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Show BALFOUR AND PARTY SAFE INAIRICA BRITISH COMMISSIONERS TO WAR COUNCIL RECEIVED WITH HIGHEST HONORS. Dean of English Statesmen Defines War Issues and Expresses Apprecia-. Apprecia-. tion for Work Americans Have Done in Interests of Neutrals. Washington. Former Minister Balfour Bal-four and the other memlers of the commission sent to America by the government of Great Britain, arrived In Washington on Sunday. Great Britain's high commissioners to the international war council arrived ar-rived safely and set foot on American soil at New York City on Saturday, April 21. While unable to grant an extended interview before presenting himself to President Wilson. Mr. Balfour willingly will-ingly consented to say a few words as to his general hopes for the conference confer-ence and the fundamental purposes he-hind he-hind it. A verbatim copy follows: All will agree that my first duty as head of a diplomatic mission is to pay I my respects to the head of the state to-which to-which I have been sent ; and no public expression of opinion on points of policy pol-icy would, I think, be useful or even tolerable until I have had the honor of conferring with your president and learning his views. I have not come-here come-here to make speeches or indulge in interviews, but to do what I can to-make to-make co-operation easy and effective-between effective-between those who are striving with all their power to bring about a lasting last-ing peace by the only means that can-secure can-secure it, namely, a successful war. Without, however, violating the rule-I rule-I have just laid down, there are two things which I may permit myself to ; say : One, on my own behalf, the other on behalf of my countrymen Iiv general. On my own behalf, let me express the deep gratification I feel at being connected in any capacity whatever with events which associate our countries coun-tries in a common effort for a great ideal. On behalf of my countrymen, let me express our gratitude for all that tint citizens of the United States of America Amer-ica have done to mitigate the lot of those who, in the allied countries, have suffered from the cruelties of the most deliberately cruel of all wars. To name no others, the efforts of Mr. Gerard Ger-ard to alleviate the condition of British Brit-ish and other prisoners of war in Germany Ger-many and the administrative genius which Mr. Hoover has ungrudgingly devoted to the relief of the unhappy Belgians and French in the territories still in enemy occupation, .will never be forgotten ; while an inexhaustible stream of charitable effort has supplied sup-plied medical and nursing skill to the-service the-service of the wounded and the sick. These are the memorable doings of a beneficent neutrality. But the days of neutrality are, I rejoice to think, at an end ; and the first page is being turned in a new chapter in Ihe history of mankind. Tour president, in a most apt and vivid phrase, has proclaimed that the world must be made safe for democracy. Democracies whenever they are found, and not least the democracies de-mocracies of the British empire, will hail the pronouncement as happy augury. That self-governing communities commu-nities are not to be treated as negligible neglig-ible simply because they are small ; that the ruthless domination of one unscrupulous power imperils the future fu-ture of civilization and the liberties of mankind, are truths of political ethics eth-ics which the bitter experience of war is burning into the souls of all freedom-loving peoples. That this great people should have thrown themselves whole-heartedly into this mighty struggle, prepared for all the efforts and sacrifices that may be required to win success for this most righteous cause, is an event at once so happy and so momentous that only the historian his-torian of the future will be able, as I believe it, to measure its true proportions. |