Arizona republican., 1921-11-22


 out our seeing it, outside of our
 Such is the situation as far as we are concerned. You will grant me, gentlemen, that it Is serious enough. But that is not all. But what about the rest of Europe? Ap- parently Europe is at peace, although here and there, on the ground, cer- tain volumes of smoke just arising seem to indicate that the fire is not extinguished everywhere. I might say that this fire is smoldering in certain parts of Europe and if France had not had an army, war would already have broken out in Europe again.
 T will just draw your attention to one subject and that is the subject of Russia Russia is a country of 120,- 000.000 men, which is actually boiling over with anarchy. They have an enormous standing army, which is in theory a million and a half men. but which has practical strength of 600.000 men. What will Russia do? Who can say what will happen on that side? About a year and a half ago there was a wild rush by Rus sia on Europe. Russia tried to rush Poland and through Poland to reach Germany, where some people were beckoning to them. Gentlmen, we had at that time known terrible an- xious hours in France. If the barrier had not held good. if that anarchist army had been able to join the people 1 who were calling them on the other l side what would have happened? !? Where would France be and where would the rest of Europe be? Hap l oily. there was the French army which was the soldier of order for | its own account and for the sake of l the world.
 .The situation in Russia Is far 1 from being settled. It is a sort of permanent anxiety to everybody. | What will become of it's enormous l army? What could. or might Ger many. do in order to equip Russia and exploit her? We know not. . l "The thought of reducing the arm- l aments, which was the noble purpose | of this conference, is not one from ] which we would feel disinterested
 from the point of view of land arma- ments. We have shown it already. | Immediately after the armistfce. de- 1 mobilization began as rapidly and as | completely as possible According to ! the military laws of France. there are | three classes of men: That is, three generations of young men under the ! flag. That law is still extant; that I law is still valid. It has not been | abrogated, and the government has l taken the responsibility to reduce to l two years the time spent under other | flags, and instead of three classes l three generations of young men-we l have only two undergoing military service. It is, therefore. an imme- | lio+ hxyn ;,-I I,oe l already taken place in the effectives and I am speaking of tne normal effectives of the metropolitan. Ieav- | ing aside troops needed for colonial occupation or obligation imposed by l treaty in the Rhineland or countries I or other plebiscites. We do not think that endeavor was sufficient and in 1 the future we have plans to further | restrict the extent of our armies. Ir | a few days 1t is certain that the pro- l posals of the government will be passed in the chamber and to further 1 reduce the military service by half ] That is to say, there will be only one class and a half actually serving
 The metropolitan French army would | be, therefore, reduced by half. but il 1 anybody asks us to go further, tc ! consent to other reductions, I should 1 have to answer clearly and definitely 1 that it would be impossible for us tC do 1t without exposin~ ourselves tt
 most serious danger.'