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Show I BALFOUR FAVORS j AN INVASION. j Balfour, in the House of Commons, ,p replying to Lees-Smith, who opposed j 'j invasion of Siberia by Japanese I J troops, made an unanswerable argu- I j nient j j If there was the slightest founda- j tion for Mr. Lees-Smith's contention ' 1 1 that "whenever foreign troops invade H i l a country they inevitably stay there , ' V and annexation results, said the foreign for-eign secretary, it was a very bad outlook out-look for northern France. Could not Mr. Lees-Smith sec that Russia was now a derelict upon the waters with no power of resistance whatever and that there would be German Ger-man penetration from end to end of Russia that would be absolutely disastrous dis-astrous for Russia. "I believe that the house docs not know how far .this penetration has already al-ready gone," said Mr. Balfour. "I suspect sus-pect that at this moment a German officer would be much safer traveling through Russia than -would an allied officer. "Russia sincerely desires lo resist this penetration. How can she do it when every instrument to make resistance re-sistance possible has been destroyed? I do not think that Germany will try to send great organized forces from Riga to Vladivostok; that would be an operation of great difficulty, and from a purely military viewpoint an unnecessary and even fatal waste of time. Russia is a country of surprises, sur-prises, and it is impossible to predict her future. But the thing most to be feared for Russia is that it is Germany's Ger-many's interest to foster and promote disorder. It has always been Germany's Ger-many's game that other countries should be weak and she knows that there is no better way than in making mak-ing them divided. What would be the result of this disorder and division? Men will at last look around and say to themselves: This condition is intolerable in-tolerable and makes life impossible. Something must be done, good or bad, to terminate the chaos.' "If Russia has destroyed every instrument in-strument of self-j)rotection she once possessed, why cannot the allies supply sup-ply what she now lacks? If would not bo done to satisfy greed, but because the allies believe Germany is really penetrating through the whole of that vast empire, not by vast armies traveling travel-ing from east to west, but by methods perfectly well known to Germany." From tho inception of this war, Tho Standard has taken the position so clearly defined by Balfour. The Standard Stand-ard was in favor of American armed forces aiding Russia, and now sees no objection to the Japanese moving as far westward along the Siberian railroad rail-road as they are able to penetrate. The very presence of Japanese troops moving through Siberia would keep Germany apprehensive over the eastern outlook, and compel that nation na-tion to set aside a considerable force to ward off a possible surprise. The Japanese forces could be made lo serve as a nucleus to Russian resistance re-sistance to German conquest. |