ANTI-BRITISH FEELING IN AMERICA.
MOST Englishmen would say that they deserved and had earned the good opinion of the United States. The conviction that it is necessary for the future peace of the world that the two great nations with Anglo-Saxon ideals should work side by side, if not universal in Great Britain, has vastly spread. That conviction is now one of the cardinal points of our statesmanship. Yet just at the moment when Englishmen not only admit the necessity of such co-operation but fancy that events have made it easy, we are faced by the paradoxical fact—for fact we take it to be—that there is a fresh tide of anti-British feeling in the United States. Let us say at once that we do not believe for a moment that this tide will engulf our fondest hopes. It will pass away, and the British Empire and the United States will understand each other all the better in the end. The best minds in both countries are working for that result. But nothing would be more foolish than to mistake the reality of these successive tides of anti-British feeling. If they are ignored they may effect the destruction which they will be powerless to effect if we understand their force and treat them with the necessary seriousness.
There was one tide of anti-British feeling, and a very grave one it was, early in the war, just when the British people hoped that their motives in rushing to the rescue of Belgium, and interposing themselves between Belgium and France on the one side and the hatred of Germany on the other, would be understood and appreciated in America. At that time a number of Americans, instead of saying a word of encouragement to European civilization fighting for its life—as it had not fought for it since Napoleonic days—preferred to stick pins into Great Britain as an unscrupulous interferer with neutral trade. As we said at the time, the American point of view was at least intelligible. The United States, as the greatest of neutrals, has always stood out as the champion of neutral rights. It seemed to President Wilson and to his great following of Americans that the British blockade of Germany was doing an injustice to all neutrals, and the President allowed his feelings on this subject for the time being to push into the background all the detestation and scorn which he of course harboured in his own mind against the conduct of Germany. But think how it struck Englishmen. They did not ask that America should come into the war, but they did expect that America would utter some official word of understanding and encouragement to those who were thus early trying " to make the world safe for democracy." They would have been satisfied, or at least somewhat appeased, in those days if Mr. Wilson had denounced Germany for tearing up Treaties and disregarding all the humane rules and customs of war. But no such word came. The strained relations between America and ourselves might have turned—for things were drifting that way—into a disastrous severance or a still more disastrous conflict if Germany had not fortunately played her hand so badly that she soon made it plain to all Americans that they must stand positively on our side. • When the danger passed it passed completely, and it is disappointing now, when we hoped that the sky had finally cleared, that it is once more overcast. Even persistent readers of British newspapers may well be puzzled to know what is the exact cause of the present anti-British feeling in America. We cannot do better than quote from a letter which we have received from a valued American reader of the Spectator. He writes : " I have been much interested in the earnest endeavour of the Spectator to maintain cordial relations between England and the United States, an endeavour with which I most heartily sympathize. But may I be permitted to express a point of view which does not find a voice in your correspondence columns, but which I think you would do well to bear in mind in continuing your laudable policy of fostering good feeling between our two nations ? The officially announced war programme of the United States, as expressed in President Wilson's speeches, was that we entered the war to end war, to help to establish a lasting peace. We did not enter it to acquire new territory either directly or indirectly, or to gain now markets. The Entente officially professed the same high aims. But at the very time these professions were being publicly made the secret Treaties, about which the Spectator has had very little to say, were being negotiated. In these Treaties the world, outside of the Americas, was being parcelled out between England, France, Italy, and Japan, and these Treaties for substance of doctrine' are now found in the Treaty of Versailles. The League of Nations in its present form is dominated, as every one knows, by the four nations just mentioned and the United States, and the United States, whose resources have been less touched than the resources of any other fighting nation, with the possible exception of Japan, is practically asked to underwrite the Treaty through the League of Nations. Mr. Wilson in his recent speeches emphasized the fact that the League of Nations was an mistrutnent to enforce the Treaty. Two parties in this country are increasingly opposed to such a settlement. There is the very conservative element which is just waking up to