Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER, 13, 1917. AN IMPROVED SITUATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 1010, 13 November 1917, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER, 13, 1917. AN IMPROVED SITUATION.

Both the .Russian and Italian situations present a decidedly belter outlook today, I lie events ul the past tew days have evidently had a sobering effect upon the Russian people, and the overthrow of the Bolsheviks, with their grotesque Government headed by a man in the pay of Germany, who has endeavoured to finance his filibustering schemes with counterfeit Russian money, made in Germany, appears to he imminent, it it has not already become an accomplished fact. Neither Lenin, nor his accomplice Trotsky, have any claim to he regarded as other than political adventurers, and their pro-German proclivities mark them as traitors to the Russian ideal of the union of the Slavonic race under a free Government, ot a confederation of Republican States. As we pointed out yesterday, the situation was more obscure, the oitginal Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates had directly challenged the impudent claims of the Leninites, and had affirmed their belief and confidence in the Provisional Government, with M. Kerensky as its head. Had the latter gone down in the. [upheaval of the hist lew days, Russia I would have entered upon more troublous j times than appear now likely to confront her. So long as she remains split up into factional groups, each striving lor its own hand, and each pulling against the other, it is impossible lor Rimsia to put up anything like an adequate defence against the enemy knocking at her gates. Only by united and well-organised eflort can she hope to withstand the German hordes that the j Kaiser, in his schemes for the advancej incut of Germany, is prepared to emplov against them. Russia has suffered so long under the autocratic rule of pro-German statesmen that the fact should have burnt in upon her people that she has nothing to hope for. or to expect from, the Central Bowers. To-day’s news indicates a return to sanity on the part of her people, aud foreshadows the restoration of the power of the temporarily deposed Provisional Government, which is re-assnr-ing. With M. Kerensky again in the saddle, and with the salutary lesson he has been taught by the Bolshevik uprising, the administration of Russian af-

fairs should proceed with the needed firmness to ensure the proper and efficient Government of the country. The revolt ol the Civil Service against the Bolsheviks has helped to contribute to the downfall of the Leninites, and, it the experience of the past week or so, leads to a heller understanding of the posit ion on (he part of the Russian people, and greater sympathy between themselves and their temporary rulers, the Bolsheviks will have rendered the country a service that should help to compensate tin* Russian people for the suffering and loss the rebellion has entailed. On tho Italian side, the fact that the enemy has at last been cheeked, and that certain ol his vanguard forces have been captured, is welcome news. The Allies will now have time in which to bring up the needed heavy artillery, and tin* reinforcements, of which the Italians are so much in need. 'I here is, moreover, assurance lor the future in flu* more complete co-ordina-tion of the. Allied commands and the .setting up of the War Council, in which each of the Allies will have their represotatives. Belated as the step appears to he, it is one that should he cordially welcomed, for it ensures one fighting trout, in the sense that all military and naval operations undertaken from tho English Channel to the Adriatic Sea will ho so co-ordinated a.s to leave the enemy no time to make excursions from one front to another, as he will be kept busily employed in meeting the persistent attacks that the Allied command may he expected to inaugurate.