Russian revolution

The start of the recent motor reliability trial to Timaru and back: machines lined up at the...
The start of the recent motor reliability trial to Timaru and back: machines lined up at the Dunedin Railway Station. — Otago Witness, 7.11.1917.
Russia has provided a new sensation.

The tidings this time are of the over-throw of the Provisional Government and, with it, necessarily the deposition of M. Kerensky, who is said to have fled the capital and whose patriotic efforts to save his country are rewarded by his denunciation as a traitor by the Congress of Soldiers and Peasants of All Russia. Developments such as these do not fall upon the Allies exactly as a bolt from the blue, for, while there has always been a hope that the Russian muddle would straighten itself out, it has long been apparent that, so far from improving, the situation was fraught with serious possibilities of further deterioration. The stage which has now been reached involves the collapse of authority in Russia. A movement headed by the ex-exile Lenin has resulted in the seizure of Petrograd, where the Bolsheviki and the Maximalists are said to be in control.

A somewhat loose employment of the distinguishing names of the advanced parties in Russia is at times apt to lead to confusion. The Bolsheviki and the Maximalists are not identical. The Maximalists are the extreme Social Revolutionaries, the quondam Terrorists. The Social Democrats are divided into Bolsheviki and Menshiviki, often referred to in English papers as Maximalists and Minimalists.  The statement that Lenin is at the head of the present movement at Petrograd should give a clue to his followers. Lenin has been marked out by his advocacy of reform by immediate violence, and he has urged the peasants to take forcible possession of land at once.

Mine payroll hold-up

Shortly after nine o’clock a motor car left the Bank of New Zealand, Greymouth, for the State mine, with three occupants - Viz., Mr Isaac James, manager of the State mine; Mr Wm. Hall, pay clerk; and Mr John Coulthard, blacksmith, driver of the car. They carried with them a sum of money totalling nearly £4000, with which it was intended to pay the miners this afternoon. The car bowled along the Seven-mile road. They came to a sudden bend, which at this point has thick undergrowth on either side, and espied a box and a ladder on the road, and although the brakes were promptly applied the car did not stop till it crashed into the obstruction.

Eye-witnesses Mr Peter M. Anderson, jun., said: "Like a flash of lightning a man — a young man, I should say — dressed in dark blue dungarees, with his face completely masked, jumped out of the bush."

"With a revolver in each hand," added Mr Anderson, "he hopped on to the road and cried out in stentorian tones: ‘Hands up!’ Bang! bang! bang! It was a few terrible moments. Then there was a silence, and we espied the man on the railway with a bag, going along towards Runanga."

"We rushed to the car, and there found Coulthard shot dead. Willie Hall was in a state of collapse. I immediately sent for the police and doctor."

Native languages

There are about 17,000 persons in Ireland to whom the ban on English imposed by the Gaelic League will be no hardship, for they can speak nothing but Irish. Wales has upwards of 190,000 sons and daughters, big and little, who cannot pronounce a sentence in English; and in Scotland over 18,000 are dumb in every speech but Gaelic. — ODT, 10.11.1917.

 

• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ

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