At St. Paul on Wednesday Mr. Davies, the Chairman of
the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations, and therefore a person of weight in international affairs, delivered a speech of great importance in regard to the relations of the United States and Great Britain. Next to China, the Pacific possessions of America were the most inviting objects for attack. The United States must either become an efficient element in the Asiatic situation or must stand aside alto- gether. Unpleasant relations had existed for years between America and England, but all the time it had been felt that there was a tie binding the two countries. It was very plain, how. ever, that a change had taken place. " The conviction, hereto- fore only imperfectly felt, and only partially, infrequently, and fitfully acknowledged, is now clearly operative, and is openly and spontaneously expressed, that one hundred and twenty-five millions of English-speaking people, who have established representative government and secured personal liberty in all parts of the world, whose civilisation is still progressive, who have taken no step backward in an expansion of influence and empire without comparison in history, are amicably approaching each other under the pressure of a great human evolution." It is, of course, always easy to exaggerate the importance of speeches ; but Mr. Davies's speech has, we believe, something very solid behind it. It represents not a fleeting mood, but the fact that the two branches of our race now realise that if they are to obtain each their fullest development it can only be by co-operation as contrasted with opposition or mere indifference.
