YANKEE SPREAD-EAGLEISM. The Bird of Freedom Flaps its Wings and Crows.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 96, 3 May 1902, Page 8

YANKEE SPREAD-EAGLEISM. The Bird of Freedom Flaps its Wings and Crows.

THAT is a pretty taJl order which Mr A. C Shaw, Secretary of the United States Ti easury, unfolded at the Pittsburg banquet the other day. America, he said, aspires to pahce the entire Western. Hemisphere, and all countries and islands washed by the Pacific. More than that, American energy and wealth are going ultimately to transfer the sovereignty of the Pacific from the Union Jack to the Stars and Stripes Well, it is just the kind of speech one sometimes hears at the fag-end of banquets when the liquor has been plentiful, and the toasts have been numerous. Perhaps, from the lips of the ordinary spread-eagle stamp of orator this particular speech might be dismissed with the amused

leflection that the man who made it had wined not wisely but too well. * • * But, Mr. Shaw is no ordinary individual He is a member of the United States Executive, and, although later cables tell us President Roosevelt and the leading American papers disapprove his speech, there is no doubt it reflects a large and gi owing body of opinion in the land of wooden nutmegs Apparently, the British colonies count for something lees than nothing in this scheme of annexing the Pacific Ocean to the Great Republic. * # • The wondei is that Mr. Shaw stop ped where he did By the time the American eagle has gobbled up that large slice of Mie earth's crust, the rest of the globe would form the merest after-dinner snack for it In short, why did not Mr. Shaw, with one foot on the table and his hand on the map of the world, perorate with a vivid word-picture of Uncle Sam sitting astride the globe, and looking out for means to bring the entire solar system under his benign sway ? » * * It is interesting to note that Mr. Shaw admits there is a condition, piecedent to this transformation of the Pacific into an American lake. Uncle Sam must possess the largest mercantile fleet in the world, built with American material, in American shipyards, by American labour, and manned by American seamen. There is another condition precedent that he ignored. It is that Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand are going to remain where they are in development, and will be passive and indifferent spectators of this vast plan of absorption. Also, that the British Empire will sit still and make no sign. It is just there that Mr Shaw allows his lively imagination to run riot. * * • Eighty millions of people are now in the United States, and m many places they are feeling a bit crowded Canada alone possesses a vaster territory, and as her resources are enormous, and she has unlimited room, she is bound to grow at a more rapid rate than her starred and striped neighbour. Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand are also all growing steadily. They won't be policed or dragooned by any foreign State — nofc even the United States — without a desperate struggle They are inhabited by a people just as full of rsstless energy a& the Yankees, and also with aspirations of Uieir own. And one of those aspirations is to control their own particular share of the Pacific, t nd carve out their own destinies — not- under the Staa'S and Stripes, but under the Union Jack. • ♦ • It is just as well Mr Shaw did lethis tongue wag, and told us in what quarter the wind of popular opinion sits in the States. America must possess the largest mercantile fleet m the world, eh ? Well, Pierpont Morgan is" already working towards that end, but there is no reason why Great Britain, and, least of all, her colonies, need help that cause along. New Zealand is already subsidising an American-owned line of steamers to carry her mails. It is just as well to recognise the trend of things. America is now friendly, but may become aggressive. To be forewarned is to be fore-armed.