22 MAY 1909, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

AMERICA AND THE COMMAND OF THE SEA.

THERE are no better diplomatists than the best of the American Ambassadors and Ministers, and the State Department at Washington has a high tradition of ability. While, again, the greatest American publicists—Captain Malian is the capital example—have shown an extra- ordinary depth of knowledge of, and insight into, world- politics, the ordinary American journalist, immersed in the party wrangles of home politics, sometimes shows an astonishing ignorance of foreign affairs, not merely as they affect Europe, because there he might very well plead that what does not affect America does not interest him, but as they affect the wider interests of the United States. Like all ignorant people, the journalists in question are very suspicious, and especially are they suspicious of friendly expressions of feeling which they do not understand. They are in the condition of Farmer Hayseed when he comes to town. He assumes that anybody who is even decently civil to him is going to try to swindle him or get something out of him, and a courteous word throws him into a perfect ferment of anxiety.

A good example of this suspiciousness founded on ignorance is furnished by a telegram from the New York correspondent of the Times published in Monday's issue. There we are told that "the persistence with which a certain section of the English Press continues to label America as at least the moral ally of Great Britain in the struggle which so many Englishmen assume to be possible 'within a few years is provoking the Springfield Repub- lican to state the case afresh." That worthy paper is apparently much perturbed by what it believes to be the insidious advances of the British journalist. It points out that the American Press, like the American people, has refused to consider the question, and remarks :— "There is something almost pathetic in the eagerness dis- played by these organs of British opinion to make sure of America's sympathy and support." The Republican is a New England, newspaper, and one, says the Times corre- spondent, which enjoys a reputation for sobriety of view and weight of authority throughout the country. .When it says that, should war come, "those guilty of precipitating it would be considered by the American people as treacherous to the interests of the whole Teutonic race," and that "it would be impossible for this country to take sides without throwing itself into a convulsion of bitterly divided public opinion," the Republican cannot, continues the Times correspondent, "be accused of a one-sided or hasty judgment of the case. Devotion to peace is probably nowhere stronger than it is here, and sympathy is always assured for a country which desires peace. But attempts to label America as an ally in a European conflict only result in a strengthening of the determination to hold aloof from European disputes, and incidentally evoke such epithets as ' pathetic.' ' All that is very interesting, and in a sense very true, but we should hardly have thought it worth any one's while to transmit such truisms from the other side of the Atlantic. Indeed, we are tempted to say that the most pathetic thing in the whole transaction is the curious ignorance displayed by the Springfield Republican. We do not, of course, know to What particular articles in the British Press it is alluding, for we cannot charge our memory with having seen any- thing more than those general expressions of good feeling and courtesy which serious British newspapers habitually use in their treatment of American affairs. For example, we ourselves wrote on the matter in a spirit of what we trust Was becoming politeness. But because we were polite we are not so foolish as to think that we, or anybody in the Press or elsewhere, could " nobble " the American people or the American Government to support us contrary to their Own interests in the coming struggle for sea power. What we pointed out was something very different, though we admit that we pointed it out with friendliness rather than with the rudeness either of suspicion or of cynicism. It was that the force of circumstances would certainly make the American people sympathise with us rather than with our possible antagonists, and must make them consider the risk of any change in the command of the sea with very grave anxiety. As, however, there appears to be seine danger of our meaning, being misunderstood in certain quarters —though we are pretty sure they are not official quarters— owing to the friendly reticence of our language, we had better perhaps set the matter out with blunt, or, indeed, with what may possibly seem brutal, frankness.

