THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8243, 22 September 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1906.

Every day from Russia is repeated the same doleful tale of fresh outbreaks of insurrection. In the minds of many persons, no doubt, there has been an impression that the forces at the command of an autocratic Government must prove too strong for the revolutionists on account of the difficulty o<* oonoerted aotion on the part of the latter. This view, however, is very strongly controverted by a correspondent of The London Times, who has returned to England after a prolonged sojourn in Russia, and who had innumerable opportunities of coming into close touch with publio

men and hffairs in that country. The Government in Russia, be tells us, are bow faced with two terrible difficulties a combination of peasant anrl reform movements, aoting and reaotine upon each other, and a financial crisis. If tbe peasant movement could be checked, he admits that the task of repressing the reformers would become easy. But theie are cnly two ways of quieting the peasants: they must have more land, or they.must be subdued by force. Tbe first method has been deliberately sacrificed by the Government, first by refusing to priate private property, without which all attempts to still the peasants' land hunger must remain futile, since the lands at the Government's disposal would furnish only 10 out of the 180 million acres required; secondly, by dissolving the Duma, without whose approval it will be impossible to obtain the money for purchasing the land that private ownerß are now only too anxious to sell. As to the financial crisis, it appears that the deficit on this year's budget was estimated at nearly £20,000,000, noS covered by the last loan, it is thought, moreover, that the Duma's appeal not to pay taxes will be largely responded to, and that in other ways the revenue will suffer from the orders prevailing. There has been a heavy and continuous falJ in Kassian securities, and it is difficult to see where investors are to be found with sufficient confidence Mn the party of reaction to lend money to the present Govornent, knowing that repayment may be repudiated by the revolutionists, should the latter prove successful. The correspondent holds very decidedly that it .is not possible to put down the peasant rising by force. There are, he tells us, over 40,000,000 adult male peasants distributed throughout the length and breadth of European Russia. Of this number over 37,000,000 bave not suffloient land to sustain themselves and their families. All this vast multitude is ripe for revolution if it cannot get more land. What is there to keep them down? It is estimated that tbe whole Home Army of Russia does not now exoeed half a million men, and that half of these are needed to garrison tbe cities and border provinces. "Oan a quarter of a million soldiers, not mercenaries, but peasants," asks the writer, "be relied upon to subdue 40,000,000, and carry fire and sword into their villages. The Line regiments and tbe Gosaaoks bave already given the reply. They have wavered, and repeatedly deolined to fire upon the peasants, even prior to the dissolution of tbe Duma, and there can be na reasonable doubt that they are unreliable for such a task as now confronts the Government. They will fire upon Poles, Jews, Baits, Finns, or townsfolk, but not upon the peasants, their "wn kith and kin, whose land hunger is shared by them."