The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1922. FOURTH OF JULY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11254, 5 July 1922, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1922. FOURTH OF JULY

Yesterday was the historic Fourth of July, the national feast day of the United States. It ought to be also one of the national feasts of Great Britain. For something over a century after its inauguration that was impossible, as the American feast day was the final day of the victory by which the United States of America won their independence from the most stupid Government ever seen in England, and the most obstinate King who ever sat on' a throne. Moreover, during most of the years that have passed since that first delirious Independence Day, the spirit of conciliation was not abroad on either of the two British sides of the Atlantic. Quite early, in fact, the two sides went to war, and built up naval and military traditions, very glorious in themselves, no doubt, but rather disqualified by plunderings and ravagings and the burning of capital cities of the Ameriean-British, for the promotion of a desirable forgetfulness. But the relations between these two branches of the British race gradually improved. The improvement was. handicapped by very wrong propaganda on both 6ides. On one side of the Atlantic, the “Yankee 1 ' idea took root, and flourished, with a vigorous growth of sarcasms, nicknames, and misunderstandings sprouting perpetual from British mouths. On the other, the propaganda retaliated generally, and took also the particular form of a species of school teaching which was practically a bell, hook, and candle anathema of Britain, and everything British, and every person.

The diplomatic social and blood relations between the two sides, moving beside that other propaganda, went along very, much better. Quite early the celebrated Monroe Doctrine actually was started owing to the friendly declaration of a British Prime Minister informing a United States President of the project of the “Holy Alliance” for the suppression of Republicanism on the American continents, and owed some of its early vigour to that Prime Minister’s virtual promise of assistance. Later, Britain failed to understand the American point of view in the great Civil War, and the two nations nearly came to blows, but the good sense of both avoided rupture in a way favourable to the resumption of smooth relations. The process was helped immediately after the Civil War, for when the States made their decisive intervention in Mexico, which put a stop to the Empire' of the Austrian Maximilian by the withdrawal of its supporting French armies, Britain was known to be ready to stand behind Uncle Sam. Before the Civil War there had been a literary and social clash. The famous “American Notes’’ of Charles Dickens, though in no way levelled at the American character generally, were misunderstood, in spite of the playful humour which distinguished them. They reflected, without intention, the popular British misunderstanding of the American people, and were resented with a passion equal in depth to the enthusiasm of the personal reception accorded the author of the “Notes,” who had been by that time recognised west of the Atlantic as a great master of literature as warmly «s in the eastern. The incident was really a clash of deprecatory propaganda kept up on both sides of the Atlantic since the War of American Independence. The clash proved to be but the explosion of the had elements of both on their meeting in the open air above ground; for the forgiveness very soon accorded to Dickens by the American people showed that very much of the disagreeable remainder of the wars of Independence and 1812 had passed away. From that time all relations between the two nations began to run with more smoothness. Later, when Uncle Sam became involved in war with Spain, these relations were greatly improved by the British attitude. The Kaiser showed signs of a desire to intervene and “down” the. hated Monroe Doctrine. But when it was mads

clear to all whomsoever it might concern that whoever felt like firing .-Into Uncle Sam would have to reckon with the British Navy—then the greatest by far in the world—the pall of severest neutrality fell upon the bier of European ambition, and Uncle Sam was left to settle up his American affairs in his own way. Venezuela had afforded an opportunity for a warmer streak in the diplomatic relations, but Spain made Uncle Sam thankfwlly grateful. The last great test was the war of Armageddon. Two years before it the centenary of the peace which had closed the war of 1812 was celebrated with a fervour which advanced inbo prophecy. A century of unbroken cordiality peace, it was everywheresaid, would be followed by many centuries of such peace. All the ruuning smoothly, had reached the high level at which blood recognises blood. Famous American sailors had helped the sailors of Britain broken in battle, declaring that blood is thicker than water, and Ambassadors had proclaimed the same faith in high places. The American nation justified all these declarations by entering the war on the British side. The blood of these? new Allies flowed together against the common enemy, and men remembered: how their blood had flowed separate in hostile combat with each other. The. time had come for the American Independence Day to become a great Imperial Day for the British Empire. Genoa; somewhat marred our vision of the fact. Very possibly The Hague will; clear the vision. One thing is certain. Between two kindred nations, with a history between them of a century of tried friendship, there should he no obscurities.