AMERICA AND THE WAR.
[To ewe EDITOR Or TAB ..SPECT■706...] Sra,—I do not know if I am competent to answer Mr. Parrish's question in your last issue, but I do venture respectfully to question your own statement that no Englishman would wish to be so " unchivalrous " as to "drag America into the war." I suppose you mean drag them in to help Englandi But that is not Mr. Parrish's question, which I take to be Will it help humanity, will it help the cause of honour, justice, right, morality, if America declares herself on the side of the Allies ? And to this question there can be but one answer. Ibis an appeal to America's chivalry to stand up openly for all that is gracious and of good report amongst mankind. Surely to appeal to America's chivalry cannot be unchivalinns on our part. America need not empty a cartridge, hut her moral and material help would go far to eettle the matter. I take it that fear of America's resentment alone prevents our Government from keeping cotton out of Germany. If America declared herself, she could and would stop every pound of cotton going there, which would be of far greater importance to the Allies towards shortening the war, and so saying thousands of lives, than five hundred thousand bayonets. Dr. Wilson has an opportunity such as no man has had before of upholding all the higher dictates of humanity. For humanity's sake will he take it ? Here is the real question in a nutshelL The material interests of America conflict with the interests of humanity ; which will the President sacrifice P To my mind there is only one consideration to give him pause, and it is a grave one. Will thousands of helpless Belgians starve if American succour be withdrawn ?
I can only quote America's own General: "War is bell"; and, as Hamlet says, "tie dangerous when the lesser come between the fell incensed points of mighty opposites."—I am,
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