INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1924, Page 3

INDEPENDENCE DAY.

BlilTAlN AND AMERICA

WORLD'S PROBLEMS,

The American Ambassador presided over the Independence Day dinner of the American Society in London at the Savoy Hotel, London.

Proposing the toast, "The Day We Celebrate," the American Ambassador said that judging from the number of Americans there that night, the number he had seen in London during the last few months, and the thousands and thousands coming over, he was convinced that London would soon become the second, if not the first, American city in the world. (Cheers.) He was glad to see so many Americans coming to London. A great many American societies were holding their conferences in London, attracted by the wonderful exposition created by the genius of British enterprise. He was very pleased that the time had come when the Americans and the British could celebrate the Fourth of July together. It was within his memory that it might have been a rather delicate business for an American to have made a Fourth of July speech in London. Yet that was possible to-day.

i The people of the great British Em- [ pire realised that the American conj flict was waged for principles of goj vornment that the British people had been struggling for for 000 years, and which they had carried into their Colonies in all parts of the world, principles of self-government, guarantees of persona] liberty, freedom of speech and religious belief and worship, and equal opportunity for every man and woman in the world. (Cheers.) Those were the principles Americans were celebrating that day, and the principles the British people were celebrating with them. They were the principles for which they had all been engaged in the world's greatest conflict, and they trusted that those broad principles of humanity would prove to be the principles that would guide the great Conference to meet in London in the near future in order to endeavour to solve the most momentous questions that had ever confronted the civilised world.

He had the greatest confidence in the statesmen of Europe who would attempt to settle, and, he hoped, would succeed in settling, the questions before the Conference, which would mark a forward step in 20th century civilisation. He could not

forgo a statement of what July 4 meant to Americans. It represented the ideal and the hope of their democracy. It represented all that the great Anglo-Saxon race had been struggling for during the century. It represented the ideals and the principles for which they had stood, and stood together, in the last great conflict, and he hoped they would be the guiding principles of the great united Anglo-Saxon race, and that they would be maintained as the light of their common civilisation in the centuries to come.

Mr J. 11. Thomas, responding, said that had they dreamt at the end of the Bth century who would be governing the British Empire to-day America at that moment would have been under his charge. They could not be blamed or condemned, for they knew not what they did. (Laughter.) Every American subject was entitled not only to be proud of that day, but to be proud of the possibilities that the day held out to him. We could not profit by regretting mistakes of the past, but would be wise to profit by experience and use it in the future. The historian, looking back and reviewing the events of recent times, he thought would not be entitled at this stage to express any regret.

Alluding to our debt to America and our payment of £38,000,000 a year MiThomas remarked: "We capitalists who are not influenced by these sordid or material things in life merely say to you, 'We pay, we are proud to pay, but for God's sake remember we are paying.' (Laughter.) If you are apt to forget it we are not, but when we even mention the word debt, when we mention reparations, we are not entitled to forget. It would be a bad thing if we ever forgot."

Whatever might be the views of the

late war it at least demonstrator that the English-speaking peoples in the hour of trouble an<l difficulty responded as one man. They were justified in saying to-day that they wanted America.'s help more than, if possible, they did in the.period of the war. He did not make that claim because we wore cowards, but because we were afraid of our own responsibilities, or because John Bull was less capable than he ever was before. He made the claim because he was profoundly satisfied that all the evils, all the miseries, all the sufferings of the Avar could only be remedied by the great English-speaking peoples standing together and making a contribution to the solution of the world's problems. Because they believed in the inherent common sense of their people, because they believed that whatever might be the differences, those problems could and would ultimately be settled, not. by the arbitrament of the sword, but by o'om?uon sense around the conference table. That was the contribution English-speaking people made to the world to-dfly, and that was the contribution he wanted to see them make to the world's problems. (Cheers.) ,