Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 45 Years.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 1920. NEW CRISIS IN EUROPE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14200, 27 August 1920, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 45 Years.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 1920. NEW CRISIS IN EUROPE.

Crisis is succeeding crisis in Europe with startling vapidity, and tlie commotion caused now by the French recognition .of General Wrangel’s South .Russian Government is proof of the instability of the whole .position in Eastern Europe. London at first refused to believe the report of a‘French step which was regarded as a departure from Anglo-French common action, but the report is true enough, and we are told that Ihe' situation has temporarily become a ranging of sides with Britain and against France and the United States. The plain truth of the present position is that Russia owes huge sums of money to France, and France to America, and the importance of this relationship between debtor and creditor in chain becomes readily apparent if construed in terms of individuals in our own community. Russia’s foreign debt in 1915 was equal to J6BO million pounds sterling, and lias mounted considerably since. Russia at present owes Britain f>GS millions; the French debt is considerably greater. None of the Allies will trade with'Lenin’s! Republic, and America will not recognise it either —simply because Lenin hgs repudiated Russia’s debts. Trade is impossible in such case, and so the Bolsheviks arc out to seize everything they can in war on their neighbours in order to impose trade by force. Hem e, too, the ditliculty Lenin finds in securing foreign recognition of the Bolshevik Republic. International trade implies advances on credit, and no one will advance credit to a man whose avowed policy is repudiation of debt. Russia is iu truth no homogeneous and solid State, but a conglomeration of sixty or seventy different peoples; the Bolsheviks are nowhere more hated than inside Russia, and in this condition of affairs any insurrection which sets up a reformed Government ami solicits foreign support by acknowledging Russia’s obligations must naturally secure foreign Support. Such a reaction is that led by General Wrangcl, who succeeded to authority in South Russia after the defeat of Denikin. How far the Cossacks ever did approve of Denikin is doubtful. Denikin, for one thing, was no champion for ownership of land by the peasant cultivators, and through lack of support- in that important quarter he failed. Wrangel, liow-

over, has definitely declared himself for the distribution of all lands to the actual cultivators, for free government in Russia under free popular election, for non-persecution of any class or religion, for the protection of workers and professional organisations, for restoration of industries, and for the payment of the Russian debt. Wrangol was in the field with the Cossacks at the time of Denikin’s offensive; on Denikin's defeat he was driven away from the Don Cossacks’ home area, and retired down the Volga. This was last October. On Christmas Day he took the place ojf Denikin, whom Denikin’s forces had abandoned, and retired to the Caucasus with the remnants of Denikin’s army. Suddenly he appeared in the Crimea last May, and began a general attack. Two months later he defeated and almost destroyed the .13 th Red Army in the northern Crimea, a victory in which he was considerably assisted by the descent of Cossacks on the rear of the Reds. Wrangcl rapidly advanced, and reached’the Dnieper and Moloteluiaya rivers (a strong, defensive position), well beyond the Crimean peninsula, and he is now operating in that vicinity. Tii the liberated regions he is restoring the Zemstvos (free provincial assemblies) as he goes, and his appeal to the people is to support “the Russian army, marching to deliver the Fatherland from the Red traitors.”