ENGLAND AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,--Mr. J. F. Essary, in his Good-bye England, like most Americans when touching on points of friction between his country and this, gives proof how much ignorance and mis- understanding lie at the root of it—i.e., he says : " England stood ready to throw her armaments against us while we were fighting desperately to preserve the Union." It hap- pened that Napoleon III tried to persuade England to join him in recognizing and helping the South, and England refused, while Lancashire faced starvation from the effects of the failure in cotton supply rather than take sides against the Union.
The " Bathtub " myth is also quite of late origin. When I travelled in U.S.A. in the 'eighties, the use of it was looked upon as the special fad of the travelling Englishman, who, when he rang the bell, the saying went, wanted hot water, while the American when he rang expected iced water. Naturally when bathtubs " became popular it was easier to have bathrooms in brand-new buildings than adapt old buildings for them. Thus the bathtub " became associated with the dawn of American civilization.
Why the question of winning the War should be a delicate one would probably be better understood by most Americans if they would read more the memoirs and literature from the German and Austrian side, including Ludendorff, Falkenhayn and ('zernin, rather than the American newspapers ; and I ven- ture to think that we do not so much " remember that we did not enter the world-war till the Allies had all but exhausted them- selves," but that the U.S.A. did not enter till the Germans were almost completely exhausted.
A common language is a great bond, but there is also no more fruitful source of friction than being able to hear and understand everything the " other fellow says." I tremble to think what would happen if everybody in England knew French.--I am, Sir, &c.,
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