AMERICAN RELATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 17544, 27 December 1920, Page 6

AMERICAN RELATIONS

NO REAL ILL-FEELING. SIR HARRY LAUDER’S EXPERIENCE. I have just completed my thirteenth tour of the United States (says Sir Harry Lauder), and in response to the request of my very old and valued friends will give you a fpw of my impressions of pre-sent-day conditions in America and the state of the relationships that exist between the- two great English-speaking nations. You may have read repeatedly of late that our friendship with the States is “ very strained ” ; that there is a great deal of “ill-feeling ” towards us; that the happy terms which existed while we were close Allies for the prosecution of the war have evaporated; and that distrust and dislike of Britain is now rampant all over the U.S.A. A TRAGEDY TO AVOID. Don’t believe it! And don’t, for goodness’ sake, begin on your part to “ talk back,” and to adopt the childish policy of “ giving as good as you get!” That is the surest way to foster ill-will—if it does exist—and is exactly what the spiall proportion of Americans who want to see trouble between the two countries desire. “ Man, Harry,” said one of my oldest friends in London when I called on him a few days a»o, “ you must be glad to have got safely away from the States! I suppose it must be dangerous for a Britisher to show his face there just now?’’ I didn’t .argue with him, because I was not in a mood for discussion, so I jocularly said : “ Oh, aye, dangerous for a Britisher,. but not for a Scotsman!” Yet the mere fact that this sort of thing could be seriously spoken by anyone on this side grieved me very much. Straws show the “ airt o’ ilka wind!” I know America and the Americans as few of my countrymen know them. I Jove them. And I honor them. Faults they have, even as we have ours. But they are a big, generous, true-hearted people, rich in all the attributes that go to make up a great nation, and I say solemnly that if any breach in the ties between us and them is allowed to form for want of a little knowledge and a little all-round tolerance it will be a tragedy for the world, second only to the war itself. EVEN WORSE OFF THAN WE ARE. As a lover of my own land of Scotland, I yield to no living man. Do you remember how Burns in one of his letters described “the tide of Scottish prejudice that poured along his veins—a tide that would boil there till the floodgates shut in eternal rest”? Well, I always feel that my passionate adoration for my own people, my own hills and valleys and mountain streams, the mist and the moorland, is something greater even than myself ; and it is just because I feel like this that I am able to appreciate the American points of view on matters affecting the relationship of the two nations. I always try to put myself—for a period long enough to look all round a subject—into the other fellow’s shoes. At the present time the United States is undergoing a far deeper upheaval than our own country. They are faced over there with the same appalling problems that confront our own Home, but in an exaggerated form. Tempers are bitter and tongues respond too readily and willingly to the tempests boiling within. The after-the-war situation is just as bad in the States as I found it on my return: to England—indeed, I was delighted to find the “atmosphere” over here a good deal less electrical than in America. UNSEEN ENEMIES AT WORK. That there is a substratum of antiBritish feeling in the United States just now nobody who studies public affairs will deny. Violent and vicious that feeling is in certain quarters; but how could it be otherwise when we have regard to the make-up of vast numbers of the American people? W© all remember the dreadful times through which the States passed after the declaration of America's entry into the war. Can we wonder that there are still forces at work the chief aim of which is the splitting of the friendship between the Americans and ourselves which we all thought to be sealed and consecrated for ever more on the fields of France?

