ANARCHY AND VIOLENCE CONTINUE IN FINLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16760, 29 January 1918, Page 5

ANARCHY AND VIOLENCE CONTINUE IN FINLAND.

SPREAD OF RUSSIAN LAWLESSNESS DUE TO VODKA. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. COPENHAGEN. Jan. 27, A semi-official Finnish agency states that grave revolts have occurred in the past few days, chiefly at Viborg, where the Russian soldiers participated in a general strike, and proclaimed the authorities for stopping the railways in order to prevent the movement of Russian troops. United Service. PETROGRAD, Jan. 27. The sudden metamorphosis of the temperate and orderly Russian masses to lawless pillaging and murdering mobs is due to the unlimited manufacture of vodka. The revolution has swept aside the Tsar's decree prohibiting the manufacture of vodka, and distilleries have been started everywhere. Before the war the sale of spirits in Russia was a Government monopoly. When war was declared, all the spirit shops wero closed, tho manufacture and sale of vodka being prohibited by an Imperial decree. Six months before, when the subject of spirit drinking waR investigated in the Empire, it was estimated that the population spent £100,000,000 a year upon drink, vodka, a double distillate from potatoes, maize, and rye, containing in its retail form from 40 to 60 per cent, of alcohol, being the principal item. As huge sums had been invested in the industry, when the Tsar's decree commenced to operate attention was directed to utilising the distillery apparatus for the production of commercial alcohol for purposes of combustion and illumination, as aa auxiliary to mineral oiL