AMERICA AS A NATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19871, 15 February 1928, Page 11

AMERICA AS A NATION.

OPINIONS OF LADY ASTOR. COMPARISON WITH ENGLAND. (Received February 14, 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. * LONDON, Feb. 13. In a speech at a luncheon given to. honour the memox - y of Abraham Lincoln Viscountess Astor, M.P., who is herself an American by birth, said: It is the 100 per cent. American' and the 'IOO per cent. Englishman' whom I fear. I think all 100 per cent, citizens ought to be locked up. "America is very, very young, very large, very rich, and very bumptious. I do not blame her. When England was very rich she was also very bumptious. We only need to look back to the Elizabethan times to kpow that for years England was the governing country of the world. " In time to come another rich and large country will come in. She quite naturally is trying to feel the ropes. lam neither pro-EngTish nor pro-American. I want, to devote my life to promoting unity between the British Empire and the United States, the two greatest Christian democracies in the world. 4< It does not matter whether America is popular or not. England has never been popular, but she did not worry, and people who did not like her have come j to respect her." Nancy Witcher, Viscountess Astor, was one of the four beautiful daughters of Mr. C. D. Langhorne, of Greenwood; Virginia, one of "whom married Charles Dana Gibsod, the artist, who created the one-time famous " Gibson girl." She married in 1897 Robert Gould Shaw, whom she divorced in 1903.. In 1906 she married the present Viscount —then Mr. Waldorf—• Astor, the owner of the Observer newspaper. He was Conservative member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth when in 1919 he was raised to the peerage, and Lady Astor won the seat in his place, and has sine# held it. In lSi23 she wrote " My Two Countries."