AMERICAN FEELING TOWARDS BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19865, 13 June 1927, Page 6

AMERICAN FEELING TOWARDS BRITAIN

The ideal of Anglo-American friendship has just received another jar, or, to be precise, two of them. It is almost unnecessary to add that both proceed from America, for efforts to establish such a friendship come mostly from the British side. The first of the instances referred to occurred at the Presidential reception to the aviator Lindbergh, where Mr Coolidge said that, in showering honours on the airman, France had clearly shown her geodwill to America. Perfectly true! But in view of the equally enthusiastic demonstrations in honour of Lindbergh in Belgium and England, one wonders wdiy the President chose to ignore their expressions of “goodwill to America.” In England, for instance, the enthusiasm of the crowd went almost beyond bounds, and the airman was received and decorated by the King. Surely that was worth mentioning, too! Was the President playing to Senator Borah and the antiBritish “gallery?” It is also reported that the police had to be called on to quell a demonstration in front of the British Consulate in New York. The demonstration was in protest against British policy in China. Perhaps we may hear next of the same people protesting against their own Government’s policy in Nicaragua, or perhaps, even, they may denounce it for having troops in China also. Whatever difference of opinion there may be on the British and American policies in these countries, all fair-minded people will agree that the incident shows a discrimination that can only be regarded as a reflex of anti-British feeling. Americans are, of course, quite entitled to be anti-British if they choose, and these two incidents will do this much good: that they will once more drive home the fact that self-respect demands that British people ought to drop their continual preferring of a friendship which Americans neither seek nor desire. It is a great mistake to suppose that public feeling towards Britain among the American public follows the lines expressed in after-dinner speeches at the Pilgrims’ Club.