THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN AMERICA.
AS our readers know, we desire nothing so much as a continuation of the keen sympathy and interest which have marked the attitude of English public opinion towards America during the last few years. But in spite of that we shall not regret it if our newspapers and their readers do not pay too much attention to the Presidential Election which is just beginning in the States. And for this reason. When Englishmen get interested, they can. not help taking sides and getting vehemently anxious for their side to win. But the last thing that anv wise friend of England and America, wants is for people here to take sides strongly in the coming struggle. If they do they are sure to make enemies of a large part of the American public and to create a condition of heat and ill-feeling which cannot but be injurious. What English. men ought to want, and do in reality want at heart, is that Americans should have the President of their choice. But owing to a variety of circumstances they are not unlikely, unless they take care, to be persuaded into thinking that they want the Republican party to win. This will not be merely because they will think that the Republicans are friendly to England and the Democrats unfriendly, but rather because they will be told in daily telegrams that the whole future prosperity of America depends upon putting the Republicans in office. That they will honestly be told this we do not doubt. The men who supply English newspapers with news live in the Eastern States, and naturally take the view of the educated people in the Northern and Eastern States, and this, except in the case of the Irish, is largely Republican. The hotter the fight becomes, and the more excited people get, the more certain it will seem to the Republicans that unless President McKinley is re-elected the country will be utterly and irrevocably ruined. Thus we must be prepared to hear later in the summer of all sorts of awful things that are sure to happen if Mr. Bryan wins. No doubt Mr. Bryan's friends will paint equally terrifying pictures of the chaos of misrule into which the country must fall if the Republicans win, and if we over here could hear these things they would act as an excellent corrective, and make us realise that there is, after all, not so much difference between the two parties. But we shall not hear the Democratic but only the Republican " babble of the auction room" of politics, and thus shall be in danger of being impressed out of all proportion to the facts. This being the case, we desire first that English- men should busy themselves as little as possible about the Election, and when, and if, they do that, they should- emember that they are like a jury which has only heard the speeches and evidence on one side. Almost invariably the jury are for the time converted by the statement of the plaintiff's counsel, and begin to think that in the whole history of litigation there never was a man so. deeply and so unjustly injured. They are on fire to do him right, and to see that the iniquitous defendant is 'properly cast in damages. Till the defence and the Judge's summing-up are heard, it often seems astonishing that the other side should have had the hardihood, the monstrous impertinence, to let the thing come into Court.
When, then, the British public hear of all the terrible things that will happen to the country in whose welfare they naturally take so real and so deep an interest, let them pinch themselves and remember that they are only hearing one side. For ourselves, we frankly admit that if we were put to the question we should be forced to admit that we should prefer to see President McKinley get a second term, but this is not so much because we think the Democratic party would ruin America as because we believe that Mr. McKinley and the wise statesman who it his Secretary of State—Colonel Hay—are adminis- trators of a high order. They have learnt their business thoroughly, hold all the strings of policy in their hands, and are more likely at the present juncture to manage the foreign affairs of the nation skilfully than their successors, however able. But though we think this, we do not for a moment suppose that if Mr. Bryan and his friends win they will be able to any appreciable degree to alter the main policy of the United States, either as regards the gold standard or in respect of foreign and Imperial policy. Let us look at the matter a little more in detail, taking foreign policy first. People talk now as if the first thing Mr. Bryan would do when he became President would be to pick a quarrel with England. In reality nothing is more impossible. The very most he would do would be in the first two months of office to cause an inept despatch or two to be addressed to Great Britain in regard to the Nicaragua Canal or the Alaska boundary. When it came to action, he would, we venture to predict, take up the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, obtain a few verbal alterations in the draft, and then present it for ratification to the Senate. The reason is not far to seek. Mr. Bryan disclaims any intention of interfering with or bullying the sister-Republics of South America, and desires to treat them with the utmost consideration. Very well. liten the first thing his Secretary of State will discover is that what the sister-Republics specially want, and what they insist on, is that the territory of Central America shall remain neutral, and shall not be fortified or in any other way taken forcible possession of by the United States. The real reason why the United States did not ask us formally to consent to the fortification of the canal was the knowledge that when that consent had been obtiiined, the United States would at once find a great deal of most serious Central and South American opposition, probably backed up by Germany and France. It is one thing to put the insistence upon the unconditional making of the Nicaragua Canal into the party plat- form ; quite another, as Mr. Bryan will find, to out right across the grain of Central and South American opinion, and quaintly enough too in the name of friendliness to the sister-Republics. Depend upon it, Mr. Bryan's handling of the canal question if he gets into office will approximate very nearly to that of Mr. McKinley, and for the very good reason that it is the only sound policy,—the only policy which will not stir up a nest of hornets. A look into the secret records of the State Depart- meht always bits had, and always will have, a very sober- ing effect on the amateur diplomatist, and this will most certainly be so in the case of Mr. Bryan. We are not any more afraid that Mr. Bryan will do something wild or foolish in regard to China. There the policy pursued by the Administration has been an inevitable policy, and Mr. Bryan would of course carry it out. It will in effect be the same as regards Imperialism, and the possession of the Philippines and Cuba. Mr. Bryan may possibly begin by telling the people of the Philippines that ho means to make them a free Republic under the Protection of the United States ; but that, we venture to think, will not get him out of the islands. While he is thinking of evacuation some incident or some piece of native treachery will require correction. The native will not tolerate that correction any more easily from his friend, Mr. Bryan, than from his oppressor, Mr. McKinley, and very soon the Demo- cratic party will discover that they have to face the dilemma,—' Either we remain in the Philippines, or else the islands relapse into anarchy and barbarism.' But to that there will only be one answer from America, whether it is being ruled by Democrats or Republicans. It will be the same thing in Cuba. The Democrats may talk, and talk quite sincerely, about evacuation, just as Mr. Gladstone and his friends quite sincerely talked about evacuation in Egypt, but they will find the task too heavy for them. The moment America made up her mind that Spain was incapable of ruling her colonies, and that she should be forced to admit it by means of war, that moment America undertook Imperial responsibilities from which there was no drawing back.
Let Englishmen, then, remember to keep cool about the Presidential Election. The differences between the two parties will not be nearly so great as will be represented, and the triumph of neither party will send the Union to the dogs. If Mr. Bryan wins, the United States, in spite of the chatter, will neither attack or be unfriendly. to England, nor reverse the policy of taking up her share of the "white man's burden" which Mr. McKinley has begun. The United States of America will, in a word, be run on Anglo-Saxon lines whether Mr. Bryan or Mr. McKinley wins, and in spite of any amount of noise and shouting from " hyphenated " Americans.
Previous page
