AMERICA’S DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 121, 25 May 1938, Page 6

AMERICA’S DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN

SOME HOME TROTHS FROM A CANADIAN WRITER

What i-> really needed between the United States of America and Great Britain is less flattery and more truth, writes Beverley Baxter, M.P., m Maclean’s, Canada’s National Magazine. The question whether the American likes the Englishman or the Englishman the American is unimportant. The world situation is too intense, too urgent, for these schoolgirl pleasantries. The real question is this—is America ready to take her place beside Britain in a determination to force peace upon a harassed and muddle-headed world? Perhaps I have the answer before me, wh en represents a large volume of opinion in America. It Ls a sadonic book which, I am told, is sweeping thj U.S.A., and is called: “England Expects Every American to Do Hi. 3 . Duty.” Further than that, Mr Baxter con-

51 iddle West repeating over and over again: “If Britain wants to do business with U.S.A., why doesn’t sht» pay us the money she owes?” What is the reply to those two slogans? To me it is simple. If I could find some means of addressing ths whole of the American people, I would make this statement: -The issue of peace or war in the world depends whether America —before it is too late—pays something of her debt to Britain.” .... President Roosevelt and Mt Cordell Hull (Secretary for State’ have gone far toward pointing the way, Mr Baxter’s article continues. With a courage which is wholly admirable, they have declared that the time has come for America to abandon isolation and take her place be* side the democracies of the world in opposition to the autocracies. Translated into simpler terms, the President and his Foreign Minister con*

tend that the moment has arrived rot America and Britain to form an unsigned but actual alliance to develop a common military and economic policy, to use the combined strength of the two nations not as a tyrant but as a giant—against the forces ol world disruption. Opposing them they have the powerful parrot cry: “Watch out for Britain. She wants us to pick her chestnuts out of the lire for her.” That cry is common in the United States. And in a nation where th? Presidential elections have been won and lost on a slogan, the political menace of “picking Britain’s chestnuts out of the fire” cannot be discounted. The ordinary American is not a world citizen. He is sentimental, kindly, idealistic, but clothed in a vast and self-satisfied ignorance about the history of every country, including his own. He would be hurt and sincerely astonished to learn that his beloved country owes Great Britain that which could not be estimated in terms of all the wealth in the world. believe that if he were told it, he ould be ready and anxious to pay. Mr Baxter proceeds to describe ome of the debts the United State* ■wes to Britain, going right back to the days of the Spanish war with America, Britain’s influence in China, Britain’s part in the Great War when the British fleet kept intact that v. orld which was vital to American trade. “We came in eventually,” hi. writes, “but though we could not repay Britain’s dead, we demanded that she should guarantee the repayment of our dollars loaned to the Allies. The dollar had become more sacrea than human life. When the war was over our President asked for—nay, he demanded! —a League of Nations in the name of civilisation, and Britain agreed to pool her sovereignty with the little nations of the world. America then abandoned her own plan and Britain took on the task of administering it instead. We refused to guarantee the integrity of Franco, so Britain signed beneath the place where our signature should have been.” (Extract from Maclean’s, Canadian National Magazine, kindly lent by Mr J. Allison, “Paori,” No. 1 Line, Wanganui). Beverley Baxter was born in Canada. He is a noted journalist, having been editor of the Sunday Express (London) in 1922, managing-editor and editor of the Daily Express from 1929 to 1933. Conservative M.P. for Wood Green Division of Middlesex, in the House of Commons (England) from 1935.