America in Isolation.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17061, 4 February 1921, Page 6

America in Isolation.

j American politicians, it appears, are | beginning to find out that the policy j of self-isolation in international 'affairs lis not so splendid after all. It is regrettable that at so epoch-making a period in history, when the destinies of nations are being shaped, a powerful and enlightened country like America should be holding aloof from all participation in the great work of international reorganisation, and taking the obscure and not too happy part of spectator and critic. It was unfortunate for America that, at so critical a time, her constitutional system demanded a Presidential election campaign, and it was still more unfortunate that the League of Nations should be made the bio; •issue of that campaign. The conception of the League, as a new method of promoting < international peace, aiyl the circumstances of its birth, "owed so much to the lofty influence of President .Wilson that it came quite as a shock to learn that party politics should lead the United States to repudiate and disown the lie ague. Wo believe that the American people desire to take an active and adequate part in the promotion of peace, but in tho furtherance of party propaganda the true inwardness of the League was • violently and designedly misconstrued. As a result the United States is now in a condition of international isolation, and still technically at war with Germany, so that, in the settling of the many vast and complex problems arising as a legacy of the war she has had no share. But, although the country holds aloof from action, the voices of her politicians are not silent. They have directed some hard criticism against those other Allied countries which have shouldered tho burden of finding & way out of the many difficulties and of organising tho world for future peace, and yet<while repudiating responsibility and duty, they have set up emphatic claims to participate in whatever advantages are to be derived from the readjustments. No one would wish to deprive £he States of anything to which the country is entitled arising out .of rearrangements and readjustments in which it takes its fair share of responsibility; but to stand out when the work is to be done ari3 to come I iu when the benefits are being divided is "not "playing the game." America demands a share in the communication advantages held iby the control of the island of Yap mandated to Japan, but slie has rejected with scorn the whole idea'of the mandatory system and has proffered 110 help in discovering a substitute. She demands a sh'are of the oil supplies from Mesopotamia, but refused flatly to have anything to do with tho care and control of that country. One reads of complaints that the proposed imposition of a 12$ per cent, tax on German exports bj the Allies will prejudicially affect American trade, but America by her own action cut herself off from sharing, in the Allied discussions to settle the German reparations. We repeat that Ae do not think the present position has the approval of the American people. Had the Presidential election not come when it did, and had the United States taken her proper part in the after-war Allied discussions, th,ere would not have "bgcn anything like the present disruption of harmony. The League might i;uve been altered as the outcome of America's Influence and wishes, but in whatever final form it emerged it would have contained a strength which, by her aloofness it now lacks.