the fact which should have been clear to them when we entered the war, that the United States by this League would become hopelessly entangled in quarrels which we do not understand and with which we have, strictly speaking, nothing to do. We have just been reminded by General Garibaldi anent Fiume that Europeans must be allowed to settle European questions.' In proportion as the Treaty is an unworkable Treaty (see Senator Knox's speech) the League ties us up to impossible European conditions. This conservative element, which is nationalistic rather than idealistic, is also increasingly jealous of the immense accession of territory and power which the four nations, and especially England, have received as the fruits of victory. The thoroughgoing Nationalists among us are therefore disposed to indulge in the old trick of twisting the British Lion's tail.' On the other hand, the more advanced liberal sentiment, which is idealistic and more or less internationalist, is disappointed beyond expression at what it regards as the almost complete failure of President Wilson at Paris to carry out his own idealistic policy. This sentiment regards the Treaty as a guarantee of another world war, and therefore the liberals amongst us are genuinely opposed to the League of Nations whose function is to ' enforce the Treaty.' I call your attention to the attitude of the New Republic in this connexion. It was one of the warmest supporters of President Wilson throughout the war. But it has now repudiated his policies since the Armistice. The Spectator has steadily stood for the policy of a dictated peace—in other words, a peace of force. Did it ever occur to you, I respectfully ask, that the natural consequences of such a peace might very easily lead, as indeed they are now doing, to a certain strain in the relations between the United States and England, which in the end might prove really serious ? Is this price not a rather high price to pay for the privilege of forcing upon the defeated Central Powers a peace that may be denominated by some a peace of justice, but which has not one element. in it that makes for the healing of the nations ? You have now the peace you demanded, but you have done so at the risk of alienating both the conservatives and the idealists in the United Stat. is—a most unfortunate result for the good relations which you as well as ] Would like to see preserved between Mother and Daughter." If that letter does not cover the whole ground, it at all events covers a great deal of it from the American point of view. We must express our gratitude for the temper and reasonableness with which our correspondent has written. If our fraternal disputes could be conducted in that manner there would be no danger. Such a letter demands a reply in a similar temper. Let us try, though we must be very brief, to give it.
The whole of our correspondent's case may be summarized by saying that a growing American opinion accuses Great Britain of having been " on the make," or of wishing to act vindictively towards Germany. The sense of our answer, which at least will be a perfectly sincere one, is that the last thought in the minds of British people when they went to war with Germany was one of self-aggrandisement, and that no reputable statesman or soldier or sailor, or indeed any wholly rational person here, wants to treat Germany vindictively. It is quite another matter and a perfectly just thing to say that Germany must pay the penalty of crime like any other criminal. But we may take our correspondent's points in order. He complains of the secret Treaties. We do not defend secret Treaties as such, but it must be remembered that they belong to an order of the world which can now be abolished only if the -League of Nations comes into force, and unhappily Americans, for their variousreasons, are very slow in helping us to get the League to work. We would ask our correspondent to reflect upon the circumstances in which the secret Treaties were made. The Allies, insufficiently prepared for war, were being set upon by the best prepared and most determined aggressor in the world. They were rather in the position of a man who is set upon in a dark street by roughs, and who in order to save his life and his property accepts help quickly upon the terms on which it is offered. We are putting our case on the lowest grounds for the purpose of argument ; but we do not admit that there was anything in the secret Treaties for which we ought to apologize. But suppose there were regrettable things in these secret Treaties, does our correspondent think that we should have let Germany win rather than sign them ? If, however, he admits that the help was necessary to defeat Germany and save the world, he will find it difficult, we think, not to admit that when .terms are proposed on one side they must be met by terms on the other side, so far as the nation which has asked for help is in a position to suggest or impose terms for itself. It is always better when the final settlement comes to have a set-off against any payments which will be demanded. That is a matter of ordinary prudence, and it is a misjudgment of the whole situation to say that the British people at any stage of the war had their eye upon territorial loot. If America had come into the war at-the beginning, there might have been no secret Treaties.
