RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17860, 5 August 1918, Page 5

RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

HUNGER AND* DISEASE

A TERRIBLE PICTURE The Timoa" Service.

v MILAN, August 2. A terrifying picture of social condi'lions in Russia is supplied by a wellknown Pole, who has returned from, Petrograd and Moscow. He says that hunger and cholera dominate Petrograd, whero tho people wait in queues sometimes for sixteen hours, to secure horrible black bread, mixed largtely with straw, hay and sawdust. Meat costs seventy roubles per pound. Crowds search rubbish heaps for food.

Deaths occur frequently in tho streets from starvation, while tho cholera mortality is high owing to the absence of medicines and tho frightful general conditions.

Starved horses aro employed carrying cholera corpses, and these arc constantly falling in the streets, leaving their ghastly burdens long unburicd. Between Petrograd and the Finnish border the people lack even bread. The Bolshevik excesses are provoking increased popular hostility. The latest local Soviet elections reveal a great change of sentiment. Whenever an anti-Bolshevik candidate is elected M. Lenin annuls the election. The Bolshevik leaders no longer daro to organise demonstrations on their own account, while precautions to secure their personal safety exceed anything in the history of the Czars.

ALLIED INTERVENTION. JUGO-SLAVS ASSIST. Router's Telegrams. LONDON. August 2.

Router learns that a detachment of Jugo-Slavs, all volunteers, who were former Austrian prisoners in Russia, greatly assisted tho Allied landing on tho Murman coast. They traversed Russia from Odessa to Archangel, occupying strategical points on the Murman railway, and beat off a Finnish assault. Large numbers of those Jugo-Slavs who wore in a pftjful condition wero collected and sent to Allied hospitals, ami re-equipped. They will prove of tho greatest value to the Allied cause.

AMERICAN-JAT A \ESE AGREEMENT.

WASHINGTON, August 2,

The Japanese-American agreement regarding Siberia has been completed. Tho main provision provides for assistance for the O.oehn-Slovaks. Military forces will be dispatched immediately.

THE AMERICAN MISSION. . (Received August 5, Its a.m.) NEW YORK, August 3,

Tho American mission to Vladivostok will consist of a few thousand. It will bo composed of business men, Red Cross workers, agricultural experts, labour advisers and Y.M.C.A. agents.

BOLSHEVIKS WEAKENING. LONDON, August 2. The "Morning Post's" Stockholm correspondent states that 'he Bolsheviks have been practically cleared out of Siberia, except Irkutsk, where fighting is incessant Strong Japanese detachments are in Manchuria ready to operate. Japan. China, America and Greece support tho Omsk Provisional Government. ■ .

SOVIETS DRIVEN OUT OF ARCHANGEL.'

(Received August 4, 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, August 3. An anti-Bolshevik revolution has broken out at Archangel. The Soviets have fled. The Allies havo landed troops at Archangel.

THE ALLIED MISSION. WASHINGTON, August'2. Tho State Department has received advices from tho United States Ambassador, Mr Francis, from Kandalaska, saying that the Allied mission, including Chinese and Japanese representatives have arrived safely at Kandalaska. Tho staffs will "remain there. Mr Francis is at the head of a' mission which will proceed to Kola, where it will remain under the protection of tho Allied naval and military contingents.

UKRAINE'S TROUBLES

HUN POLICE EN HOUTE

BERNE, Augusgt 2. Several hundred secret polico assembled at Warsaw are going to Ukraino to form the nucleus of a secret polico there.

GERMANY'S DEMANDS. (Received August 4, 5.5 pan.) BERNE. August 3. Dr Hclferrich, on behalf of the Government, sent a message to Trotsky stating that tho murder of Eichoru and Mirbach was plotted at and demanding that the Maximalist Government should severely punish the perpetrators, and also destroy tho hotbeds of anti-German intrigue in Moscow and Petrograd.

- THE LAST JOURNEY. * A VIEW OF THE OZAR. (Received August -1, 0.0 p.m.) '■ STOCKHOLM. August 3. Tho commissary Yankovlev, who carried out tho Bolshevik orders to removo tho Car from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg, describes incidents of the last journey. He says that he received a vivid impression of the Czar's amazing limitations. Tho Czarina, was altogether different. She was cunning and proud, and exerted a strong influenco on her husband. Upon learning the fate of the Czar sho said, " I won't go." After prolonged family consultations, the Czar prepared for the journey. Cavalry escorted the carriages and large patrols guarded them at every halt, until they entrained at Tumen. The royal family expected insults, and were much surprised at tho correctness of their guards' behaviour, Yakovlev conversedcontinually with tho Czar, who never mentioned politics or the war. His mind was centred on tho narrow, domain of his family, tho weather and food. Crowds waiting at Ekaterinburg; shouted, "Show us the bloodsucker," and refused to disperse even on the threat of machine-guns. The train thereupon was shuntetl to a neighbouring station.

CZAR'S DIARY FOUND. , "Tlio Times" Service, (Received August 4. 5.5 p.m.) PARIS, August 3. Advices from Moscow state that the Czar's burial nlaco is a secret. Ten volumes of a diary, covering his youth and his life until his last days, have been discovered and will shortly be published.

INVITATION FROM SPAIN. Router's Telegrams. (Received August 4, 5.5 p.m.) MADRID, August 3. On the initiativo of King; Alfonso tho Foreign Minister approached Russia with a request for tho removal of the widow and children of the ex-Czar to Spain. .'..._:,

M. GORKY. HIS ARREST ORDERED. COPENHAGEN. August*2.

The Russian Government has ordered M. Gorky's arrest, and has suppressed his newspaper.