Arizona republican., 1917-04-26

afternoon at the treasury department 1 and was entertained at dinner at the | British embassy where a reception at | tended by the diplomatic corps and high American officials followed
 The foreign minister received the newspaper men during the day at the residence where he is entertained as the guest of the nation. He appeared hearty and vigorous in spite of his 69 years.
 When the newspaper correspondents had been presented, MT. Balfour said
 Gentlemen, I am very much obliged to you for coming here today and glv- ing me the opportunity of expressing to you personally and through you to the great American public, how very deeply we, who belong to this mission sent from Great Britain, value the kindness, the enthusiasm, the warmth of welcome which we have received in this capital city of the United States. All our hearts are gratified and touched personally. We are even more deeply touched by it as being the outward and visible manifestation of sympathetic emotion in carrying out and responding to great call, which is the real se- curity for our success.
 No man who has had the opportu- nity which l have enjoyed in the last few days of seeing, hearing and talk ing to leading members of your state can for one moment doubt the full de- termination of the American people to throw themselves into the greatest con- flict which ever has been waged in this world.
 q do not suppose that it is possible for you-I am sure it would be inn possible for me if I were in your place to realize in detail, in concrete detail, all that war means to those who have been engaged in it for now two years and a half. That is a feeling which comes and can only come by actual ex- perience. We on the other side of the Atlantic have been living in an at l mosphere of war since August 1914, and you cannot move about the streets, you cannot go about your daily busi- ness, even if your affairs be disasso- ciated with the war itself, without hav- ing evidences of the war brought to your notice every moment
 T arrived here on Sunday afternoon and went out in the evening after dark, and 1 was struck by a somewhat un- usual feeling which at the first moment l did not analyZe and suddenly it came upon me that this was the first time for two years and a half or more in which 1 had seen a properly lighted street. There is not a street in London, there is not street in any city of the | United kingdom, in which after dark the whole community is not wrapped in a gloom exceeding that which must have existed before the invention of gas | or electric lighting.
 But that is a small matter and only mention it because it hap pened to strike me as one of my earliest experiences in this city.
 Of course, the more tragic side of war is never and cannot ever be absent from our minds. I saw with great regret this morning in the newspapers that the son of Mr. Bonar Law, our chancellor of the eXchequer, was wounded and miss ing in some of the operations now going on in Palestine; and I in stinctively cast my mind back to the losses of this war in all circles; but as an illustration it seems to me inn 1 pressive. 1 went over the melancholy list, and fl my memory serves me rlsht, oIt of the small numter of cabinet ministers men of cabinet rank who were serving the state when the war broke out in August. 1914, ore has been killed in action, four at least have lost sons, and now | MT. Bonar Laws son is wounded and missing-not, I hope, lost to us, but still in d position from which he may return to his friends.
 That is the sort of things that has happened in quite 2 small and restricted class of men, but it Is characteristic of what is happening throughout the whole country
 The condition of France in that respect is evidently ever more full of sorrow and tragedy than our own because we had not a great army
 We had but 2 small army when war broke out, whereas the French army was of the great continental type, was on war footing, and was, from the very inception Of military opera = tons, engaged Tn sanguinary con- fllct with the common enemy.
 We have today coming among us a mission from Franco. I doubt not Indeed, l am fully convinced, that they will receive a welcome not less warm, not less heartfelt, than that which you have so generously and encourasinsly extended to us That was and certainly will be increased by the reflection that one member ot the mission is Marshal Joffre, who will go down through all the time as the general in command of the al- lied forces at one of the most critical moments in the worlds history.
 l remember when I was here there was book which was giver out in the schools called, The Eff teen Decisive Battles of the World.
 l cont know whether they all quite deserve that title. but there can be no doubt or question whatever that among the decisive battles of the world, the battle of the Marne was the most decisive. It was a turning
 point in the history of mankind. anc rejoice that the hero of that event IS today coming among us and vii loln IS, the British nation, in layins before the people of the United State, our gratitude for the sympathy which they have shown and are showing and our warm confidence in tn,
 value of the assistance which the,
 are affording the allied cause.
 Gentlemen, l do not believe that tho magnitude of that assistance can b,
 any possibility be exaggerated. I an told that there are some doubtine
 critics who seem to think that the ob.
 Ject of the mission of France and Grea Britain to this country is to inveigl, the United States out of it's traditiona policy and to entagle it into formal al.
 dances, secret or public, with European powers. l cannot imagine any rumol with less foundation, nor can I imagin, a policy so utterly unnecessary.
 Our confidence in this assistanc, which we are now going to get iron this community is not based upon sucl shallow considerations as those whicl
 arise out of formal treaties. No treat,
 could increase the undoubted conf