LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
[To THZ EDITOR Or THZ "SPECTATOR."} SIR,—Last summer the Anglican Bishop of Marquette,. Mich., paid me a short visit, and on the last night of his stay (August 11th) we had a very long and animated discus- sion about the relations between the United States and this. country. On reading the Spectator of the following Saturday I found that one of the leading articles was almost an exact reproduction of the line of argument I had taken with the- Bishop. I forwarded the article to him, and he replied that he would take it to the Marquette Club, and have a sympo- sium over it. This has been long delayed, but at last I have- received an account of it from the Bishop. It is too long to repeat in full, but I have ventured to send you an abstract, feeling that it will be of interest to your readers.—I am,. Sir, dre., Bury, Lancs., February 15th. W. LoWENBERG.
"There was a large attendance, amongst them being the circuit Judge, two bankers, and the editor of the leading newspaper. Marquette is a small town, but, as Bryce says, small towns are just the places in which one can become acquainted with the- American people. All the speakers save one were Americans ;. there was no difference of opinion, and the conclusions were as follows. There is no real hostility to Great Britain in the United States. Public utterances of hostility would not be ratified by the majority of the people. As Mr. Bryce admits,. on nearly all occasions prior to 1815 the United States have been very badly treated by Great Britain. As a young- and growing people they have keenly felt the unfriendliness of a nation whose goodwill they have desired but have seldom obtained. Still, there has been unbroken peace for the last eighty-three years. If private passions could break the peace, the so-called Patriot war in the thirties, or the Fenian Raid, or the - St. Alban's Raid from Canada into Vermont, ought to have done it. The States are too large to be moved by private expressions or actions when the people loves peace. There are only four forts on the whole of the Canadian frontier, some three thousand miles long, and the entire garrisons only amount to six hundred men. Inland America, with its fifty millions of inhabitants, never even thinks of foreign relations. The United States is self-centred,. and the country is so compact that the possibility of a serious clash of interests with a European Power is never contemplated. The United States will make no encroachment on any part of the world, and disbelieves that any other Power will really dispute their supremacy on their own side of the Atlantic. They have no standing army, they sell munitions of war to all the world, whilst they keep none at home. They import the poor of all nations, who immediately become better off, and love the United States almost better than the natives. But they do not hate Great Britain. for it is not in their nature to hate anybody for long. The Spaniard has so little business that he can be a good hater, but a merchant people does not hate. They have never admired the foreign policy of Great Britain to the United States, but that is not hatred of Great Britain. Why should they hesitate to say what they feel ? The sealing question is looked upon as one for diplomats in which to make the best game they can, the idea. of war on that subject being preposterous. Englishmen do not understand American newspapers. Nothing is so dearly loved by a large class of people as a hoax. Much in the United States newspapers is never meant to be taken seriously. Englishmen believe that United States newspapers are printed in the English language, but that is not the case, they are written in American. We can talk English, but we do not; our humour is essentially our own. Moreover, the New York Press; does not reflect the sentiment of the whole country as it fain would do. Even the Irishman does not really hate England, the chief reason being that he has no time to do so. He is very busy, and finds local politics more to his taste than war. The United States never has had a standing army, and never will. Men will serve their country most willingly, but only if necessary. Most .a the leading English newspapers are misinformed about the United States, and they will continue to be so until they really try to understand the people. The correspondents of English newspapers ought to be American citizens born and bred."
Previous page
