RUSSIAN CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY'S FAILURE

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 299, 15 December 1917, Page 5

RUSSIAN CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY'S FAILURE

ONLY FIFTY MEMBERS ATTEND FIRST MEETING. LONDON, December 14. The Petrograd correspondent of tho "Daily Chronicle" describes tho opening of the Constituent Assembly at Taurida Palace on Tuesday. Shops were closed, flags were waving, and processions marching in the streets. Many meetings were held, and speeches delivered outeidc the palace, where workmen and soldiers assembled at the doors of the Assembly, which was guarded by soldiers with machine-guns. "After several rebuffs," tho correspondent writes, "the journalists reached the Chamber, but the Assembly, where was it? We saw a little group at the foot of the Speaker's tribune. About 50 members were present instead of 760, including 40 Social Revolutionaries, four Cadets, and no Bolsheviks. Members held little meetings, their voices sounding in whispers in the empty hall. It was decided to meet daily until a quorum was present. The sitting on Wednesday was even more saddening. Only 40 members were present. The key to the situation is the prevalent belief that an anti-Bolshevik insurrection is imminent." Lenin is taking drastic measures to prevent such an insurrection. He has ordered the arrest of the leaders of the Cadet party. M. Trotzky, Bolshevik Minister for Foreign Affairs, states that arrests are the only means of saving the Cadets from being lynched. It is generally stated that the Bolsheviks now favour a constitutional monarchy, and it is believed they arc negotiating with the Romanoffs. Lenin and others treated the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch, uncle of the ex-Czar, with the utmefst respect during his recent visit to the Bolshevik headquarters.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.) The delegates to the Constituent Assembly decided that there was a suffcient quorum present and ignored the decree virtually prohibiting the Assembly. They declare the three arrested members free on the ground that membership gave them immunity. They formed committees to meet daily. The Leninites appear to be reluctant to use force in view of the unfavourable effect it would have on the peasantry.— ("Times.")