American Notes of the Week
(By Cable)
MR. MACDONALD'S VISIT.
Messages from the King and from Mr. Baldwin and the attitude of the British Press and public when Mr. MacDonald embarked last week combined to create a memorable impres- sion of a nation expressing itself as one in accents of unmis- takable sincerity and good will. Mr. MacDonald's own declarations have confirmed this impression. They have invested his mission with a significance far transcending the technicalities upon which attention has tended, perhaps unduly, to concentrate. Tonnages and gun calibres are important, and without naval agreement, as the New York Herald Tribune says, the success of the visit " will be illusory." But armaments are an effect and not a cause, and present and future discussions must at once go deeper and look further. A hopeful basis is, as the New York World remarks, the major premise that no fundamental conflict of interest need exist between the two countries. Nor is there any conflict, it may be added, between their welfare and that of the rest of the world. Mr. MacDonald did well to discourage the expectation of spectacular developments. They are unlikely, and might be unwise. Congress has not been consulted, and the positions of Japan, France, and Italy remain imperfectly defined. There are risks of peace for the President as well as for the Prime Minister, but in what haS been achieved and in the present temper of the public there is distinct encouragement.
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