AMERICA AND WORLD TROUBLES.

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 6

AMERICA AND WORLD TROUBLES.

Ir America still rejects the role of her brother's keeper in the trials that have oppressed the world since the war ended, it is not for lack of knowledge of his troubles. A constant stream of emissaries in the last few years has been crossing the Atlantic to educate the New World about the Old. Unofficial missions have been more numerous than the official ones. Curiously enough, it was British men of letters, accustomed naturally to lead the most cloistered lives—men like Mr Galsworthy and Lord Dunsany—who first sot the example for these unofficial missions during and immediately after the war. io make a lecturing tour of the United States and enlarge upon the benefits which the world might hope, to enjoy from the closest possible co operation of the two great branches of the English-speaking race became almost an inevitable part of the career of a British author, and excellent speeches many of them made, Americans have since listened with commendable self-restraint, but not with any results which have ben shown upon their policy, to M. Clemenceau, who told them roundly that they were “quitters” since the war; and to Lord Robert Cecil, who appealed for America's entry into the League of Nations. And soon they will have a chance to listen to Mr Lloyd George. No doubt he will have a groat welcome. What he will say to them it is too early to prophesy; but, the state of Europe being as it is, he cannot fail to plead for more American help in the solution of its troubles than the cautious Government of the greatest Republic, clinging to a policy which avoids “ entanglements,” has been willing up to this date to bestow. Isolation has been the policy of the Harding Government—not isolation in the abstract, but isolation in the sense of abstention from any acts which might involve real responsibility for it in intervening in the difficulties of the Old World, and which, therefore, might be really useful. It was a natural policy for the Republican Administration to adopt at the commencement of its rule, since it was reaction from an opposite principle, carried too far in too short a time by President Wilson, that brought it into office. But it has been anything but a “splendid ” isolation in its profusenesr. of sympathetic assurances, combined with a minimum of the co-operation that might cost anything, and its extreme concern that superior detachment on America's part from the vexed politics of Europe should noi, cause her to bo a loser when anything of value has to bo divided. There are welcome signs of a growing revulsion in the United Slates from a policy which bears so much resemblance to that of “ take the cash and let the credit go.” The plea, which wo published on Tuesday, by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in .America for the acceptance by their country’s Government of a “full share of responsibility for bringing about an effective settlement of international problems” is a sign of the increasing uneasiness and discontent. America’s conscience, it has been said, is becoming vocal, and the churches of other denominations than those represented in this declaration have clone much to make it so. There is impatience of an attitude to Europe which might be compared to the conduct of a bystander watching some straggling wretch in danger of drowning, and assisting him from the bank with moral advice. The belief is widely expressed that the Government is now far behind the majority of public sentiment in the attitude which it preserves towards foreign affairs. Isolation could bo real, in more than a political sense, in .Washington’s day, but that time has long passed. “If we are willing to pay the price,” an American ex-Governor, after a visit to Europe, declared recently, “maybe we can get back our isolation. But let me tell you the price. It would bo the reversion of 30 per cent, of our wheatfielda and 20 per cent, of our cornfields back to the native prairie land; 60 per cent, of the cottonfields of the south would go back to the original forest; we would

close up A lot of copper mines; and we would have to completely revolutionise our industry and commerce if we would regain that-isolation which wo long ago lost. Are wo willing to pay the price?”