TOPICS OF THE DAY.
BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.
THE unfortunate misunderstanding which has arisen between Sir A. Swettenham, the Governor of Jamaica,- and Rear-Admiral Davis, of the United States Navy, is happily understood in its real bearings by the people of both nations. A Governor, harassed and over- worked after a great calamity, and living amid scenes of appalling misery, receives an offer of help from the fleet of a friendly Power. He declines it, declaring himself competent to meet all demands ; but the friendly Admiral, thinking, no doubt, that all hands are needed, and that the laws of official etiquette should be silent during such a crisis, lands bluejackets, and helps to clear away debris and preserve order. Thereupon the Governor, while thank- ing him for his good intentions, begs him to withdraw in a letter which, to say the least of it, is unfortunately expressed, while be also declines all further American offers of relief. No other course is left for the Admiral but to depart with as much dignity as possible. The whole incident is exceedingly regrettable, but at the same time we are not disposed to make much of it. If etiquette may be overlooked in a crisis, so also may-lapses of taste. The most that can be said against Admiral Davis is that, in the absence- of British warships, he thought it his duty to act in the way that a British Admiral might have done, and forget for the occasion that he represented a foreign Power. History can show more than one occasion, when both British and American naval commanders have been guilty of the same lapse of memory with the happiest results. He may have committed a breach of etiquette, which in the circum- stances should have been welcomed by the representa- tive of Britain. The worst that can be said of Sir A. Swettenham is, not so much that he showed himself pedantic when pedantry was undesirable, as that he seems to have lost his temper, and conveyed his wishes to the Admiral in a letter of which the flippancy is bard to defend. His excuse must be that the events of the previous week were not calculated to preserve a judicial and balanced temper of mind. The incident, as we have said, has passed off harmlessly. The Governor has conveyed his official thanks to the United States Administration, and Sir Edward Grey, on behalf of the British Govern- ment, has expressed his gratitude to Admiral Davis for his services, -and has instituted an inquiry to determine the authenticity of Sir A. Swetthnham's letter. The United States Government have announced their intention of letting the matter drop, since they consider that "the action of one man at a time of great distress and mental strain should not be the means of raising an unpleasant issue with a great and friendly nation." This seems to us a very proper course to take, and it is one which the American Press, which is always very jealous of its country's dignity, is fully prepared to endorse. There is no need of officious disclaimers by public men in this country, or of any obsequious apologies. All Englishmen and Americans understand perfectly well what has happened, and make every allowance.
Fortunately, at the time of the friction in Jamaica Mr. Root, the American Secretary of State, was on a visit to Canada as the guest of Lord Grey. After the President, Mr. Root is the most distinguished of American statesmen. If Mr. Roosevelt were to resign, he would probably succeed him in the Republican leadership, and in any case is the most authoritative and trusted exponent of the Roosevelt policy. He has given the Monroe doctrine its modern form, and he has done more than any other man, not even excepting the President, to interpret it rationally in practice. To-day he may fairly be claimed as the chief authority on American foreign policy, the exponent of the new American Imperialism, but with it all a wise and cautious statesman, in whom impulse is ever subservient to reflection. He has always been con- spicuously friendly to Britain, and the visit which he is paying to Canada, in return for that of the Canadian Governor-General to the States, cannot fail to bear fruit in the relations between the two countries. He has talked frankly to interviewers of his impressions of the develOp- meat of Canada, a land which -he knows well, and on Tuesday at the Canadian Club at Ottawa he delivered one of those long and eloquent panegyrics which seem to be the monopoly of American public men in their visits to other countries. Every one, he said, who had been born and bred like himself under the English common 'law, and under English principles of liberty and justice, must feel at home in Canada. For forty years he had watched her development, and he had seen wonders. "Feeble, ill- compacted, separate, dependent Colonies had grown into a great and vigorous nation." Canada had found wealth, and she had found statesmanship. What seems specially to have impressed Mr. Root was the fact that all classes in Canada were deeply interested in politics. Without such a universal interest true self-government is impossible, and we may detect a note of regret in the tone of a states- man in whose country politics do not always attract the best minds and the most strenuous wills. In the conclu- sion of his speech he declared that the American people looked upon the great material and spiritual progress of Canada without jealousy, nay, rather with admiration and hope. There was a patriotism of the American Continent as well as of Canada or the United States. Their pioneers were of the same race and had grappled with the same problems. To-day, in spite of differences, the same questions were occupying their minds. Mr. Root did not blink the possibilities of friction. The two peoples were loyal to different national ideals, and in that loyalty lay their strength. Difficulties were' bound to arise, but let them remember that for ninety years, under a simple interchange of Notes dealing with the arma- ment on the Great Lakes, the two countries had been living side by side in peace. If this had been possible in the difficult early years of both nations, when national susceptibilities are more tender, and opportunities for 'quarrels more numerous, surely there was reason to hope that the future might reproduce the past.
Mr. Root has the courage to see that even in a platitude there may be a truth. Blood, after all, is thicker than water,—the maxim with which the American Secretary of State began his speech, and the Canadian Premier con- 'eluded. There is au impulse among men brought- up under the same traditions to quarrel violently over small matters, but in a crisis to draw instinctively together. We have always argued that, in spite of local friction, there was no real danger to Canada from ler great Southern neighbour, because there was no incompatibility between their national ideals. The United States has her own task of internal and external development, and it need not conflict with Canada's. Moreover, in the Monroe doctrine as stated by Mr. Root and President Roosevelt there is a. guarantee of, and not a menace against, Canadian independence. The two nations of North America, while each following its own career, will permit no interference from any other Power. If Canada is threatened, then the might not only of the British Empire but of the United States will awake for her defence. Mr. Root's speech convinces us, if anything were needed, that there is nothing irreconcilable between the political and economic advance of Canada and the interests of the United States. In small and crowded continents one nation may increase only at the expense of the others ; but in the wider spaces of the West there is room for independent growth, and in consequence for a sympathetic mutual interest.
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