APPEARANCES IN AMERICA.
WE warned our readers last week not to believe that the American danger was entirely over, and the news of this week entirely confirms that warning. The danger of war, it is true, has not increased, nor has any fresh provocation been given to Great Britain ; but Mr. Cleveland is a wilful man, and it must in fairness be allowed that his situation is most difficult. His Message was so worded as hardly to leave him a loophole for retreat ; it has aroused the enthusiasm of large classes in the West and South ; and the President, who has to think of his party as well as himself, does not see an honourable way out of his own words. It must not be forgotten that we in England hear chiefly Eastern opinion from America; but the East contains only a minority of the population, and Western and Southern opinion is often very different. We fear that the traditional dislike of England is very strong in the West, where there is a belief, akin to our own belief about Russia, that England is a most arrogant Power, always taking something, and always "looking down" with a certain scorn upon Americans and their doings. Mr. H. M. Stanley, who is an impartial witness, declares that he found this feeling in all classes except bankers, and that it is deep enough to produce a positive wish for war to take the pride of the Britishers down.
Everywhere he heard of Venezuela "Venezuela has been present to the minds of the bulk of the American nation for many months as a serious problem fraught with the possibilities of awful calamity, and demanding immediate attention and settlement Their feelings have gradually moved through all the phases between mild interest in a remote topic, and passionate determination to uphold a national conviction." There is much other evidence of the growth of what we here call Jingoism in the Western mind, which has never had to encounter the smallest opposition, and can hardly conceive that there is any limit to the power of the Union, or that it is not " naturally " supreme within the two Americas. The party in power, who depend mainly upon Southern and Western votes, are obliged to consider a sentiment of this kind, and even if convinced that their chief has acted too hastily, do not see how his action can, without loss of reputation, be repudiated. Even Senator Sherman, who is Republican, trembles before the " patriotic " journalists and orators ; and in a public letter has brought himself to state that the President's view of the Monroe doctrine, though condemned by all the greater jurists, is "correct." The President, therefore, has appointed his Committee of Investigation, and on its report his action will, so far as all appearances go, still depend. Some of his followers, it is true, make suggestions for "arbitration," as between America and Great Britain, but they are not official, and it is difficult even to discuss them. There is nothing visible to arbitrate about. We are not claiming any- thing from the United States, and the United States are not claiming anything from us, and there can- not be arbitration about the Monroe doctrine, which is a mere statement of what the permanent policy of the Union will be in certain contingencies, none of which have yet occurred. We have nothing to do with that permanent policy except to take it into account, just as we do the permanent effort of Russia to acquire Con- stantinople if she can. The violent dispute as to the currency adds to the difficulties of the situation, for the advocates of a gold standard, who are usually in favour of moderation in foreign policy, look upon the President as the great advocate of their views upon finance, and cannot bear, on that ground, to weaken his position ; while the Jingoes are, as a majority, in favour of high tariffs, and large issues of paper and silver money, which a war would make inevitable. The difficulty, therefore, continues, and with it the danger that an inflammatory accident may happen,—an armed conflict, for example, on the Schom- burgk line, or that the Jingo feeling may develop, or that the President, seeing safety only in the firmness, not to say obst.nacy, to which he is always inclined, may, when he receives the report of the Commission, insist on executing his threat, and leave the responsibility of refusal to Con- gress, which will not dare to seem less patriotic than the Executive. A danger, in fact, hangs over both countries, and will continue to hang, unless diplomacy can in some way remove.it ; and, of course, under such a danger all osperity is checked, and all international relations become complicated beyond endurance. We do not believe that if we stirred in Europe the Americans would "jump on our backs," for they would probably deem such a course ungenerous ; but they certainly would expect us to acknowledge that they could do it if they pleased, and to gratify their amour-propre by some large diplomatic concession.
The danger is exasperated by the fact that with all the will in the world to respect American susceptibilities, the British cannot see any proposal which offers even a hope of being acceptable. Ever since the Message grave men have been discussing the courses which Lord Salisbury might possibly adopt to avoid any deepening of the quarrel, but not one of all suggested is in any way satis- factory. We cannot simply accept Mr. Cleveland's pre- tension, and suffer him to delimit our frontier, unless we are prepared to retire from America altogether, or to acknowledge openly that on that continent our Colonies are under the "protection," in its technical sense, of the United States. That is impossible ; but being impossible, where is the acceptable alternative ? There are proposals by the dozen for arbitration ; but, as we have said, what is there to arbitrate about? The President says the Monroe doctrine applies to the Venezuela ease, and Lord Salisbury says it does not; and how can arbitrators either reconcile or override that difference of opinion ? We have offered to arbitrate about the only territory which we believe to be outside our actual and unmistakable historical possession ; and to go further would be to admit the possibility of arbitration about the entire Empire. No doubt we could, without arbitration, cede all the disputed lands to Venezuela, and so end dis- cussion; but that would be really, though not formally, an act of submission sure to provoke further and larger demands in the near future ; for we must not forget that our very presence on the American Continent, though it is because of that presence that the United States are in existence, is treated by Mr. Olney as "unnatural and inexpedient." We might, we suppose, if we chose, when the Committee had reported, offer, for the sake of peace, to allow the United States to "mediate" in the ordinary diplomatic way between ourselves and Venezuela ; but would such mediation, unless it merely covered an act of submission on our part, ever come to anything ? Vene- zuela, secure in the protection of her big brother, would be outrageous in her demands, and a final rejection of them would be interpreted as a defiance of the United States. We can see nothing for it but to. wait, and to hope that the hostile feeling which Mr. Stanley describes as existing throughout the Union is only the feeling of the talkers, who often, in America as in Europe, get out of touch with the feeling of the true community. It is melancholy, however, for Great Britain to go on its business with the fuse of such a shell in the house still unextinguished, and more melancholy to feel that the rosy views of unity among English-speaking peoples rested on so slight a basis of fact. And it is most melancholy of all, perhaps, to recognise that we know ourselves so little that we can- not even guess what it is in us that offends some Americans so much. Grant all that is ever said of us by races who do not understand us, to be true, and in what way have we exhibited our evil qualities towards Americans ? When we fought them we were beaten ; they, and not we, have always had the best of any bargain, and as for "arro- gance," surely no man who understands English and retains his senses can deny its presence in the President's Message.
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