THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MAY 28, 1906.
Aooording to Mr Perceval Gibbon, who contributes a character sketch of Count Witte to "M'Olure's Magazine," it is the great Russian financier who has stood between the Czar and revolution in Russia during the past two years. He seems to have been the only man strong enough to meet the flowing current and stand against it. When he was dismissed from office as Minister of Finance his recall in some oapaoity or other was inevitable, but it was not because he enjoyed the confidence of the people. Mr Gibbon speaks very frankly of Count Witte's position. "He surrendered his trust as Minister of Finance with all honour," he says. "It has never been said of him, as it is said of most men in Russia who have the fingering of public money, that he stole all he could whenever he could. There are uo definite
charges against him of oorruptiun and self-seeking; and this is as much as to say that he has, for ao official Russian, a good name for honesty. But, somehow, be has never inspired confidence. What one man may fail to observe a crowd of men sees at once, and the people of Kusaia have never been deceived into placing their trust or their hopes in Count Witte. He has not impinged on their consoioua ness; that flavour of insincerity of calculation, of deference to the expedient has betrayed him. He rings untrue, they say, and they will have none of him now that he needs them as he never needed them before. So now he stands alone, hated of the court party, loathed and despised by all those to whose class he has aspired, with only the weak, flaccid Ozar to stand between nim and their enmity, and cast off by the people. He ia a man dependent on hiaiself." Count Witte took time, we are told, to make up his mind between Czar and people, but his hand was forced. The popular movement was marked by extreme aotion, by open defiance of authority, by strikes and riots, and he had no option but to side with the reactionaries. He is out of office now and weak in body. "Yet, if I were one of those who have the guidance of this revolution in charge," comments Mr Gibbon, "I would walk warily when 1 oame to deal with Count Witte."
A Northern contemporary remarks: —"Mr Seddon's declaration at Melbourne that Australians and New Zealanders should oombine to say, 'There is only one flag dominating the Paciflo, and that flag the Unou Jack,' is entirely within the scope of our colonial ambitions, if he means by 'the Pacific' that part of the vast ocean which lies towards the south-west. We may fairly assume that this is his meaning since he can hardly mean that we should challenge the domination of America in the north-east, and of Japan in the north-west. With this proviso, we have every reason to approve of oar Premier's advooaoy of joint colouial action in the matter of the New Hebrides and other islands. France and Germany are ten thousand miles away from these Paciflo islands, upon which at the most they can only plant sparse populations and from which they can derive no great national benefit. We are close at hand, the inevitably dominant nations of these waters, for we possess the only lands upon which oivilised nations oan grow up. The real value to France and to Germany of the Pacific possessions is that they thus obtain naval bases in our vicinity and in vicinity to the coasts of Eastern Asia. This is not only detrimental to our interests, but perilous to our peaoe. Granted that a war arose in which these foreign islands were made the bases of attacks upon our colonial coasts and oolonial shipping, it ie self evident that, if victorious, we should demand their surrender, Siuoe such wars are quite possible treaties with France and goodwill towards Germany notwithstanding it is nothing but the plainest common sense to work with all our strength for the present limitation and ultimate amicable exclusion of all foreign Powers from South Paoifio waters. This we understand to be Mr Seddon's policy. It has been good colonial policy for a great many years, and there is no reason for changing it now, but every reason for emphasising and strengthening it."
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Bibliographic details
Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8150, 28 May 1906, Page 4
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737THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MAY 28, 1906. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8150, 28 May 1906, Page 4
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