Japan's ambition has driven the people of the new republic to seek counsel and assistance from Russia. That Russia has responded there cam be little question. While the new Russia is said to be honestly opposed to imperialism, this dors not mean that she will choose stand idly by and see her own interests injured, her commercial future destroyed and her territory occupied by other nations.
Eighteen years ago Japan tonished the world by going to with the Russian Empire and justified her action by showing that the success of Russia's efforts to control Korea would threaten the national existence of Japan. "Korea in Russian hands would be a dag-ver pointed at the heart of Japan." The world sympathized with Janan and that' sympathy, expressed la terms of moral and financial support, was in no small measure responsible for her successful conclusion of the war.
To-day Japan is not pointing a dagger at the heart of Russia, but she has her fingers deep in Russia's throat. Her control of Vladivostok, the terminus of the—Trans-Siberian and the only port of "is slowly strangling the Bussian: people east of the Urals and is a present burden with which the mere menace of Russian control of Korea cannot for a moment be compared. In other words, Japan's success in 1903 and her policy since that time have conspired with recent events in Europe to reverse the situation of 18 years ago and ito make Japan on the mainland Serious menace to Russia.
Therefore, must Russia respond to the call for assistance from her brothers cast of Baikal. Econ-ernie necessity demands that Eastern Siberia shall not remain in the hands of the Japanese. All of ithe forces of sentiment, traditional enmity, international politics and economic interest are therefore port of the Far Eastern Republic. united to bring Russia to the sup-
Question or Russian Controw.
Does this mean the Far Eastern is a '"'camouflaged democracy" or a "cat's-paw for the Soviets?" Does it mean that the Republic is masquerading as a democracy or really a communistic government masquerading as a democracy for present purposes? Several things have been pointed out and emphasized to lend colour to this point of view and if may be well to refer to them here. It is stated that the men who constitute the new government are not Siberians but men who have been sent to the Far East to run this Republic in the interests of the Soviet power at Moscow, that while the Far Eastern Republic has no money to pay its ministers nor soldiers nor workers these men live in luxury at a beautiful resort called Malakovka about eight miles from Chita where they entertain lavishly and generally conduct themselves in a manner wholly unbecoming to the leaders of an infant nation; that the majority of them are Jews whose ultimate aim is to reduce the real Russians to the conditions under which they themselves suffered during the Tsar's regime.
First consider the claim that the government is a sort of "envoyocracy" made up of men sent onl from Russia to guide the infant republic in the way that Moscow would have it go. The extent to which the names of Krasnochoff. Yourin and Shatov have figured in the news of Siberia has tended to obscure the fact that they are by no. means the whole government. A bird's eye view of the government in its entirety may help to put this matter in its proper proportions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.