THE CONTINENTAL DISLIKE OF AMERICANS.
WE are unable to doubt, though we are unwilling to believe, that the feeling of the Continent is genuinely unfriendly to America. The Governments, of course, are fairly civil, but even they are beginning to talk among themselves, or sometimes openly, as in Coui.t Goluchowski's speech, of the " Trans-oceanic peril ; " but of the general aristocratic, middle-class, and, indeed, popular feeling there can be little doubt. In newspapers, in clubs, in society, even in the street, the dislike of Americans, the wish that they might be defeated, the desire, if it were only safe, to give them some savage snub, is unmistak- able. Everybody out of office on the Continent sides with Spain ; everybody accepts stories to American discredit without inquiry ; everybody assumes that in settling terms of peace America is bound to be gentle and self- denying, and to abstain from acquiring anything which she did not previously say she intended to acquire. There is an indignant surprise at the idea of her keeping the Philippines, or having the presumption to ask for Porto Rico. In fact, the disposition betrayed by the Russian journalist who calls the defeat of Admiral Cervera in a battle which the same Admiral is extolled for challenging, " a butchery," is the disposition of the majority of Conti- nental men. They apologise for their dislike sometimes, as indiscreet or even unjustifiable, but they feel it, and that very deeply. That is a state of opinion which may one day gravely affect the politics of the world, and, indeed, affects them now, and it is worth while to inquire what it exactly means, and how far it is likely to be permanent. We see no reason to believe that it is a passing gust of emotion. The Continental peoples are not devoted to Spain, and, except in France for pecuniary reasons, are not specially interested in her prosperity. She is Catholic, no doubt, and the United States are Protes- tant; and there is a solidarity of Catholicism, but it is a very limited force in modern politics, and does not pre- vent Austria from leaguing herself in a bond of excep- tional strictness with the chief of Continental Protestant Powers. Italy is not so devoted to the Pope that his interests affect her judgment, and in Russia the usual trend of feeling is distinctively anti-Catholic,—one reason for the severity always displayed to Poland. Nor can we believe that the unfriendliness is merely a manifestation of dislike for Republics. The America of which the Con- tinent has any knowledge or recollection never was Mon- archical, and even if it had been, naticns do not greatly care about the institutions under which other nations, whether their rivals or not, may choose to live. If Russia were only weak, the autocracy might last for ever for all the Germans would care. The unfriendliness must have some deeper source than the momentary conflict between the Union and a European Power.
We believe that it springs from precisely the same sources as the dislike for Great Britain herself,—namely, envy of a prosperity considered overweening, dislike for the bearing of Americans, and a vague apprehension akin to that felt by many Englishmen about Russia, that they will ultimately threaten the very existence—or is it the subsistence ?—of less numerous races. Of these motives the former is, with the body of the peoples, the strongest. They hear incessantly from the emigrants as well as the journals of the marvellous wealth of Americans, of the success of their manufactures, of the expansion of their trade, and of the general wellbeing produced by all these causes. They see that the " Yankees," as they call them, bear none of the usual burdens, that they have no conscription, no need for watching their neighbours, no restraints upon their liberty ; and they detest them almost as strongly as Socialists detest the rich bourgeoisie. Why, they ask, should Americans be so happy while Europeans are so miserable ?—they want taking down. This distaste is increased by a belief that the Americans are not only no better than Europeans, but that they are morally and ntellectually inferior to them, that their officials are corrupt, their clergy hypocritical, their masses given up to purely material interests. They care nothing for art, have never erected a building, and have produced no literature. They look on the Americans, in fact, much as a" mugwump " looks on an Alderman of Chicago, and sicken to think that such a people is, of all mankind, that which has succeeded best in the economic competi- tion, and has been most successful in uniting liberty and plenty. They cannot bear the peculiar American form of swagger, which is not like either their own swagger ( that of Englishmen, and misunderstand their directneE and realism in speech as a form of boorishness. A people in the world, we have long noticed, are annoyed b the English habit of "chaff," and the Continental is so vexe by American "pawkiness," and sub-satiric humour, that h even fails to recognise, what every Englishman sees, tha kindliness to those who only demand equality is of the ver essence of the special American character. He thinks thet spiteful as well as selfish, and looks upon their high tariff the result of a false political economy, as dictated by a wis to impoverish Europe and thrust it out of its nature right to compete for trade. The Continentals have, to a certain fear of the Republic, an idea hardly formulate except among statesmen, but still visible in the masse that it may attain to giant proportions, that it may on day arm itself, and that when it does the external coil merce of the Continent, if not its internal independence will lie at the mercy of America. For all these reason they hold Americans in detestation.
These feelings have always existed since America becam great, but the cover has been lifted off them in the shoe of a new development. America had till this year on great merit in Continental eyes which almost compensate for her many delinquencies and her detestable prosperity She was a counterpoise to Great Britain. It was universally diffused impression that Washington dislike London, that the frequent " twisting of the lion's tail' was only a symptom of a deep-seated impulse, that the two Powers must in the end quarrel for Canada, and tha then the heartburning of the world would be assuaged 1) the common ruin of both. That pleasing prospect ha: been at all events blurred by the new amity between Great Britain and America, which may develop into an alliance that seems, not only to statesmen but to merchant! and financiers of the Continent, to threaten to place tlu control of the world's commerce in Anglo-Saxon hands. That is a horrible prospect to men who still believe at heart that all power transmutes itself into money, and who are well aware that if they themselves controlled al. trade no rival would enjoy in peace so much as thei. leavings. The mere apprehension of such a result daunt able rulers, who, be it remembered, are haunted by tla Socialist spectre, the fear that their countries will soc, cease to produce enough for their increasing multitude 0' inhabitants, while it renders lower men savage in thei estimate of the coming forces from which they have e much to fear. Imagine a "coster " who finds anothe coster in possession of all the profitable streets! Even th English, who as a rule fear nothing very keenly, find hard to be just to Russia, to believe, for example, tha. she governs Central Asia much better than it was erl governed before ; and men of the Continent once alart0 for their material wellbeing are much more bitter than t j English ever are. The French, therefore, ridicule the id of an Anglo-Saxon Alliance ; the Russians assert that it a dream ; and the Germans, with menace in their ton declare that it would be " a world-peril." Meanwh' they all think themselves released from any temptation hypocrisy, and bring daily precisely the charges again, America which they brought, and bring, against Gr Britain. The Americans are declared, like the Britis to be supremely selfish, to be intent on explo! ing the world—and Cuba—for their own adva,n to be always boasting of non - existent forces, an above all—it is a curious charge considering w the writers of both nations habitually say about the selves—to be monstrously hypocritical. The outburst 71 alter nothing, for States are guided by their interes rather than their opinions, but it tends, like many otl circumstances, to divide the civilised world into two gr camps, and to make Englishmen and Americans, v when let alone do not reflect very deeply about gene positions, thoughtful with a newly born self-conscio ness. "Have we really so much of the great fund pil vided by Nature that all others are regarding us WI wolfish eyes ? Let us hope it is not so, but till we , certain let us keep each ether company down the road.'
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