MR. WILSON AND HIS CABINET.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 May 1916, Page 3

MR. WILSON AND HIS CABINET.

AS SEEN IX ENGLAND. AN AMERICAN EDITOR'S IMPRESSIONS Colonel George Harvey, editor of LV: North American Review, has been paying a round of visits in England, meetii'ii distinguished politicians, soldiers, and other people, with whom-he discused the war, trying to ascertain what England thinks of America and of President Wilson and his Administration. In a recex! number of his Review, lie lias written hi 3 impressions. Amongst the statesmen whom he met was "the foremost Cabinet Minister, the most increasingly powerful man in the Empire." They talked of the Lusitania and all it involved for Britain, as well as for America. The editor suggested that, however deep the humiliation of Americans, England has derived enormous advantage from the horror of that infamous performance by the indignation it has created throughout the world, and that it had made England's course on disputed questions easier. ''ln other words," lie added, "so long as that frightful crime remains unavenged, you certainly have no cause for apprehension of any serious difficulty with the United States. You must, and, of course, do know that th« American people would never sanction extreme measures regarding property or trading while assassination continues unatoned for." To the direct question whether there was a likelihood or n possibility of the American Government prohibiting or limiting the export of munitions, the editor replied: "Not the slightest." Conversation turned to other matters.

"You are quite right," said the Cabinet Minister; "there is not a- particle of feeling in England against the American people. In point of fact, there exists a sense of sympathy arising from a notion that their real attitude ha? been misrepresented. It is your Government only that have been criticised, and that not severely by people who look ahead.'' "And the concrete cause "

"Is to be found in the rooted belief, constantly reiterated, that we are fighting your battle, and that your Government not only treat the common enemy with the greater consideration, but seem to go out of their way to r.nnoy and harass us."

"But we have not asked anybody to fight any battle for us."

"Quite so. That is one reason tvhy,. I do not share the common feeling of resentment."

"The suggestion, moreover, is frequently made that the navalism of England is no more defensible than the militarism of Germany."

"As to that," tlie Minister remarked, "one lesson at least, it seems to me, may be drawn from this war by America. .... It seems to me plain, at this juncture in the world's history, that German militarism is the living menace of America, and British navalism is her salvation. It is a point worth considering, at any rate." An after-dinner conversation is Recorded with "a gentle-featured old nobleman," who remarked: "As you are aware, lam a friend of America. I know her people as few Englishmen know them." Ho suggested that the only way in which America "can gain her own honor and the respect of her kin throughout tire world is by repudiating the Administration of Wood row Wilson." The conversation was becoming delicate. "I think, gentlemen," said the host, "we should now join the ladies." The editor of the-Review publishes this, and much more in the same vein, for his readers in America, evidently desiring to impress upon them the distinction drawn in England between the American Government *s4 the American neosle.