We venture to say that the statesmen of America realise at this moment, and that later on the.bulk of the American people will realise, and last of all not impossibly even the Springfield Republican, that it would be little short of a national disaster if the command of the sea were to be lost by Britain and to pass , into the hands of Germany. America, in spite of her tremendous coast-line, both on the Atlantic and the Pacific, and her possession of the great island archipelago of the Philippines, and still more in spite of those great interests in Spanish South America. and Brazil which are defined in the Monroe doctrine, has always been able to acquiesce with an easy mind in the British command of the sea. The reasons are plain. In the first place, America has always realised that we could not use our command of the sea in any way which would greatly damage her, for the very good reason, that Canada is part of the British Empire. In Canada the Americans feel that they possess, as it were, a hostage which secures them from any exercise of the power that comes from the command of the . sea which they would find intolerable. No doubt the conquest of Canada, or even the occupation of South-Eastern Canada, would be a very hard nut for the Americans to crack. At the same time, seventy millions of people very naturally feel that if the worst came to the worst they could overwhelm seven millions, or, to state the proposition in another way, that the threat or possibility of being able to do so would enable them to exercise diplomatic pressure which, as they might put it, would be sure to keep our exercise of the command of the sea within bounds. Further, American statesmen know that we are in reality silent partners with them in the Monroe doctrine, though occasionally that doctrine has been waved in our face by professional twisters of the Lion's tail. It was a British statesman—Canning—who originally suggested the formulation of the Monroe doctrine, and since then we have repeatedly, in fact if not in word, acknowledged the binding character of that doctrine. We did BO when we made the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and renounced any project of ourselves making a canal through the isthmus of Panama. Still more clearly did we acknowledge it when we abrogated that Treaty, and agreed that America should have the sole right of digging the canal, and guarding and protecting it in the interests of the commercial world. Again, our willingness to admit America's right to inter- vene 'in our disputes with the Republics of Central and Southern America, and notably in the case of Venezuela, has involved repeated acknowledgment of the Monroe doctrine. The State Department at Washington know in fact that if they should ever deem it wise to approach the Governments of Europe with a view of getting a general acceptance of that policy put on record, no opposition would come from this country. We have no wish to extend our Empire in any part of the American Continent. In facts we are upholders of the status quo in North, in Central, and in South America, which is in principle the Monroe doctrine. Therefore, as we have said, those who control American foreign policy will have no anxieties as long as the command of the sea remains iii British hands. No doubt there is a certain party in the United States who desire that their own country should in future possess the command of the sea. If, however, they cannot induce the people of America to make the necessary sacrifice, and create the immense Fleet required for that purpose, they would much rather that the control should remain in our bands. We venture to go further than this, and to say that though the American people are from many points of view very friendly tO Germany, and though so large a section of the inhabitants of the Union are of German origin, and look to the Fatherland for guidance and leadership as to the part they should play in their new homes, the statesmen of Washington would rather see the command of the sea in almost any other bands than those of Germany. And for this reason. They know that German ambitions and aspirations in the matter of world- power must, if Germany held the command of the sea, tend to bring her into conflict with the Monroe doctrine. Germany's intentions are no doubt' very friendly ; but if she held the command of the sea, it is impossible to doubt that she would expect America to be reasonable, as she would call it, in regard to the Monroe doctrine, and not push an expression of policy which Germany considers out of date to its logical conclusion. For example, she would not deem it it friendly act on the part of America to refuse recognition to her claim to special interests ia Southern Brazil. Again, if she had been able to win the sceptre of the seas, she could not be expected not to desire the possession of some of the islands of the West Indies. In a word, the State Department know that if Germany were once to obtain the command of the sea, she would be certain to claim the privileges and advantages of that position, and that it would be idle to tisk her to do homage to what she would regard as an outworn tradition formulated by a nob very conspicuous American President some ninety years ago. Further, American statesmen know that if such a clash of interests were to take place, they would not have the power to bring pressure upon Germany which they possess in our case owing to the continuity of frontier between Canada and the United States. To put the matter with ' perfect candour, they have a hold upon us which they have not got upon Germany. Germany, if she once obtained the command of the sea, would be quite out of the reach of any American pressure.

'German supremacy over Britain at sea of a permanent kind would at once make it necessary for America to secure herself and the policy to which she is devoted by out-building and out-organising Germany in the rnittter of sea power. But that might prove a task of the very greatest difficulty, for it is hardly likely that G'ermany, having won the command of the sea, would qUietly allow the United States to wrest it from her. It is not for us to suggest what' will be the ultimate or practical effect of these considerations; but we do say without fear of contradiction that they exist, and that they must affect the attitude taken up by the United States 'towards any struggle for sea. power between us and Germany.