TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PRECAUTIONS AGAINST THE STORM.
rriE experienced seaman when he notices unmis- takable signs of a coming storm always takes precautions. He shortens sail or makes ready to shorten it ; he sets his rigging up taut ; he sees to his hatches and he secures everything movable on deck. In the same way navigators who are in charge of the ship of State ought to take their precautions when they see the hero- in? ta. falling and the wind backing. Storm signs may turn out to be illusory ; there may, after all, be no storm, but only a strong breeze and a certain amount of dirty weather which is not dangerous. Nevertheless, it is the part of the good seaman never to be caught napping. One of the signs of coming storm which is fairly plain to read to-day is on the American horizon. There have been bad storms from that direction before, and we ought to know by this time how to deal with them. In our opinion, the approaching storm, though it will probably have an ugly look, will not have what sailors call much weight behind it. We mean that though a strong anti-British campaign is brewing in America, we shall know all the time that by far the best and most solid elements in the United States are entirely opposed to a campaign of hatred and denunciation against Great Britain. These elements are sure to prevail in the end, or would be sure to do so if we on our side did not make any of those stupid mistakes which turn into enemies those who really want to be our friends. The recent reception of the Ulster delegates in America is a proof of how much real goodwill there is towards Great Britain, and how much intelligent willing- ness to understand her difficulties and her point of view. The Ulster delegates certainly managed to bring about a slump in the stock of Mr. De Valera. Men and women far and wide in the United States came to understand that it is not Great Britain who is withholding self-determination from Ireland, but the Sinn Feinets who are withholding self-determination from the Protestants and Unionists whom they want to have entirely under their thumb. As for the Irish Republic, far more Americans than before see now that Great Britain is standing out for the very principle upon which Abraham Lincoln went to war with the Confederacy—the principle that an essential geo- graphical part of a self-containing and self-protective Power has not the right to secede. Now that the Peace Treaty has been rejected in America, the Presidential Election is bound, to turn upon the settle- ment which the United States will make with Europe. In other words, it will turn upon American-European relations. And experience has shown us that when that is the subject of discussion nine-tenths of the talk is about the relations of America with Great Britain. Here will be as good an opportunity as the anti-British agitators in America have ever had in their lives for their favourite pursuit. The Irish-Americans will of course use the occa- sion for all it is worth. They will try to bring along in their wake many other groups which are only too ready to be led. There will be there men of alien birth who have not become so American as to forget that they are Germans or Austrians. There will also be men of revolutionary and communistic opinions who will seize the opportunity to embroil the relations of the United States with what they will call "the greatest monarchical and capitalistic State left in Europe." There will probably be raging and tearing propaganda. In these circumstances we must do two things. First, we must hold fast to the undoubted fact that the future of international good faith, which means the future of civilization, depends upon the unfailing friendship of the English-speaking races ; and secondly, we must cultivate every existing means, and even invent new means, of increasing the understanding between America and Great Britain. Nothing is written more clearly in the past than that lack of sympathy was due to lack of knowledge. This is true as a general historical prop° lition, and it is particularly true at the present moment, when Englishmen are in real danger of misunderstanding the reasons which induced so many Americans of goodwill and of high aspirations to turn down the Treaty. We must not enter again now into the whole Constitutional issue between the majority of the American people and their President. It is enough to say that the necessit.y to explain away, or more or less to apologize for, the acts of a man in so great a position as that occupied by an American President does not make Americans, even though they have plenty of goodwill and rectitude, incline to tolerate criticism from other countries. As we have said, it will be largely our own fault if we drive our friends into the arms of our enemies.