That friendship was the last thing these people wanted before, and it is the last thing they want now. I say now, as I have said a hundred times in America, that German propaganda has been, is, and will be at the bottom of hall the mischiefmaking between “our” two nations. • There is another cause. And its name is De Valera. Now, I know I am on thorny ground. So I will temporarily switch off and tell you a true story. Lady Lauder went into on© of the largest stores in Chicago to buy herself some fal-de-rals. The girl who served her was wearing a green ribbon. “ Ah,” said my wife, " you are Irish?” The girl voluntarily explained that the ribbon showed her mombershp of a society with branches all over the States, and members had to subscribe so many dollars per month “to make Ireland a free nation.” The girl went on to say that Turkish misrule in Armenia was nothing compared to British treatment of Ireland! I think she honestly believed it, too. A MAKE-BELIEVE PRESIDENT. Sinco Mr De Valera went over to the United States he has done a great deal to foment ill-will between the> IrishAmericans and Great Britain. (Incidentally, he seems to be doing very well for himself, as he and his “ staff ” live in one of the very best hotels in 'New York and seem to have no end of money.) He has been received with great ceremonials in many places as President of the Irish Republic, and he has floated an Irish Republic loan, the subscribers to which have agreed to accept no interest, and never to ask for a return of their capital until Ireland has become. definitely separated from England. I am very fond of Ireland, and think Dublin one of the most delightful places in the world, but I didn’t put any of my bawbees into this Irish Republic loan! Had I been seduced into parting with a. thousand or two for this loan, don’t you think I would be only human if I started at once to “ root ” for Irish “ freedom,” and made up my mind never to dose an ’ opportunity of fomenting all the trouble I could make against the oppressors of Ireland ? This is exactly what Do Valera and his, lieuteenants had in mind when thev began their financial operations, and they have been responsible for a tremendous lot of the existing badblood between certain sections of America and our country. TELL THEM BOTH SIDES. ■ I am a Home Ruler. I believe in Homo Rule, and want it for Scotland. “ Over the Border ” we have tens of thousands of Irish people and Irish Catholics, but there is no “ Irish difficulty” in Scotland, just as there is no Irish problem in the United States. But the real bone of contention in Ireland is Ulster, and I for one always wondered why Ulster also did not send deputations and delegations to the U.S.A. in order to place their side of the question before the American public. This omission, I am glad to say, has now been rectified, for shortly before we left New York a great Ulster gathering took place in the Carnegie Hall, New York. The Ulster men made a moi creditable show, and I am in hopes that the airing of both sides of the Irish question wifi do much to dispel the misconceptions and false impressions of Great Britain so sedulously implanted by De Valera and his coadjutors. One American who has done much to bring about a better appreciation of Britain’s wonderful war record is Admiral Sims. The admiral ha? been telling his countrymen some unpalatable trutfis about the work of the British Navy during the past five years. I use the word unpalatable advisedly, for the majority of the Americans I ” have met during and after the war were only too ready to admit the superb work accomplished by the British Navy, and also by our magnificent armies, for years before America entered the war. But there are always people who are wilfully blind to all but their own efforts, and there artj Americans who think that they, and they only, won the war. Let them tlrfnk what

‘"S they like, but, for Heaven's sake, don’t' make it a matter of. international quarrelling! , Wherever I. went ? and tv as called upon to'apeak, I was given the most Cordial, receptions; and when I pleaded that thoj beet and strongest League of Nations was' a league ol brotherhood, a bond of love • and affection and mutual trust between tbo two great English-speaking nations, Britain and the United States, it brought “the lump into my throat” to see how my Appeal went home to the big hearts of the people in front of me. Let our American friends be “ ICO peff cent. American ” all the time. This doe* not prevent me being “110 per cent, Scotch ” ! And I hope it will never prevent any of us from realising that a real union of hearts, ainis, and aspirations between the two leading nations of the world can only lead to 100 per cent, happiness and prosperity for both! In New York I was being entertained one day just after the armistice had been declared. The occasion was a weekly meeting of one of the great business men’s clubs, and all the speakers referred very kindly to my work aa lecturer and agent—* quite unofficially, of course—for a Letter understanding between the two great Eng-lish-speaking nations. One of them, a perfervid American, said he hoped that in my speech I would tell them the honest truth as to which nation, in my opinion, won the war—his idea being to put mo in a position where I would equivocate, and so provide some amusement at my own expense. They are tophole_ chaps, these business Yanks, but thev do like a joke. So I pretended to “feel my position keenly,” to be unwilling to say anything definite on the point. “ You want really to know who won the war?” I said ultimately, after some beating about the bush. “Yes, yes!” came from all over the room. “Admit the truth, Harry 1” shouted one stentorian voice. “Well, I will tell vou the truth!” I replied. “I think that England and Wales and Canada and Australia and the United States all helped Scotland to win the war!” Certainly the Scot gets on better than any other man in the United States. “ He’s a disease over here!” said ope prominent citizen of Buffalo to me when discussing the old, old topic of the Scot abroad. “He circulates' everywhere and collars everything he can get his horny hands on; but we like him because he plays .the S'™ o * and you sure get a straight deal from him!” 8

My heart always warms when I hear this sort of thing abroad about my coun toymen.