THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 17 June 1936, Page 10

THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN

(To The. Editor) Sir, —Will you kindly permit me to express my opinions on your article of the 11th inst., “New Zealand’s Future.” I notice, that a large number of the articles contain consistently unfriendly references to Japan and as a counter balance friendly references to the United States, which, I am satisfied are the result of a wholly erroneous impression of the mentality of the people of the latter country. I refer now particularly to the last part of yo.ur article in which you state as follows: “The interests of the British. Empire and the United States in the' Pacific Ocean are so closely interwoven that, in case of emergency there; both nations would be involved, and undoubtedly they would be obliged to act together in order to protect their individual interests. The issue on the sea would be Japan versus Britain and America, and the sooner that fact is widely understood by all concerned the sooner the peace of the Pacific will be assured.” From an intimate knowledge of the United States extending over many years I feel bound to say that the United States would not come to the assistance of the British Empire in the contingency

! you mention. What arc the facts? I The United States far from being proi British is the most anti-British nation l on earth. The United States stabbed | England in the back during and after ‘ the War, by an unwarranted and un- ! precedented interference in our do- : mcstic affairs viz., by aiding and abetI ting and promoting rebellion in Irej land; and it is due to this that we have to-day the Irish Free State which is lin fact 99 per cent, a republic where the Union Jack is never seen except to be trailed in the mud and then burnt publicly in Dublin every Armistice Day, and where the name of the King is only mentioned with a curse. Anglo-American relations simply bristle with anti-British sentiments originating in the United States. In 189(5 Cleveland threatened war on England because she dared insist on her boundary rights with Venezuela. Later on President Roosevelt threatened the use of force in the matter of a boundary dispute between Canada and Alaska. It is a simple matter! of history that over “00 miles of the coast line of British Columbia was stolen by the United States and added to Alaska, in a similar manner what, is now the State of Washington and a portion of the State of Oregon as well as a large part of the State of Maine in the east, was taken from Canada. These facts arc simply quoted as proof of past American hostility to England. But let us come to more recent times. When the British born American citizen, Admiral Sims, made a very friendly speech in London many years ago, he was promptly recalled to the United States and reprimanded by Mr Taft simply because , he uttered friendly pro-British senti- ' ments. It is indeed doubtful :f in ah history there is another record of the ! Chief Executive of a nation reprimanding one of its prominent citizens for acting as an ambassador of friendship and goodwill towards another nation. It is also a plain but painful fact that this same Admiral Sims, as he was about to sail from New York a few days before the United Statci declared war on Germany, was farewelled by a senior American admiral in the following words, “Don’t let the English pull the wool over your eyes: we would just as soon fight the English as the Germans.” Readers of the book “Life and Letters of Walter j Hines Page” must indeed be deliberately blind if they cannot discern ! therein, that inborn American hatred jof Great Britain wihch I am afraid I will require many generations to | wipe out. It might truly be said that I this great pro-British American liter|ally gave his life for England; .and j his action at a time'when anti-British ! sentiment in the United States was at | the boiling point over the blockade (of Germany) in suggesting to Sir Edward Grey that the French navy bcasked to capture the Wilhelmina and take it to a French port as a prize of war, can only be described as classic. At the Washington Conference in 1922 for the reduction of naval armaments, for the sake of peace and friendship England submitted onehundred per cent, to the wishes—one might say demands —of the United States and agreed not only to parity on the sea but at the behest of the j United States cancelled the alliance with Japan. Let us be fair to Japan. I She faithfully carried cut. the terms 1 of the alliance with the Mother Land and when United States’ warships 1 were swinging idly at anchor, the Japanese navy helped to convoy New Zealand and Australian troops to the war zone, while German warships secretly fuelled from San Francisco, were prowling in the Pacific. British and American interests were just as much interwoven in the Pacific in 1914 as they are to-day, but it was to Japan we had to look for assistance and not the United States. Coming now to the present day what do we find? Just recently the United States seized three British islands in the Pacific and I notice that the seizure of these three British islands, Howland. Jarvis, and Baker-, received quite a friendly comment in the columns of your paper. It would be quite a different matter however, if Japan had seized them. The .seizure of ,territory by a foreign power is legally | an act. of war, and the only d; ffcrcnc« between this, and what Italy has done in Abyssinia is a difference in mugnitride. New, in conclusion, I wish to state that I am neither a jingoist nor a war-monger, I a’na simply stating the case as I see it, and know it from persona] experience. ■ I have heard war with England predicted from the pulpit in the United States and, like Sir Phillip Gibbs I have heard anti--1 British sentiments expressed in the trains, on the public platform, and in fine streets, and a future war with England as something that simply must happen as a matter of course Unfortunately the cultured and bettor class American does not rule the United States, and the average American is more of the Hearst, Senatoi Bor-ah t.vpc. There is a OiJbcrtian touch in” the fact that the Chairman of the United States Senate Foreigr Relation Committee'is a man who has never been in a foreign country. Not only are' the interests of the U.S.Aand the British Empire far from common, but in my opinion they- more often clash. Take the war debts for I instance. Generous England cancelled the debts owing to her, while the U.S.A. insists on her Shylock’s pound of fiesh. Then in the shipping and international trade the American attitude is the very antithesis of the British. The United States will not permit British ships to trade between American ports, but British ports arc free to all the world, and so we have* here in New Zealand, American passenger ships, heavily subsidised, trading between two British Dominions while British seamen arc thrown out of work, and so far neither government has shown enough backbone to stop it. Finally, in the matter cf defence we can only look to the Motherland for assistance, and in the meantime it is up to New Zealand and Australia to wake up and get immigrants from Home, and thus develop out empty lands and increase our security. It is indeed chasing the rainbow for us ever to expect any assistance from the Americans, the most, anti-British and the most selfish people on earth. I am, etc., “PLAIN FACTS.” Nelson, 12th June.