RUSSIAN CORRUPTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3301, 21 August 1911, Page 2

RUSSIAN CORRUPTION.

AMAZING CHARGES AQfINST officials.

The “trial of the 66,” as it is popularly called, yeyeals ap v astgunding state of corruption in the Jitoscow Supply Department, of the Russian Army. Of. the members of tlio Moscoav Intend- ' ancy between 1904 and 1910, two generals, twenty-one colonels, and twentyeight captains, besides four councillors of - State, aii© charged Avith systematic extortion, dishonesty, and bribe-tak-ing. , The: majority of the accused , are in uniform, and Avear various orders and decorations. The sums alleged to haA r e been, illicitly obtained by them range downwards from. £27,000, which is said to have been the share of one of the members: of the receiving committee of the Intendancy.. It is calculated that one firm alone in the course of twenty-five years has paid £2,000,000 in bribesi to the members of the Moscoav Supply Department. . One of the counts of the indictment is that the department accepted from the contractors boots of such Avretched quality that the soldiers could not Avear them., and sold them for what they would fetch. The boots eventually found thleir Avay hack to the. contractors. avlio delivered them again to the department The soldiers AA r ere obliged to sell their food in order to procure boots for themselves. It is declared that clerks in the department deliberately spoiled the samples of any firm which did not give them' bribes.