The change in American feeling towards this country has been
strongly marked this week. Mr. L. M. Shaw, the new Secretary of the American Treasury, while celebrating General Grant's birthday, delivered a speech of the old "high falutin' " fashion, in which he declared that as the United States after the war with Spain now policed her own street, she would shortly police all the countries and islands washed by the Pacific, and after acquiring "the largest merchant fleet ever kissed by ocean breezes," would transfer the sovereignty of the Pacific from the Union Jack to the Stars and Stripes. Mr. Shaw, though a sensible man, doubtless expected universal applause, but instead of receiving it he was severely rebuked by President Roosevelt, and asked by the Press what good be thought he was doing in affronting a friendly State. He probably had no intention of affronting anybody, and was only "blowing," as the Australians say; but times have changed in America. Cabinet Ministers, though they are constitutionally only clerks of the President, are ex- pected to behave as statesmen, and to consider that when they speak, even after dinner, they have some responsibility for their words. It is an improvement, if only because it renders the task of diplomatists a little easier.
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