AN AUSTRIAN CAPTAIN ON THE RUSSIAN NAVY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 3302, 28 April 1885, Page 3

AN AUSTRIAN CAPTAIN ON THE RUSSIAN NAVY.

During the visit of the Mayor and Aldermen of Sydney to tho Austrian man-of-war Saida, now lying at Sydney, the conversation with her commander not unnaturally turned upon the somewhat "parlous times" m which we are liviDg, and the result of what Captain Fayenz said must have a decidedly diminishing rather than magnifying tendency upon any apprehensions at present entertained of a visit to Australia by Russian cruisers. The Evening News saya : — " In the first place, as to this powerful Russian fleet reported m various places, from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Howe, with a misty appearance at Backstairs passage, Captain Fayenz simply laughed consumedly at the notion of there being anything to . fear about it. The vessels comprising it are small, and old-fashioned (he saw some of them himself at the Cape), and the Nelson alone could blow the whole lot out of the water, ' and even,' said the captain, 'if the gentlemen of the Nelson happened not to be ' m Port Jackson, and the Russians run the gauntlrt of your batteries, and got into your harbor (which they might do at night), they would be very useful to you afterward for commercial or other purposes, for they would never get out again.' The captain evidently thinks that, despite our batteries, there should be no great difficulty m any si earner dodging them so far as to get inside them ; but, as he says, that would be all the worse for the steamer. But on tho Anglo-Russian question Captain Fayenz and several of his officers went even further than this, and said plainly that they did not think Russia meant fighting m the long run, but was merely bullying as far as she could go, knowing that a constitutional governed nation like Britain will always make peace even at the last moment if her enemy gives indications of a fair desire for peace."