The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-05-06
By WINSTON CHURCHILL,

war. and almost every factor with which we have to deal Is uncertain and huctating. We cannot forecast the exact date at which demo obiliza- ton will be completed. We do not yet know what arrangements affecting armaments will be embodied in the treaty of peace. We cannot tell how many men we shall have to keep in the Middle East and on the Rhine, or for how long they will have to be kept there.
 We cannot be sure what the atti- tude and the conduct of the Germans will be, whether they will accept our conditions, whether they will resist them actively or passively, whether they will agree to them and endeavor aO evade them, whether they will re- fuse them, and throw responsibility for the future upon us, or whether they will simply degenerate into ruin.
 The victorious Allies, on whom there rests the responsibility for en- ablfngsthe world to get to work again, are themselves exhausted in a very serious degree, and all these elements of difficulty and uncertainty vitiate or threaten to vitiate our calculations.
 Over and over again nations have won wars and then declined by dis 0Eder of their finances. Good finance is the golden key to national pros perity; and T can assure the House that I shall do my utmost to secure substantial reductions in military forces, for without those reductions good finance is impossible.
 Our plan now is to let three out of every four men go from the army and to pay the fourth man double to finish the job.
 Although we are by no means at the end of our difficulties, and it is farfrom. Iny1ntention to give an over sanguine picture of the situation which presents itself to us today, yet the effects of this policy are already notable, and, so far as they go, ex- 'trenely> satisfactory.
 There are four distinct stages of army development in process at the present time. First of all, there are the great armies that won the war, armies of four or five millions of men, These are demobiliztng, and are al- ready largely demobilized-
 Secondly, there are the armies Of occupation now rapidly forming on compuIsory'basts, which approximates to 900, 900 men, subject to such re- auctions later on in the year as cir cunstances may permit
 Thirdly, there is the voluneer reg
 
 risoning of the Empire, formed out of trained men who re-engaged for one, two, three or more years, which army is growing. atsthe rate of 1000 a day.
 And fourth1y, there is the perman- nent after-war army, built up out of new young recruits, who have to be trained, and who have to be nourished and developed by good feeding, and who fnave to reach the age of twenty before they can be sent to the East, but who, after having been trained and developed, must gradually take the place of those, seasoned and war time soldiers as their voluntary en- agreements in succession and at tn- tervalS expire.
 cesses we have to recreate the voiun- ,tary formation, training only for
 Side by side with all these pro few weeks in each year.
 With the conclusion of a final peace what will be needed by the Allied Powers will be not so much large. armies as loyal armies, and we shall look forward to considerable reductions taking place in the great military establishments on the Con tinent of Europe.
 Our British regular establishment before the war was. however. of most moderate and even meagre dimensions. However far tho pro- ceas of disarmament may be pressed, it seerns very unlikely that having regard to our responsibilities we shall ever fall. or ought ever to fall, to the slender scale of 1914.
 We do not know what other Pow CTS are going to do, or what will be the military system in force in Trance. the United States. Italy or Japan. Nobody knows what is going to happen to Germany, Austria or Russia or how4ong the world will be kept in a state of great disorder and anxiety.
 On every ground, therefore. it will be better to defer the final decision upon our army system until after the war, until some at least of the cardf- nal facts on which everything turns are moro clearly apparent than they are today.
 now turn to>tTe position of our forces in Russia. There is an Al lied arm of a certain size-of ex- actly what size it Is not necessary to say-in occupation of considerable regions of North Russia, based on the forts of Murmansk and Arch angel. About half this army is Brit 1ah. The port of Archanse1 is cut off sfrom us by dca, and will not be effectively" opened till June The port of Murmansk ts open all. the year around, ut~the fortunes of the Mur- Tnansk force are bound up with 'those of the Archangel force-they must stand together.
 Sent to Beat Germany.
 II is no rse peop4e raising pre-. 3udlce against these expeditions. Every one knows why they were sent. They were sent as-p part of our operations against Germany. It was vitalIy necessary to take every mea- sure in regard to Russia during the war which would keep as many Ger man troops as possible on the Rus sian sffont, and reduce that formid- able movement of the German armies which carried more than a million men to the western front, and which Culminated in that i'm menss series of battles which began oA March 21 last year.
 That was thu object, that was the reason why We went to Archangel and to MUrmansk, and that was the reason why we gave aid in minor