CABLE NEWS.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 61, 9 September 1905, Page 5

CABLE NEWS.

[BY ELECTRIO TELEQBAPH. — COmiXGBT,] TURMOIL IN RUSSIA. THE TARTAR RISING. CHRISTIAN WORKMEN SUR. ROUNDED. FIGHTING AT BAKU. FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE. URGENT DEMAND FOR RELIEF. [fress association.l ST. PETERSBURG, Bth September. The Tartar rising has completely surprised tho authorities. It is believed to be connected with a, carefully-planned separatist movement fomented, by Turkish emissaries. Thousands of armed Tartars surround Christian workmen at Baku. The Governor has telegraphed to St. Petersburg that tho troops will be overwhelmed unless relief is sent. A desperate attempt was made to capture the provision depots at a military camp at Balakhna, but was repulsed. Thousands of the assailants were killed. The peasantry is rising in many parts of .the Caucasus, and attacking the estates of the nobility. TO RESTORE ORDER AT ANY COST CORRUPT OFFICIALDOM. THE OIL INDUSTRY RUINED. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND WORKLESS. ST. PETERSBURG, Bth September. The Viceroy of the Caucasus has sent artillery to Baku, with instructions to restore order at any cost. Sir Charles Hardinge, British Ambassador to Russia, has demanded the protection of British lives and, property. Corrupt officialdom, coupled with Prince Galitzin's policy of setting the Tartars against the Armenians, is considered responsible for the outbreaks. There are nearly one hundred thou&and workless fugitives. The whole oil indistry is ruined, involving the loss of twenty million sterling annually in tho State revenue from excise duty. The companies .owning the oil mines a week ago, warned the Government, and vainly implored the authorities to send troops. [Under date 24th July, the Moscow correspondent of the London Times wrote: — "A naphtha crisis is beginning to make itself felt throughout the central and south-eastern provinces. Many steamboat owners and small manufacturers are ruined. The price of mazout, or naphtha residue, which is practically the only fuel used in this region for railway, shipping, and industrial purposes, has risen at Baku from five to thirty kopecks a pood, and the supply may entirely cease, because the oil concerns will probably bo compelled to close owing to the insecure condition of the country. Indeed, unless the Government authorises them to organiso a private militia for the defence of their property it is certain ithat they will suspend further operations and thereby completely ruin the enormous mill industry of Moscow, the steamboat companies on the Volga, and a large number of private railways, besides depriving the Treasury of the annual £10,000,000 derived from the excise. The uiisis comes at a most awkward moment for the Moscow mill owners, who have enormous Siberian and Government orders on hand.]' FRESH DISTURBANCES. BARRICADED HOSPITAL STORMED DEFENDERS BAYONETTED. (Recoivetl S&ptember 9, 9 a.m.) ST. PETERSBURG, Bth September. Fresh disturbances havo occurred as the outcome of the departure of reseTViste for Libau. Tho soldiers fired a volley at the crowd, killing fifteen. A barricaded hospital at Balakhany (eight miles north of Baku) was stormed by the 6oldiers, who 'bayonetted tho <nen working tho barricades. FAMINE-STRICKEN PROVINCES. (Received September 9, 9 a.m.) ST. PETERSBURG, Bth September. Russia is expanding £4,000,000 sterling .in cereals tor the famine-atricken provinces. SOCIALIST LEADER SENTENCED. (Received September 9 9 a.m.) ST. PETERSBURG, Bth September. A court-maTtial at Moscow sentenced Johann Raspzak, a well-known ex-editor and Socialist leader, to death for. killing four policemen who were trying to arrest him. _ A MAHOMMEDAN PLOT. (Received September 9, 9.5 a.m.) ST. PETERSBURG, Bth September. The Bourse Gazetto says there is unmistakable evidence that a Mahommedan plot has been discovered at Erivan (in Transcaucasia) for the conquest of the country. CAUSE OF TIIE TARTAR REVOLT. SOME INTER~ESTING FACTS. Early in April it was reported that there was much disquiet at the Russian capital, where apprchonaions were entertnined of a general rising of the Asiatic tribes. Of late years Russia, whenever she had opportunity, has been indulging in tho '•short method" with the Moslem peoples under her authority, and subjecting them to much the same disabilities as the Jews, hut the Tarter is a dangerous subject for such, experiments; he may yet justify his proverbial\reputation, and more than warrant the anxiety he has raised. Considerable light is thrown on the subject by no less an authority than Professor Vambery, in a deeply interesting article fiufcibled "The Awakening of the Tartars," published in the February Nineteenth Century. The Tartars of the Caucasus are strict Mahommedans, and though comparatively an enlightened people, their nntural antipathy to their neighbours, the Armenian Christians, has of late been carefully fostered by the Russian authorities for obvious reußona. and it is a»jD_aiently under cover i

of one, of the periodical sanguinary riots resulting from warring creeds that the Tartars have taken up arms against the Government, The modern movement among tho Tartars, as Professor Vanlbery -hows, is causing no little disquiet to the Russian autocracy, for, "in spite of the Russian channel through which the light of Western civilisation is flowing, tho lesult of the modern views and ideas takes a quite different shape from wliat may be expected in the official circles. Ilitlierto we have heard of discontent and revolutionary tendencies amongst Armenians, Georgians, Poles, Jews, Finns, and Germans; now to thesa must be added the i Tartars." An illiterate people is dumb. i It may be oppressed by a tyrannical | Power, crushed, or exterminated, and , the world is little or none Ihe wiser. Its history or epitaph, if written at all, is furnished by its conqueror. But Tartary is, voiceless no longer. In a brief period its people have succeeded "in reforming their language by simplifying their style, in raising and modernising their literature to an extent that, besides woiks on modern sciences, more than three hundred books on belles-let-tres have come out during the last twenty years ; scientific education is constantly spreading, and the influence of this movement has extended to Eastern Turkestan and to many nomadic tribes in 1-lic Central Asian deaerte." With this growth of culture has arisen a passion for religious and civil liberty to which the people cling with what we are accustomed to regard as Oriental fanaticism. The feeling is leavening Turkey itself, and the revolutionary lenders in Constantinople are in many cases men who were originally Russian Turks or Caucasians. Sympathetic vibrations extend to all parts of the Moslem world. "If Hindu Mussulmans did not lack solid complaints against British rule in India, and if the maiority of respectable Mahoramedans in India were not convinced of the blessings derived from Pax-Britannica, the revolutionary spirit would certainly be fraught with more danger than it- is. " Dr. Vambery quotes in full a petition published in a newspaper, "The Turk," issued in Cairo, which sets forth at great length the grievances of Moslems under Russian rule. By law and by charter they are entitled to the free exercise of their faith; but the charter and legal obligations are ignored. They find their language and religion proscribed wherever there is force sufficient to compel submission, they are compelled to observe the innumerable holidays of the Greek Church, , they are nqt allowed to retain their own names, being dubbed I won, Potro, Simon, and other names, and punished as renegades if they do not submit. More than forty thousand have been compelled to submit to baptism. They are oppressed by special taxation, and outrages and murders are inflicted upon them with comparative impunity. Evidently the discontented Tartar is a factor in v the Russian problem of more importance, ■than has been generally suspected, and he may yet find his opportunity in tho hour of Russia's humiliation.