18 MAY 1944, Page 14

THE CONTRASTS OF AMERICA

sw,—It is surely a hard saying of Mr. Angus Watson that only 5 per cent, of the population of the United States is of British origin, i.e., six or seven millions. The American, Admiral Stark, in a recent broadcast gave the figure as 55 per cent., or 70 million. The great influx of people from Continental Europe into the United States did not begin before about 189o, by which time the people of British stock must have been many times six or seven million. I believe the population of the United States at the time of the War of Independence was three or three and a half million, mostly British, and it is quite inconceivable that this number, in the course of 170 years, aided by a continual influx of British immigrants throughout the nineteenth century, should only have increased to six or seven million. I think there can be no doubt that the figures given by Admiral Stark must be far nearer the truth than those given