" HOW IT STRIKES AN AMERICAN."
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—No-argument which Mr. Edward Price Bell has brought forward to disprove the belief, very prevalent, as he rightly says, in this country that America, as a nation, is playing for herself alone, is likely to have that effect. The belief, also, not that America made the war, but that she has spoilt the peace, is one that all his explanations leave just where it was. Had America consented to sit at the table of a League of Nations, modified, of course, from the first rough draft, in council with the delegates of all the nations of the world; had that League of. Nations been firmly established with its home and headquarters at Constantinople, where East and West meet and where Christian and Mahometan, Jew and Gentile, are equally at home, there could have been no recrudescence of war. The Russian famine could have been stayed by reorganization of Russia's internal transport ; and the bitter cry of " save the children " need not have been heard nor reawakened by the burning of Smyrna. But America refused to co'-operate, membership of the League is dangled before the defeated nations as a reward for good behaviour instead of as a means of bringing them into line with the rest of humanity, and so the League, having no universality, can only function in a partial manner and has no driving power.
Mr. Bell is very triumphant over America's great inter- national work in bringing about and carrying through the
• Washington Naval. Conference : but here, again, there is no universality in the arrangement and the dangerous nations are left unfettered. It is, no doubt, a great convenience to America.to be able to devote herself undisturbed to the develop- ment of her mercantile marine ; but for Great Britain, which has her mercantile marine laid up in dock with nothing to do, the benefit of the holiday is not quite so evident to the man and woman in the street. Our ancestral homes and their contents are beingturned into institutions or sold to Americans, even our. family portraits have to be parted with, in order to pay for the upkeep of those who through no fault of their own are not able to keep themselves. The Navy in this small sea-girt isle-belongs. to the life blood of the people in a way which, Mr. Bell and his compatriots on their vast continent cannot realize, and there are few of us who would not rather gtve.our last farthing to pay for ships and the grand training which the making and manning of them afford than give it away in doles to the unemployed. In these grim times, when we hear of nothing but the cutting off of careers and outlets for our sons and daughters, it can hardly be expected to make us glad to hear from Mr. Bell that, not contented with hostile tariffs to keep. our products out of America, his countrymen are coining over in large numbers to take over our home industries and enterprises. When we have paid every farthing of our debt to America and cancelled every farthing that is owed to us, and arc bankrupt and very sick and hungry, it is consoling to think of the kindly millionaire
who will arive with corned beef and timed tomatoes, and perhaps even some old clothes for distribution. Mr. Bell must forgive us if we think and say that friendliness and world helpfulness are more likely to spring from co-operation and taking counsel together on equal terms than from answering the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" in the negative.— [Personally, we think a qualifying period for membership of the League was necessary, but our Government need • not have cold-shouldered the League so often by making the Supreme Council of the Allies perform the functions of the League. As for Russia, America has done more than any other country to help the victims of the famine. Our corre- spondent does not, we think, sufficiently remember the Ameri- can Constitutional objections to the League. The Covenant impairs the exclusive right of Congress to decide issues of peace and war. But we believe that America will yet come in to a modified association of nations. In any case, Anglo- American co-operation is the essential nucleus of such an association.—En. Spectator.]
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