and thought what', ,i poor patriot she was, until informed' by s local resident tjat this was hec<j eighth and last son she had sent to tha war, five of the younger sons having aU ready been killed. During the last six months these eastern Siberian provinces have been combed for men. White tlck< et medically unfit have been re-cs- ' nmined, only sons called up. Women ara .acting as telegraph messengers, tram conductors, train attendants. ' Commerce is partially paralysed through the absence of workmen, clerks and responslbta RUSSIAN BATTLE FRONT. "Your readers should take into "eonsid* efation the enormous length of Hie Russian battle front, stretching from the. Baltic Sea to the Black Sea; Caucasian front extending well into Turkey; the Russian Expeditionary Forces at both the Salonika and the French fronts; and remember the number of reserves necessary on these fronts, not only for stemming the advance of any successful attack by the enemy, but also for tolieving the men in the frozen trenehesA People of Australia, dp not forget that in Russia we have similar statements from German emissaries, but here they infev jieads. If these favored provinces are in i r such a condition, what must be the position of the other parts of this great empire? Here are Asiatic hordes on all ,inland frontiers. Many outlying villages have already been attacked by Hungbutzes, taking advantage of the mahj population, and even the coastal town of St. Olga has been raided, its post oN fico held up, and twenty of its inhabi. / ' tants butchered. Yet the conscious or unconscious emissaries of Prussia have the audacity to infer that Russia is not doing her part. "For the information of the Political Labor League, in ease it wishes to expel me for this letter, I am a financial member of the Sydney Institute of Marin* Engineers, and also, being of military age, I offered myself in any capacity for service in this war to the British Ambassador at Petrograd, who up to tha present has not accepted my' offer, proIxibly the time not being ripe to draw married Britons with families from Russia, where there are few of our nationality who understand the people and language."