ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7929, 12 October 1911, Page 8

ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS

Some talks with Mr Roosevelt which Mr Sydney Brooks contributes to the August "Fortnightly Review" are concerned mainly with the present condition of American' parties, but . among them occur some interesting - references to Anglo-American relations. It has long been known ' that the Irish-American vote has kept a large number of American statemen from expressing'too freely their friendship for Great Britain. Mr Roosevelt, who is on tho whole an admirer and well-wisher of .the British Empire, holds that there cannot bo a full and fair friendship between Great Biitain and the "United States so long as tho Irish question remains unsettled. As ho reads tho signs of tho political sky, there is no urgent necessity for England and America to conclude any formal compact, for he does not anticipate an attack on either country. Tho much-discussed - Anglo-German clash does not appear inevitable to him, mainly because, as he reads history, the Germans are not in the habit ol going into conflicts with the odds against them. In Mr Roosevelt's judgment peace is more probable than war so long as Great Britain can concentrate her seapower in the North Sea and in European waters. Nor does he think there i* any real likelihood of a struggle between his own country and Japan. What he would regard as a serious menace to the peace of tho world is a Ger-man-Japanese alliance. According to Mr Brooks, the ex-president stated his belief that such a development would make all Americans realise as he himself realised, "that the United States has no greater external interest, political, strategical, and commercial, than that tho British Empire and the British navy should remain as they are tc-day."