THE AMERICAN FEELING TOWARD ENGLAND.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XIX, 9 May 1896, Page 519

THE AMERICAN FEELING TOWARD ENGLAND.

IN a nutshell is here expressed a continental sentiment. This is an extract from a personal letter written by a careful and Conservative New York business man to an English friend. Seldom is a national attitude of mind upon a transcendent subject defined so clearly, ably and with such accurate discrimination. We fail to remember any speech in Congress or any utterance in the press which embodies so simply and so conclusively the terms of our American quarrel with England as this dispassionate letter between two friends on opposite sides : — AN INTERCEPTED LETTER. Union Club, New York, Feb. 8, 1896. My Dear Colonel, — . . . You say you are all at sea about this Venezuelan business, and neither you nor any other member of the ‘ Rag ’ can understand it, nor particularly why it should be so suddenly and so fiercely sprung upon you. The two points which seem to bother you are our evident hostility to England and our demand for arbitration about an outside question like this. At the risk of being voted a bore, let me try to explain our point of view.

As to the American hostility to England, this may be said: It is not based upon the teachings of our schoolbooks in reference to the revolt of the American colonies, or to the War of 1812. Past generations did use these themes for Fourth of July orations. But nowadays we only laugh at them, if, indeed, we have not forgotten all about these ancient grievances. We certainly never hear them now alluded to. But the fact that the mass of our people dislike you is real, and equally so that you are in a fog about it. That is because you have forgotten your attitude to this country during our Civil War. The North has never forgiven your lack of sympathy for, and want of appreciation of our struggle for national existence, or your undoubted leaning towards the Southern side, or your Alabama and your blockade runners. Neither has the South forgotten what this attitude and these actions implied to their cause, and how deceived they were ; nor your declination of recognition when this course was urged upon you by Napoleon 111. Thus, you disappointed and incensed both sides and both think you prolonged the war and all its miseries for your own ends. This feeling is undoubtedly un warranted and unjust. It may be difficult to state how you could have acted differently, and it is certainly

quite profitless to recall the unpleasant episode. But this state of mind exists here all the same, and one cannot argue about the absurdity of national grievances. They are simply facts to be reckoned with. And no fact is more in evidence in this country to-day than that a war with Great Britain would be a popular one with the unthinking and irresponsible classes' who, unfortunately, are in the majority and have the votes. There are. of course, other small matters which are a perpetual annoyance : like your sharp criticisms of our political methods and of our struggle for currency reform, and our ideas about protection, etc. We think that your lectures and frequent ridicule come with poor grace from a kindred people who have gone through precisely the same struggle and have arrived at the point we hope to reach eventually. Now as to the Venezuelan difficulty : All of your writers and most of ours, argue ad nauseam about the Monroe Doctrine and its infringement. This is a good thing to conjure with, but the bottom fact of the difficulty is the rejection by Lord Salisbury of arbitration in this matter, which we have been urging upon the British Government for years and which Lord Granville agreed to in 1885. Arbitration has long been the declared policy of this Government for settling disputes in both Americas. Furthermore, at the Pan-American Convention in Washington during the last Administration it was accepted by alt the sixteen delegates excepting Chili, whose member simplv abstained from voting. Now, when you say, in face of the above facts, that you won't arbitrate, you say you will fight. When we say you must arbitrate, we also say we will fight. And this, not so much on account of the immediate matter in dispute as for the principle of arbitration, which is of such vital importance to all the Americas. Unless we make the world recognize this as the American way of settling controversies, we shall eventually be compelled to keep a large standing army and an enormous fleet for safeguarding our ten thousand miles of seaboard. We don't want anything on this side resembling the war footing of Europe ; and we shall trv to prevent it ah initio by maintaining the principle of arbitration and by arms if necessary. The ro.v between us has come at an unfortunate time, owing to the prevalent jingoism here. It must be confessed there is a restlessness and discontent which our Congress fairly represents. This is owing to a long period of business depression and the hopelessness of any immediate change for the better. In this country, from ’75 to '9O. with large immigration came enormous production of agricultural products at very remunerative prices, accompanied by high protection, which gave big wages and a steady inflation of the currency, which added fuel to the speculative boiler Now the inevitable reaction has arrived and we have come to grief. We hardly know what is the matter with us, and are impatient and very mad, and are ready for any desperate remedy that promises to improve matters. This is the reason of the silver craze, and the advocates of cheap money are more and more wrought up at the successive checks they have met. It is no wonder the idea of a war is attractive to many. War means the reverse of all this ; chances of fame and fortune . a breakup of the deadly stagnation of years ; high prices and glorious days for the contractor and the purveyor of army supplies. And to another class a war means paper-money and a general liquidation of debts.

All these things are taken into account by those in authority, and in spite of the jingo Congressmen and newspapers, a sincere effort is being made to keep the Ship of State off the breakers. There is now little doubt that the request of the President for a Commission on the Venezuelan matter was intended to take it out of the bands of an excited Congress, and thus to put the question temporarily outside of politics and to permit cooler judgment to have a chance to operate. But as the time approaches for the results of that Commission’s labours to be published, the danger point of the whole difficulty also approaches, and the question of peace or war is likely to come to this one point : Will or will you not arbitrate ? Surely the resources of diplomacy are not insufficient to provide a way out before it conies to this point. . . .