HOW RUSSIA FEELS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144826, 2 November 1915, Page 3

HOW RUSSIA FEELS.

CHANGE OF VIEW IN SWEDEN.

“My two outstanding impressions are the cheerfulness and confidence of the Russian people and the change in Swedish opinion, said an experienced man of affairs just returned from a long trip through Scandinavia and European Russia. “I was amazed at the optimism of the Russians despite all that has happened. They base their cheerfulness.on ence in the coming early financial collapse of Germany. Six months ago Sweden distrusted and feared the Allies. To-day public opinion there is swinging over to us. , “The fact that one is English is stdl a passport to the good wilt of all Russia. 1 talked with men of every rank, from high Foreign Office administrators to ishvostiks, and from princes to the dwellers in Petrograd slums. There were no reproaches for us. Hero and thpre people askodi if w© could not do moro to help them. Why. they asked, were our armies so passive? But they were very ready to listen to any explanation and to make allowances for our difficulties.

‘ ‘The Russian armies have been terribly handicapped. Here is one illustration. Officers told mo that thousands of cases of ammunition of every kind, when opened at the front were found to he charged with rubbish. German agents, worming themselves into the big munition factories, had done it. WOMEN A.S.O. “I was very much surprised to find that one hospital in Petrograd was given np to wounded women soldiers. # These women, uniformed and wearing the shoulder badges of their regiments, are not in the fighting corps, but in the transport and commissariat services. In recent retreats, however, they on more than one occasion came under the enemy’s fire. The Russians have employed a number of women in the supplies service of tho army. “In Petrograd the wounded arp everywhere. Under one curious regulation they are never allowed out in the streets singly. There are always at least two of them together, accompanied by a woman nurse. The commonest sight of any in the capital was two or three wounded men hobbling along and the nurse holding up the traffic while they crossed the street or helping them up some incline.

“Popular report places the Russian casualties at a very high figure—--3,500.000 killed, wounded and prisoners up to the middle of July. So far as 1 conld learn, this estimate is guesswork. The authorities themselves do not know with any accuracy the real total of the losses.

NEW TONE IN SWEDEN. “Sweden"surprised mo more than Russia. I was in Sweden in January. Then the country was strongly pro-German. To-day there has been a revulsion of feeling, duo mainly, I believe, to horror and disgust at the blowing up of the Lusitania. “I found a different atmosphere the moment I crossed from the Finnish side into Sweden on the north. I had been talking to a fellow traveller in Goman, the language ho understood best, and, without thinking, I turned to the Customs officer and made some remark in German. He could see from my papers that I was English. To my surprise, he, the Swedish official, replied in English, ‘Don’t let us hear any of that language here. Talk to me in good, honest English, and then we’ll get on better.’ , _ , _ “A year ago the Swedes feared Russia, and did not believe in our sincerity or disinterestedness. To-day their fear of Russia has been swallowed up in a greater fear. They see the possibility of a Europe overrun by Germany, and they know what that would mean for them. They still smile sceptically when you talk of England going to war to help Belgium. Many of them have changed their opinions unwillingly, against their own inclinations. Facts have forced them. “Some of the greatest men m the land with whom I talked are openly for us, and make no secret of it. The materialism of Germany has.repelled the churches. ‘The triumph of Germany would mean the end oi all religion in Europe,’ said one Lutheran clergyman reluctantly to me. Seven months ago he was talking to mo in favour of Germ!‘‘l>. Sven Hedin had left Stockholm for Warsaw a dav or two before I reached there. Dr. Hedin is far from popular in Sweden to-day. Sweden is the \land of men of moderate means. The \an who is worth £SOOO is not very plentiful. It is a land of sufficiency hut not wealth. When the word went round Sweden that Hedin had made from £50,000 to £60,000 out of his autumn joilraey with the Kaiser’s armies, people! became suspicious of his disinterestedness. To-day they regard Dr. Hedin a/ a German agent.”

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