General Elmsley sent a company of the 259th Battalion 
     
     as the Canadian contribution, but by the time the force was 
     
     ready to attack. the Bolsheviks had retired. When the 
     
     Canadians got back to Vladivostok without having fired a 
     
     shot, their disappointment was somewhat alleviated by the 
     
     issue to them, on Otani's instruction, of 96 bottles of wine, 
     
     18 bottles of whiskey and three casks of sake. 
     
    
   
   
    
     By the end of 1918 it had become obvious to Sir 
     
     Robert Borden that Canada was unlikely to reap any 
     
     economic advantages from intervention in Siberia. 
     
     Accordingly, as a way out of the impasse in which the Allies 
     
     found themselves, he suggested at a meeting of the Imperial 
     
     War Cabinet on 30 December that an international 
     
     conference be held to arbitrate the Russian Civil War."' This 
     
     proposal came to nothing, for the White Russians, refusing 
     
     "to confer on an equal basis with traitors ' murderers and 
     
     robbers",... indignantly rejected the invitation to attend. 
     
    
   
   
    
     At the end of January the Canadian Government 
     
     decided to demobilize the troops awaiting shipment in 
     
     British Columbia, and early in February Borden informed 
     
     Lloyd George of his intention to recall the Canadians from 
     
     Siberia about April. He reiterated his determination to do 
     
     this when the Russian situation was discussed at the Peace 
     
     Conference between 13 and 17 February, despite the urgings 
     
     of Lord Balfour and Mr. Churchill,, who foresaw disastrous 
     
    
   
   
    
     7O