WIDESPREAD UNREST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16562, 11 June 1917, Page 6

WIDESPREAD UNREST.

NEW DEMAND BY FINLAND.

DEPRECIATION OF CURRENCY. ftUceired 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, June 9.

The Petrograd correspondent of the Morning Post reports that the Council of Workmen and Soldiers Delegates is dissatisfied with M. Kerensky, the Minister for War, 'especially with his appeals to the soldiers to attack the enemy. The Petrograd Council regard these as a sign that it is losing its authority. A change in the Government is expected soon. - A demand by the Finnish Diet for an immediate grant of total independence is troubling the Government. - Finland demands' that "• the. Great Powers shall guarantee her independence, and this is interpreted as a want of confidence in the new Russian Government. -The Cabinet agreed to all the other Finnish demands, but refuses total independence. r Ukraine threatens to follow Finland's example. The problems of. labour and finance .continue to be serious. ' Systematic hording of paper money is creating great difficulties, and the Ministry of Finance is contemplating. a compulsory loan. The purchasing power of the rouble has fallen to between 15 and 20 kopecks, the nor- ■ mal being 100 kopecks. .■ Hoarding of the currency is resulting in a gradual reversion to the primitive system of barter. Strikes in Moscow and other centres are spreading' to Petrograd, and throughout the country.. Each district seems to desire to manage its own affaire. The work .of reconstituting the fabric of the State must take a considerable time.