The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 29, 1918. EXIT THE ROMANOFFS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 July 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 29, 1918. EXIT THE ROMANOFFS.

There seems to be little doubt now tliat the ex-Czar has met his death at the hands of the Bolsheviks. In the eyes oi: the revolutionaries Nicholas typified despotism, oppression and . privilege, and his fate was sealed when he got into their hands. It was an ignominous end for a personality that had figured so prominently on the world's stage, and one cannot help feeling pity that he should have been done to death in the tragic manner he was. The Bolsheviks are capable of any crime, being devoid of all sense of duty or responsibility, justice or mercy; in fact, they are capable of doing any tiling, even to selling their own country—as they did at Brest Litovsk —so long as they retain some measure of power over their unfortunate fellows. This latest crime is quite in accord with their previous perfidious policy, which is rapidly ruining what is left of their country. A greater national tragedy than their misrule during the past sixteen months the world has never witnessed, their regime proving twenty times worse than that of Nicholas, disastrous as that was. The ex-Czar, after all, meant well and was, according to his lights, true to his country, but lie was exceedingly weak and vaccinating, and completely dominated by his German wife, who, it appears, was one of the chief Teuton agents in Russia. He was unable to exercise any accurate judgment or read character. The strong and faithful men he thrust aside for the flatterer, the incapable and the rogue, who, during the war particularly, surrounded his person and had his complete confidence. All of them proved absolutely unworthy and guilty of the blackest treachery. There were Pobiedonostzeff, the head of the Greek Church, Father John, the courtier Bezobragoff, who was responsible for the war against Japan, the astrologer Phillipe, the fanatical monk Heliodor, and the amazing charlatan Rasputin, the head of the German army of spies in Russia, who had as his coadjutorsthe infamous Stunner (Prime Minister of Russia) and Protopopoff (another prominent politician). In their hands he was as putty, moulded as suited their sinister purposes. Dr. Dillon, in a recent work, "The Eclipse of Russia," deals with their operations and the political incapacity and weakness of character of Nicholas. In one passage he discusses the secret treaty of Bjorke, by which. Nicholas agreed with the Kaiser to a defensive compact with Germany, though France and Russia were still bound by the Dual Alliance. Dr. Dillon explains at length how Witte, one of the gieate.it of Russia's statesmen, prevailed upon the Czar to repudiate this monstrous agreement, and the story, which is doublless authentic, sheds a lurid light on the weakness and instability of "the last of the Romanoffs." Nicholas trusted his German spouse implicitly, but she plotted against her adopted country from the commencement of hostilities, and was the principal cause of the revolution, the fall of the Romanoits, and Russia's collapse. Truly Germany has been well served by her women in this war. But for the machinations and treachery of the Czarina the war would probini£ ? beun ovei ' h y en d of 1916 and millions of lives and incalculable _ suffering saved. She L cared;nothings for Russia, .her^oor

soldier;-;, or U:;xi:i's inieresls. All she cOi'eelT.ld il'i'Self with WHH llio triumph of German anas. OviT her Rasputin, (he unwashed who masqueraded as a pious monk, i'lhiinvd absolute r-ower. They iveif in. collusion to in-big about the downfall of Bussin. Poor Russia; she never had a chance. Reading the revelations of Dr. Dillon and "William Le Qucux, who has recently written "The LiIV of Rasputin," Prom documents he obtained from revolutionaries in Russia, taken from the Czar',-; and Rasputin's own files, it is wonderful that she put up the light she did. Includible as it may appear, the Kaiser, through these high-placed traitors, held Russia in the hollow of his hand. No despatch from Petrograd to the Allies, ho order for material, no communication of any sort—lmperial, diplomatic or private—but copies were at once transmitted to the Wilhelmstrasse, where the negotiations were known immediately. Of course, Russia had her patriotic men, who knew, if, they could not prove, that dark forces were at work. But Rasputin had his secret agents everywhere, and whenever they showed themselves dangerous, or likely to be troublesome, they were promptly sent to Siberia, or murdered, and these acts, it may be added, were often suggested or approved by the Czarina herself. There was one man, however, who defeated the murderous intentions of the eurotic Czarina and the rascally Rasputin. He was Professor Miliukoff, who denounced Rasputin in the Duma, and submitted documentary proof of his and his camerilla's treachery. The villain met his just fate at the hands of the patriots, and the Romanoffs' fall came immediately afterwards, but the harm done by the traitors shook Russia to her very foundations. It has to be remembered that Nicholas was unconscious of the pro-German machinations of his wife and Rasputin's gang, and stood against a separate peace with Germany. His faults were of omission rather than commission. But, all the same, his reign was' full'of disaster to his country, and his death was, perhaps, but the natural sequence to a life of lost opportunities. As for his wife, her name will go down in history as a betrayer of her adopted country, and the indirect slayer of millions of lives, and the cause of untold suffering.