Among the signs that the right hands and brains are at work providing means for Englishmen and Americans to know one another better, we should like to mention three which have come under our notice within the past few days. These three are only examples ; they may be minor things in themselveS, but they are tokens and pledges, and they are first-rate illustrations of what is needed and what will help us through. The well-known American writer, Mr. Owen Wister, has just published in England a book called A Straight Deal, or The Ancient Grudge (Mac- millan, 6s. net). It is history dished up in a popular shape, and admonition made readable and informal. Mr. Wister explains that it was the Great War which caused him to think that Americans made a mistake to hate England." Starting from that somewhat negative point of view, he came, on inquiry, to think that it was a mistake not to admire Great Britain—and be the best of friends with her. For the "ancient grudge" he puts, as so many thinking Americans have done, a large part of the blame upon the American school histories. Our readers may remember that we called attention some time ago to the remarkable examination of American school history-books conducted by Mr. Charles Altschul. Mr. Wister is in absolute agreement with Mr. Altschul. He transforms the popular American view of British policy at the time of the American War of Independence. He draws a picture of a stubborn King and a narrow-minded Minister overriding the misgivings and the positive opposition of an enormous part of the British nation, and introducing into America Hessian mercenaries to do the fighting which was not to the likingb of enough British soldiers. We are extremely glad to notice that Mr. Wister has recognized the truth about Irish help in the American War of Independence. He records, what is the fact, that that help was given mainly by the Presbyterian Irish, while the Roman Catholic or Celtic Irish, like the German colonists, furnished the bulk of the auxiliaries to the regular army of the British. Nevertheless the Roman Catholic Irish have daringly claimed American gratitude almost ever since, trusting, not too vainly, to the general American forgetfulness ! But the War of Independence is only one point. Mr. Wister reminds his countrymen that, though they have often denounced the British for burning Washington, they have quite forgotten that Americans had burnt Toronto a year earlier. Ile reminds them that when they disparage British history as an unceasing record of grab, they seem to have forgotten the Mexican War of 1846-1817. "No doubt," he says, "you know that Santa Anna, the Mexican General, had a wooden leg. Well, there is more to know than that, and I found it out much later." He then goes on to explain that General Grant summarized the whole Mexican War as "iniquitous." One wonders, by the way, why the writings and poems of J. It. Lowell about the Mexican War should have made so little permanent impression on America, but no doubt the explanation is that irony is not for popular consumption. It is certainly not for use in school history-books. "In that war," continues Mr. Wister, 'we bullied a weaker Power ; we made her our victim ; the whole discreditable business had the institution of slavery at the bottom - of it."
Then Mr. Wister says in another chapter "The blackest page in our history is our treatment of the Indian." We cannot follow Mr. Wister through that "blackest page," but we may mention that we find him a little later writing about the " grabbing " of Florida from Spain. "The pittance that we paid Spain in one of the Florida trans- actions never went to her." In fine, Mr. Wister discovers that all countries, as is bound to happen when nations are climbing the long and painful ascent of civilization, are not very different in their good and their evil. To reach that conclusion we have thought it worth while to follow Mr. Wister's confessions. But the moral, which Mr. Wister also points, is that it is ridiculous to pretend that any one country has a right to "an ancient grudge" against any other. What Americans ought rather to remember, Mr. Wister thinks, is that Great Britain not mace but many times did handsome things by America. Great Britain was the real inventor of the Monroe Doctrine.
Great Britain in the most friendly way desired arbitration over the Behring Sea dispute, although, as Mr. Wister says, America, ignoring the three-mile limit, "had seized Canadian vessels sixty miles from land." President Cleveland would have gone to war with anybody for much less. As a final example, in 1898, when America was at war with Spain, Great Britain warned Germany not to intervene. "England," writes Mr. Wister, "saved us from Germany. She did it from first to last ; her position was unmistakable, and every determining act of hers was as our friend." Modesty restrains us from summarizing Mr. Wister's tribute to what Great Britain did in the Great War, and we must leave his book with the remark that, if any British or American reader of it still wants to bear the ancient grudge, he must be of all men the most wantonly pugnacious. The two other present signs to which we wish to draw attention are movements of good fellowship and hospitality, one of which is in this country at Oxford and the other in America. A number of well-known men and women in America have started an organization to provide "for the proper reception of Englishmen." A Committee of a hundred members is to be distributed among the principal American cities, and a Permanent Staff will be lodged in New York. The duty of the Permanent Secretary will be to act as a liaison officer between English visitors to America and the members of the Committee. "Thus if an Englishman desires to study the banking system in this country, the steel industry, educational facilities, or the like, this Secretary will see that he is promptly put in touch with the leading authorities." To accomplish this object a complementary Committee will be formed in Great Britain to warn the American Committee of the arrival of guests. In a similar way the Secretary in New York will inform his colleague in London of the movements of American visitors to Great Britain who want to collect information about British life and industry. The Hon. Secretary for the time being is Mr. E. H. Wells, 115 Nassau Street, New York, whose name is honoured by all Harvard men, and who has already done a great deal for better relations between Great Britain and America.
Finally, there is the Oxford University British-American Club. The Club holds public and private meetings "for the discussion of matters affecting British-American relations," and it invites prominent Englishmen and Americans to address the meetings. One of the more notable addresses already given was delivered by Mr. J. W. Davis, the American Ambassador, on "The Treaty- Making Power in the United States." The Club also aims at maintaining connexion with other Universities not only in America but in the Dominions. Groups have already been formed in the United States at the Universities of Cornell and Wisconsin. The Oxford Club is collecting a library of pertinent works dealing with political, social, and economic subjects, and has already taken club rooms. We notice that Lord Bryce and Mr. J. W. Davis are Prezi- dents of the Club, and that the Hon. Secretary is Mr. 0. R. Parkin, jun., of Canada and Balliol.
Previous page
