11 FEBRUARY 1928, Page 2

The peculiar and unenviable position in which the United States

finds itself at Havana (where big_ and little American Republics are . declared ,to be. eqind) and at Washington (where a Big- Navy group drowns_ the voice_ of the apostles of peace and .enlightenment' to less civilized Europeans), with the Geneva Conference for the reduction of Naval - Armaments behind them.. and with Nicaragua still, in front of them, to say. nothing of a cri deTcoeur from Porto Rico for liberty addresse4 to Washington through the airman, Colonel. Lindbergh; renders our .friends there so vulnerable to superficial irony that our sympathy is aroused rather than any desire to criticize or to " rub in " the glaring inconSisteneies. We have no Schadenfreude in their difficulties .nor lack of a sympathy due to experience of criticism received by us from those (including some Americans) who have no understanding of the white man's burden or of an inherited duty towards the world of policing' the ocean iontea;' and such-like irksome tasks by which other nations have profited. - * -