Notes on the News

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 4 May 1938, Page 12

Notes on the News

Russian Revolution

Indicating the continuance of the Russian purge, General Dibenko, who led the naval mutineers at Leningrad in 1917, greatly assisting the Bolsheviks in the seizure of power, has been dismissed from the comraandership of the Leningrad district. On March 15, 1917, the Tsar of Russia had been compelled to abdicate. The revolution, which had been long impending, burst out, not, as might have been expected, with a violent and organised upheaval, but in a series of apparently casual and unpremeditated protests, accumulating in volume and .significance, until it was clear that the whole country, nobles as well Pf bourgeois. the soldiers and sailors, nf ■well as the Liberals and Socialists, had fallen away from their allegiance to the Tsar. First there was a general riot in Potrograd (now Leningrad), coupled with a general disinclination to work, then a cessation of newspapers; on the tenth a tram strike, on the eleventh the mutiny of a regiment, on the twelfHi the defection of the household troops. The movement spread like a prairie lire. It was a revolution of hunger, misery, and fatigue. A Committee of the Duma (Russian Parliament) endeavoured to govern the country and conduct the war. The Russian people were in no mood for such a government. A universal mood of mutinous inertia paralysed government. While Kerensky endeavoured to stir the army to renewed activities, the Bolsheviks set to work to corrupt discipline. Their success was complete and almost immediate. By the end of July, 1917, the Russian front lind crumpled in face of the enemy. On November 7, (October 25 old style), the Bolsheviks struck their Mow. which had been long prepored, and ns the Red revolutionaries surged round the Winter Palace the Government fell like a pack of cards. The organisers of the October revolution were two obscure exiles recen’ly returned to Russia—UlinnofT, who called himself Lenin, and the Jew. Braun* stein, who had taken the name of Trotsky. Mr. James Larkin The Dail approved the Anglo-Eirc agreement, the sole dissentient, being the Labour member, Mr. Jamea Larkin. Mr. James Larkin’s life has beeu one continual struggle against established law and order. In 1908 he broke away from English Trade Unionism, on the fringe of which Irish labour had existed as a rather neglected dependent., nnd founded the Irish Transport Workers’ Union. In 1910 he was joined by James Connolly, who had spout the previous seven years in the United States, and been deeply Imbued witu the fighting spirit of the Industrial Worker* of the World Ulu* l W \V. t The two began a regular campaign <•*' the most direct action kind of strike launched upon employers in nil indutry without any notice, and extended if necessary, hy sympathetic strikes They had no 111 Me success, so much in fact, that by the summer of 1913 employers in Dublin derided Mint the time had come to smnsh Ibis serflnnn' Strlk lug by one fight on n scale too lnrgp for Mip unions to stand up against The\ began dismissing members of the Trans port Workers’ Union from their employment : Mr Larkin retaliated by enlllng a general strike, nhd the employers capped it with something like a genera l •ock-nut. In October. 1913. Mr. Larkin was sen renoed to seven months’ imprisonment for using seditious lnngnnge Bur there was strong opposition to this sentence and in Ipss than a fortnight he was re tensed Ever since that period he has been ralilrUr anti-British In word and deed

Land Tenure Condemnation of the practice of granting settlers the Uphold title to their land was expressed by the Min ister of Lands. Hon. F. Langstone, in an address. “Out of the total area of 66,000.000 acres in New Zealand,” said Professor W. N. Benson, Professor of Geology, Otago University, in 1929, 44,000,000 are classed as occupied lands. These include 4.000.000 still held by the Native race. “The individual holdings average 501) acres in area, but by far the greater number, 85 per cent., are less than 320 acres in area, and 46 per cent, are less than 100 acres. The total nrea of such holdings of less than 320 acres amounts to only 13 per cent, of the occupied land. “Approximately 2,000,000 acres are devoted to agriculture, the growing of cereals utilising 350.000 acres; 6.000,000 acres are occupied hy dairying and 36,000.000 by pasturage nnd other in ; dustries. “Of the total area of 19.000.000 acres classed as improved 17,000.000 acres are laid down in permanent pastures, while of the 25,000.000 acres of unimproved lands 4.000,000 are virgin forests, and over 2.000,000 are considered to be almost valueless “Nearly 40.000,000 acres are held ns freehold, or on various forms of de ferred-payment tenure, or on leasehold from the Crown; 2.500,000 acres are leased from private individuals or public bodies, and 1.500.000 acres are leased from the Maori. “The direction of recent legislation has been to prevent the holding of large areas of good land by single individuals. Owners of large properties may now be compelled either them selves to subdivide, or to sell to the Crown for such purpose. The Crown may also purchase such estates as arc offered to it for subdivision : 643 estates containing 2.000.000 acres have ihu«been purchased by the Crown since 1900, and resold or leased to 9000 selec