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Show V t V b 8 V LOM BSPMS GIMOMEIETO CKI OF ORDERS i i . Orders Sending British Troops to Plebescite Regions Canceled Can-celed Suddenly ! DAILY MAIL CALLS AFFAIR BIG MYSTERY General Semenoff Assumes Full Powers of Government 1 In Far Eastern Siberia r LONDON, Jan. 22. Some of the newspapers give great prominence to ! the cancellation of the original orders 'sending British troops into the plebiscite ple-biscite areas in Silesia, East Prussia, and Schleswig. Eleven battalions and a brigade of artillery were scheduled , for plebiscite duty but it was officially official-ly announced yesterday without a reason rea-son being given that it was found necessary nec-essary to modify the arrangement. Un-ider Un-ider the new plan only one battalion wjllco, Aow SchlfiS.wig, one to Danzig. ahTfone to Allenstein. Speculation is rife as to the destination of other bat- talions. j The Daily Mail, which describes the j affair as a "mystery," says advance 'parties of eleven battalions already have arrived at their destinations and have been ordered to return immedi-, ately. It refers to the Paris suggestion that troops be sent to protect Georgia Geor-gia and Aserbaijan against the Bol-sheviki Bol-sheviki and the report that French troops will be substituted for the British Brit-ish units In ihe plebiscite areas. It add5 that whatever the reason, the decision de-cision was made at the recent conferences confer-ences of the allies in Paris and is not an isolated British arrangemenL The Dally Herald ascribes it to the British "war party's determination to Involve the country in new military commitments." LONDON, Jan. 22. A Peking dispatch dis-patch of January 17 says that General Semenoff has assumed full powers of 'government in Far Eastern Siberia. 'General Horvath has assumed similar powers in the territory served by the 'Chinese Eastern railway, the dispatch (adds. A, Harbin dispatch dated January 17 and' received yesterday state l that General Semenoff, who is commander-in-chief of the all-Russian armies, had, issued a proclamation declaring his I assumption of supreme rulership iiij Siberia. The dispatch said General Semenoff's representatives in Harbin assumed that Semenoff was only tak-injf'over tak-injf'over supreme authority temporarily tempora-rily because of the lack of knowlpdge of the whereabouts of Admiral Kol-chak. Kol-chak. LONDON, Jan. 22. Negotiations between be-tween James O'Grady, British delegate, dele-gate, and Maxim Litvinoff, representative representa-tive of the Russian soviet government at Copenhagen, looking to the exchange ex-change of prisoners, have reached a! critical stage because of the alleged! system of espionage practiced on the.1 latter, according to tho correspondent! of the Herald at the Danish capital.; Virtually every hotel is said to have ' refused to accommodate M- Litvinoff, I who has appealed to both Mr. O'Grady and M. Tchitcherin, Bolshevik foreign minister, asking that the negotiations be transferred to another country. oo |