New Britain herald., 1917-04-30
COMMISSIONS SETTLE DOWN
 TO WEEK OF CONFERENCES
French and British Hopeful
 of Final Decision By Sat-
 urday-Latter Misled as to : Preparedness of U. s.

Washington, April 30.-The British
 and French commissions settled down
 to their second week of conferences today with preliminaries cleared away and the ground work reached for per- lection of the part the United States
 to take part in the overthrow of the
 Prussian autocracy.
 M. viviani, head of the French
 mission. accompanied by Ambassador Jusserand, had an hours conference with the president. <. No announce 1 ment was made about the meeting.
 but it is understood the needs of France and cooperation of the Unit l ed States were full discussed.
 M. viviani and Marshal ,Joffre were ! to have made a visit to the capitol
 today but at the last moment the
 visit was postponed until later in the 1 week.
 l State department officials took steps
 today to explain that the department
 took no part whatever in the expurga- 1 tion of portions of Marshal Joffre's | statement yesterday on the participa-
 tion of American troops on the battle fields of France. They made it plain that any changes in the prepared statement as read by Marshal Joffre when later given out to the newspa- pers had been made by the French mission on it's own initiative and that the state departments only part in
 issuing the revised statement was to
 place its facilities of distribution at
 the disposal of the French mission
 Hope for Agreement This Week. Both the French and British mis- sions are hopeful that final decision 1 over the subjects under discussion may be reached during the week, at least in the most important phases The conferences so far. however. have not progressed as rapidly as had been expected, mainly because the American government has not all the
 necessary boards and officials which a
 state of war develops. In sense one
 of the greatest benefits of the con- ferences so far has been to show to
 American officials the enormous or ganization which war necessitates. A benefit which is expected to have
 a decided effect on the negotiations
 has been the removal of a number of
 misconceptions among the British of
 ficials. For example, British naval officers had hoped the United States
 would be able to cooperate against . the submarine menace with a large fleet of small boats. They have been shown, however, that no such fleet is ir existence but that steps are under way to construct one as quickly as possible.
 In many similar eases the British
 officials now know the exact resources
 of the country. both now and for the future. The commissioners have therefore, reached 8 position where 1t will be much easier to work out the details of cooperation.
 l MT. Balfour spent the morning ir
 conference with Sir Joseph Pope, of Canada. The problems Canada has faced both in raising an army and 1 in industrial and agricultural mobili- zation were similar to those now fac- ing this country and Canadian ex- perience would have great value in aiding American officials. Two great
 est questions probably are the in- crease of food exports and of ship ping tonnage. Appropriations of $2.699,4s5,281 to
 meet urgent deficiencies in the army
 and navy or $760.S55.687 less than
 was recommended by the war and
 navy departments are included in a
 bill favorably reported to the house today by the appropriations commit tee. i1s~