AMERICA AND EUROPE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXV, Issue 8340, 6 January 1916, Page 3

AMERICA AND EUROPE

A SHREWD COMMENT

"Existing treaties speak of 'the most-favoured nation,' ',' says the New York " Evening Post." " New ones will soon be using .the phrase 'the most-hated nation. 5 , At. least, one might think so if .he were to believe all that he hears : about the United States being entitled to that distinction. Many Americans are saying that their country is now the most hated on earth. Some of them add that it will continue to bo so after the Avar is over. The latter, oi: course, link the thing up with their warnings that wo must arm to the teeth in preparation for attack. We are so hated that several of the nations in Europe will hasten to turn their weapons against us, as soon as $hey have done killing each other off. ' The exaggeration in tffis is obvious. But what is the substratum of fact in it ? How intense is European hatred of the United States? What are its causes? How long is it likely to last, and what are its effects lik'elv to be ?

" Let us begin with reports from abroad. The feeling about Americans, to which Americans themselves testify from Berlin, Paris, and London, is no doubt frequently one of bitterness.; But its manifestations* are self-contrn-dictory, and it is due to reasons which are clearly temporary. The Germans hate us becauso we have done so much for the Allies. The Allies hate ns because wo have done nothing for them. Both cannot be right. And in time both will come to a sounder view of our role. Germans assert indignantly that they .would have won had not America ' furnished the French and English with munitions of war. But their own military historians will presently bo telling them that their armies received a fatal check at the jtfarne before a, pound of powder or a, single shell from tho United States had reached France. And if the result or the war has been to start a. great flow of capital to America, and make our financial strength commanding, that can scarcely be our fault. We did not make the war. If anybody is to bo hated for its awful consequences, it ought to be the men who, in the language of Kaiser Frederick, sat around a green table and signed tho orders which desolated Europe."