Our correspondent goes on to talk about the " parcelling out " of territory among the victors. But what does this parcelling out amount to ? Does our correspondent serioutly mean to imply that the German colonies should have been returned to Germany ? Surely, if he shares the ordinary humane feeling of Americans, he must admit that Germany had proved herself utterly unfitted to govern savage or backward races. What, then, was to be done with -the German colonies ? Mr. Wilson, inspired by General Smuts and others, proposed that, in order to avoid annexations, the nations which became responsible for governing backward or imperfectly settled countries should do so under mandates from the League of Nations. We do not know whether Americans conceive a fraction of the injury which was done to the pride of Great Britain in accepting this system of -mandates. We imagine that they cannot. Ever since the time of Chatham, Great Britain has taken a .particular pride in her variety of overseas forms of administration. In this matter we fondly thought we had something to show the world. It would be foolish for us to boast, but if we were asked for any proof that our rule has been acceptable, we would point to the way in which men of every race and every eolour within the British Empire thronged to the help of the Mother Country in the Boer War, and again, and much more notably, in the recent Great War. For the purpose of his argument our correspondent seems to regard the acceptance by the British Empire of mandates in German East Africa, in German South-West Africa, and in Mesopotamia as tantamount to annexation. He has apparently left out of account the League of Nations. If the League thinks that there would be any more proficient, more humane, or more suitable mandatory in any of these lands, the League can say so. We imagine that no British Imperial Government and no British Dominion Government, having agreed unreservedly to the creation of the League of Nations, will dispute its authority. Events, or a British aptitude necessarily derived from long experience, have required the British Empire to accept new responsibilities. British people in the mass do not want these responsibilities. They are unpopular. There is no more thought of annexation in British minds than there was a desire for fresh possessions in the minds of Americans when the Washington Government landed a military force in San Domingo in 1916 and took over the government of that country. This was necessary for the peace and quiet of that part of the world and for the safety of life and property. The American Government were quite right to act as they did.
As though to make the irony of anti-British feeling in America more poignant to us, our correspondent uses .a phrase about the United States being asked to " underwrite " the Treaty of Peace. How different it all looks from the British point of view ! As Englishmen see the matter, Mr. Wilson, having earned our deepest gratitude by leading the American nation to the help of the Allies, in effect told us that he would then proceed to show the peoples of the ancient world how to manage their affairs. He was the author of the Fourteen Points which were the basis of the Peace Treaty. He was the inspirer, if not the sole author, of the League of Nations. But now Englishmen find that while they and their European Allies have settled down to try to work the League of Nations (which, but for Mr. Wilson, they might never have heard of, and almost certainly would not have accepted), Americans are saying that in this great new game they will not take a hand. In vain we suggest an American mandate at Constantinople, or in unhappy, groaning Armenia, or in Palestine, or in Africa. So far from consenting to the proposal, America delays the working of the whole scheme which her chief representative invented. To say that the Peace is a " dictated Peace " explains or justifies nothing, for it was dictated—as in our opinion it had to be—as nearly as possible in accordance with Mr. Wilson's own wishes. Of course the Treaty was the resultant of many conflicting forces, but when that resultant had been reached Mr. Wilson definitely expressed his approval of it. American delay in ratifying the Peace Treaty has been both a surprise and a disappointment here. We wish that America could see her way to ratify it as soon as possible, with the addition Of whatever interpretative reservations may be thought necessary—these might be valuable to us all—and then work the League of Nations for all it is worth. The whole settlement is but a framework. Under the League of Nations it is capable of indefinite alteration. By means of the League of Nations every cause of suspicion against Great Britain, just or unjust, could be removed. We trust that our American readers will not think we have written too plainly. We have written exactly what was in our mind, in the strong belief that as between America and ourselves it is despicable and silly to avoid the truth.
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