THE ESSENTIAL LEAGUE.
IT is a pity that the excellent speeches which the American 1 Ambassador delivered in Edinburgh on Thursday and Friday of last week were not more fully reported in the news- papers of London and the South. For those speeches contained a perfect statement of the principles that must guide the United States and Great Britain in their future co-operation. The speeches were delivered at a time when the American soldiers in the trenches had first come into contact with the Germans, and the first American blood shed on the battlefield had been given, in President Wilson's phrase, " to make the world safe for democracy." We do not think that most Englishmen recognize what tremendous physical strength and moral resolution will be brought to bear by the United States. The Americans as a race—we can speak of them as a race in spite of the notorious conglomeration of peoples, because there is a distinct ethos governing the whole nation— are a real fighting people. They will never give way. They will never let us down. They will fight on till the objects which satisfy us both have been achieved. As Dr. Page said, the American people are determined if necessary to ex- haust their resources " to the last man and the last dollar." The burden of Dr. Page's speech was that the Anglo-American co-operation which is now being solemnized in the agonies of the battlefield is the pledge and the insurance of the future.- We must do everything that is within our power to continue this co-operation into the days after the war. We agree with Dr. Page that if the United States and Great Britain hold together, no counter-alliance can prevail against them in the long run. Whether any formal promises and guarantees should be exchanged between the two nations is a matter that we may safely leave for the present, and probably leave to distant generations. Our own feeling is that any thought of a formal contract or alliance is alien to the existing sentiment of both nations. We might even go further and say that for- malities might even prove a kind of insidious poison ; they direct the mind to the letter of the contract rather than to the spirit of a great aspiration. The great aspiration of the moment is explicit enough for every purpose of guidance and co-operation. Both nations want exactly the same thing—the satisfaction of the nations by means of self - government, so that the happiness of the world shall never again be at the disposal of some eccentric personality or blood- thirsty and domineering clique.
It was a happy episode when Dr. Page delivered one of his speeches at the base of the Lincoln statue in Edinburgh. This is the only public statue of Lincoln at present in Europe, though we hope before long to have one in London, whether it be the work of St. Gaudens or that of Mr. Barnard. It will be remembered that the Lincoln statue was given to Edinburgh by Americans in gratitude for the services of Scotsmen who fought for the North in the American Civil War. Upon the plinth of the statue are inscribed Lincoln's words, " To preserve the jewel of Liberty in the framework of Freedom.' In describing how Great Britain and America might come nearer together, Dr. Page expressed the opinion that the right method was by means of education, and, further, what we may call reciprocal education. We must know more of one another's histories, and we must also cultivate the habit of exchanging ideas. As a practical suggestion, he proposed that as soon as possible an Anglo- American Society should be formed in Edinburgh. This
suggestion, thrown out quite casually though it was, goes to the heart of the matter. We Englishmen form societies to increase our knowledge about many remote and unimportant countries ; it is all very interesting and very informing, and we do not know any such societies which are undeserving of encouragement ; but the simple fact remains that there is no other country in the world which it is so important for us to know and to understand well as the United States. Everything depends upon this knowledge, this understanding, this sympathy. Anglo-American Societies are not more numerous than they are possibly because the very idea of which we are glad to say Dr. Page is becoming the chief apostle and prophet in this country is taken for granted. It is an ironical fact that the most important things in •liieIare often neglected because they seem so obvious that it is assumed that they cannot be overlooked. Everybody's business is nobody's business. In a most interesting passage Dr:iPage had something to say about the fable, as he called it, that the tendency of the history books and the history teachers in the United States has been to cultivate bitter memories against Great Britain. He explained that them was very little basis for this fable. Up to the middle of last century, he said, only two very exciting things had happened to the United States, and both of them happened to be wars against Great Britain. It was most unfortunate, but so it was. The " little adventures " which they had in 1776 and 1812 were not of American seeking, yet they were the chief chapters in the national history of the United States up to the year 1660. Their early schoolmasters were very poor, and their early school-book writers were very bad, and when they came to write a short story of the American national existence it was not to be wondered at that they laid emphasis on the only two really exciting things which had happened to them. Dr. Page said that he had seen school-books of which the worst that could be said was that the two exciting events were given undue proportion. Nevertheless, after trying for forty years to find a single American who would confess that his temper or his spirit was in the least affected by such school-books, he had not found one. Moreover, such school- books were discarded many years ago. The present history books in American schools naturally made more mention of the ware of 1776 and 1812 than British history books made, " but," concluded Dr. Page, " they do not lay emphasis on them, and there is not an American living who has the slightest feeling towards the British Empire because of either of these wars."
In recounting what the United. States had already done in the war, Dr. Page said that ten million men were registered under the Conscription Act. The country had become as fine a military workshop as Great Britain herself. Twenty thousand aeroplanes were m construction, and one hundred thousand men were being trained to use them. The shipyards, old and new, were building more ships than any man ever dreamed they could build. • " About the issue of this bloody business," exclaimed the Ambassador, " there is not, and cannot be, the slightest doubt. We have paid too much to.expect any settle- ment but a final settlement. It is necessary that we do not permit the horrors of war to overcome us until the right settle. ment ismade." Dr. Page then went on to ask what the future would hold on the assumption that the right settlement was reached. For his part, he believed that there must be a conscious and leagued effort to forestall any other world war. It had become necessary, he said, to control events. We are greatly interested in this phrase " control events," which Dr. Page used two or three times, because we imagine that a memorable passage from one of Lincoln's speeches was passing through his mind. Liacoln's words, it will be remembered, were : " I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." Lincoln's words were perfectly natural in their context. Every student of the American Civil War knows how Lincoln set out upon his career of great statesmanship with the one cardinal idea that the Union must be maintained ; how the war followed as the inevitable sequel to his persistence in that belief ; and how, yet again, circumstances decided that his resolve to maintain the Union became almost indistinguishable from a struggle for the emancipation of the slaves. Of course Lincoln was never for a moment a reluctant champion of the slaves, but at the beginning of the war the issue of slavery was secondary to the maintaining of the Union. In such senses as this events " controlled " Lincoln, and so far as the context does not wholly explain his words our appreciation of Lincoln's modesty comes to the rescue. But we live in a world to-day which Lincoln never foresaw, and we agree with Dr. Pegs that the, future direction. of the social and industrial progress-of mankind will require a more. deliberate and conscious control than a past generation ever contem- plated, and than is agreeable to the natural instincts of most of us. Now, in this business of controlling events, the larger the group of nationalities may be which firmly intends to keep the peace, the better. But we are delighted to Kee that the American Ambassador refrained very carefully from dealing in misty generalities. He said not a word about vast and comprehensive Leagues of Peace which in the final analysis depend upon a gigantic " if "—upon assuming the goodwill and trustworthiness of nations which, according to every scrap of evidence available, mean neither to show _goodwill nor to deserve the trust of others. He went straight to the practical point. He showed, in effect, that the Allies now fighting against Germany already form a League of .Peace. Yet he did not go so far as even to assume that this scattered alliance could count upon an enduring existence. He argued that the one thing of which we could make sure was that Great Britain and the United States should never fall apart. This is a great political work, a great object, which demands the efforts of us all, of every man, woman, and add in both nations. In describing the League of Peace of. his imagination, Dr. Page said that the membership of other Great Powers and people are desirable, but there are " two that are necessary, two that are indispensable, and those two are Great Britain and the United States." Dr. Page's concluding words might serve as a motto for Anglo- American co-operation : " Upon the English-speaking peoples depends hereafter the safety of the world. That is the largest political fact that has ever risen upon the horizon of the race."
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