The Press FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1938. America and Europe

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22484, 19 August 1938, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1938. America and Europe

The most common reaction, at any rate in British countries, to Mr Cordell Hull’s speech pledging the United States “ to an international “ programme for the restoration of sound economic relations, international morality, and “ respect for the principles of international law “ and justice ” will be a weary scepticism. For a year or more hardly a month has passed without some member of the United States Administration declaiming against the growth of international lawlessness and promising, in studiously vague terms, that America’s influence will be used to restore “ orderly processes ” of international relations. The peoples of the British Commonwealth and of the European democracies, faced with th growing recklessness and unscrupulousness of the policies of the totalitarian States, can be excused for feeling that in force of arms and specific military commitments lies their sole protection and t.iat America’s desire exert a moral influence in the world is inevitably nullified by her unwillingness to embark on any course of action involving the remotest risk of war. American policy in the Far East, fox instance, is judged, not by Mr Roosevelt’s vague threats against aggressors in his Chicago speech, but by the Administration’s acceptance of an explanation of the Panay incident which was obviously insincere and at variance with the facts. One unfortunate result of this sceptical estimate of the value of American pronouncements in favour of the rule of law in international relations is a tendency for British policy and American policy to diverge. Since most Englishmen are convinced that American assistance in a crisis cannot be reliably anticipated, there is too often a noticeable absence, particularly where the Far East is concerned, of any attempt to accommodate British policy to American policy and, what is perhaps more important, to American public opinion. This divergence in practical affairs is liable to appear as a divergence of ideals. Thus, the British Government, faced with heavy responsibilities in Europe and desperately anxious to prevent a further weakening of the European political structure, proclaims the possibility of full agreement between democratic and totalitarian States. On the other hand, the United States Administration, comfortably remote from Europe, can afford the luxury of castigating dictators and declaring its partiality for democratic allies. But the supposedly realistic view of American policy, which writes off ouch utterances as the Chicago speech and Mr Cordell Hull’s latest : pronouncement as of no practical significance, is in reality somewhat superficial and ignores the plain lessons of American history. Informed American' opinion rightly attaches much more significance to the Administration’s outspoken condemnation of aggression than does most foreign opinion. “ The “ average American,” said the “ New York “ Times ” recently in a leading article bearing mainly on the crisis oyer Czechoslovakia, “ may “ not define in words the loyalties he shares “ with certain other peoples. But in the demo- “ cracies of Europe—in the little democracies “of the danger zones; In the more fortunate “ democracies of Scandinavia; above all in the “ great democracies of France and Britain — “the average American finds a way of life “ which he knows instinctively to be the way “of life he himself has chosen. He knows that “. . . we are inevitably the natural allies of “the democracies of Europe.” And Mr Tyler Dennett, writing in a rece/it issue of “ Foreign “Affairs,!’ has this to say about American policy in the Far East:— No Japanese statesman, civilian or military, should be deceived by the pacifistic tone of American sentiment in the closing months of 1937. Public opinion in a democracy is liable to. flip-flop overnight. Japan is nearer to war with the United States than she ever was be-; fore. .'■, , Anyone who has lived through, or has studied carefully, the period from the invasion of Belgium in August, 1914, to Germany’s resumption .of unrestricted submarine warfare in January, 1917, knows the wide swings of which American public opinion is capable. ■ Whether America intervenes in another world war will depend on the extent to which she sees it as a war between the democracies and the dictatorships. And it is for this reason mainly that the anxiety of the present British Government to blur the distinction between democracies and dictatorships in its foreign policy is to be regretted. At heart, Englishmen know that such a policy is unreal; they know that their interests with the other democracies and not with Germany and Italy as those countries are at present governed. It may help a little in dealing with the European situation to obscure this basic fact; but the long-period consideration should be that the goodwill of America, however vague, is worth more than specific agreements with the dictatorships.