The housing problem, the food problem, the labour problem, the unemployed problem, tne ggvernment problem, the transportation problem, and a dozen other problems are real, live, dyed-in-the-wool, honest-to-goodness problems in Vladivostok.
Over them all is the problem of the unwelcome visitor with the clanking sword and the Prussian goose-step. He is a restless wight, inquisitive and assertive; bumptious and arrogant. His doings, what he threatens to do, and what he might do, have just as.soothing an effect on the population as a hawk soaring in the blue infinitudes has upon a clutch of chicks. The Provisional Government, which had the pleasure of arriving at its office one fine morning in April to find it wreck, with the partition walls blown out by shell fire, the windows smashed, the furniture reduced to small pieces, and the outside facades torn and_ splintered ahd bruised by shells and bullets, knows what it is when the visitor with the sibilant sigh succumbs to a touch of nerves. That incident warned the people of Vladivostok that others might follow at any time, and for just as little reason. Do you wonder then that they all look askance.at the khaki with the red facings when they see it about; that they give it a wide berth and that they very carefully tuck something away in the backs of their minds for future reference every time a motor cycle screams down the streets at sixty miles an hour; every time a motor truck tears through the traffic to the imminent danger of and disregarding everyone and everything which dares to be on the thoroughfare, and every time an armoured car, beturrete], begunned and sinister, unnecessary ily parades the city, screaming with strident whistle for the world to move out of the way and take notice that those who for the time being control it are the monarchs of all they survey?
Tue Constant Rearxpen.
It is three parts deliberate, purpose ful, military manceuvring. It is exercising the powers of suggestion. It is an effort to overawe the populace as it walks its streets, to be a constant reminder that good manners become good people.
Does it do any good, this curious business? Is it accomplishing anything materially beneficial in the long run to khaki and red? I was in a store on the street called Kitaiskaya. A Russian housewife walked in, faced a stack of flour in bags, asked the price of the product. "What is the name of the mill?' she asked, as a second thought, as she opened her bag to pay for an order, and stared at the trade mark. The shopman evaded! The Russians and- the Chinese the question. "Is it Chinese?" There was further evasion. Is it Japanese?" The shopman_hesitated. "Is it?" the house-wife persisted. "Yes," the shopman admitted. "Well I don't want it," she indignantly responded, and fled the place to buy flour milled by some other people.
At the railway station at Harbin, when stuck for the particular cur: rency required for the purchase of a ticket, I asked a Russian station clerk to oblige me with some small change in Chinese money. He took some from his pocket. I tendered a five yen bill. The money went back into the clerk's pocket without hesitancy, a firm refusal to take Japanese' currency was almost rudely expressed, and {had to fare elsewhere, The story from the whole country from Lake Baikal eastwards, and northwards from along the Amur, is the same—hatred of the khaki and red. It may pay, somehow, this swashbuckling policy—it may sell flour, and goods, and earn high regard and gracious thanks. Tf so then the military arm of Japan possesses a secret that is unknown to others who have tried the same game in the days of old.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.