The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1928. "THE MOST FOREIGN NATION.”

Evening Star, Issue 19777, 30 January 1928, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1928. "THE MOST FOREIGN NATION.”

Mn Wickham Steed, the much-experi-enced ox-editor of ‘ The Tunes ’ and present editor of the ‘ Review of Reviews,’ is not content to take the antiRritish outbursts of Admiral Plunkett and “Rig Rill” Thomson, of Chicago, as the insignificant extravagances of more or less cranky individuals. He thinks it more natural to regard them as representative of the opinions of at least considerable sections in America, and there is no doubt that that is what they are. “Rig Rid” Thompson, as mayor, would not be making a specialty of anti-British diatribes in Chicago unless he thought it paid, and Admiral Plunkett doubtless knows who are his supporters in the navy. Mr Steed, after a visit which he has been making to the United States, thinks it of the first importance that reasonable people in Great Britain and also in America should give heed to the influences that may force the two nations into hostility to each other. Americans, he states, are perhaps the most foreign nation with whom we have to deal, and if they had to be judged by the “Bill” Thompson standard that would be precisely true. His suggestion that a notice should be posted in New York Harbor stating that British people are foreigners, and a similar notice in British ports that Ameiicans are foreigners, is his dramatic way of enforcing the reminder of differences that no sane opinion should be able to contemplate without a desire to do everything possible for their diminution.

There is something in Mr Wickham Steed’s warning. At the same time the proportion of Americans who find their idols and heroes in Chicago’s mayor and the fire-eating Admiral may very easily he exaggerated. There are 130 million Americans. It does not require more than a very small proportion of them to keep “Big Bill Thompson in his position. And Chicago is the most foreign city in the United States. Admiral Plunkett has had his reproof from the President, and American papers have been far more severe upon Mayor Thompson’s vagaries than those of Great Britain, which, when they have commented upon them, have been satisfied to treat him as a joke. While the American policy of aloofness from the affairs of Europe is continued, all the great Powers must have equal reason with Great Britain for viewing America as the most foreign nation.' Mr Steed made a suggestion during his recent visit to the most self-suf-ficient republic which, if it were adopted, might go further than almost anything else for the removal of this estrangement. Jt was that America should pledge herself, in the event of an aggressor nation again disturbing Europe, and being pronounced an aggressor bv the rest, not to assist it as a neutral with supplies and munitions. By that pledge the United States might do something to ensure the peace of the world without limiting its navy or joining either the League of Nations or the International Court, or committing itself to any other

course that would be a violation of its

established prejudices. The Covenant of the League of Nations provides for a general trade boycott of any State making war in defiance of its conditions; but that sanction of the Covenant is not worth the paper it is printed upon while America stands outside the agreement, and any attempt to enforce it by the nations of Europe would mean simply the diversion of all war-time trade with an offending nation into America’s hands. The United States, however, will not agree to this suggested pledge of Mr Steed’s. A score of reasons have been found for not agreeing to it. But probably one reason would be sufficient. It would be too great a sacrifice, to be made beforehand, of American trade. As to Mr Steed’s warning of the fnreignness of America, the impression which it was doubtless meant to convoy in the passage from a, London speech which has been cabled will be found more particularly set forth in an article on Iris visit to the United States which appeared in the ‘ Observer ’; “I believe that the future of the United States,” he wrote, “is likely to ho determined rather by the Middle West and the West than by any of its seaboards. What that future will he no man can yet say. Despite the similarity of language and some blond relationship, the United States is essentially a foreign community, not inhabited by any sort of ‘ cousins,’and tending to look upon Englishmen as the oddest and sometimes the most irritating kind of foreigners with whom it lias had or has to deal. We need to understand America, and to study her people and her problems with at least as much respectful care as wq should bestow upon the study of Frenchmen or Germans. Only thus are we likely to escape serious misunderstanding.”