CENTRAL EUROPE AND AMERICA.
OUR countrymen as a body are very indifferent, perhaps too indifferent, to the opinion of foreigners, but no educated Englishman can read without pain the torrent of abuse which the Continent is now pouring on our heads. It seems so hopeless to be friendly, or even just, in the face of such malignity. We all know that it owes its origin, in great part at least, to the malignant misrepresentations of our enemies, who, for example, describe the concentration camps, which were established out of a philanthropic desire that Boer women and children should not suffer the worst hardships of war,or be left helpless amidst a hostile black population, as torture chambers in which women are suffered to starve and children to die in heaps of preventible diseases. The knowledge, however, brings little relief, for if the credulity which accepts such stories is born of ignorance, how is it to be enlightened ? and if it springs from malice, how deep must the malignity be which, with all the facts before the world, including De Wet's own statement that the war on both sides has been unmarked by cruelty, can use such tales merely to bespatter a detested people. There is nothing to be done, of course, with such abuse except to bear it, and continue our defensive armaments, for when the tempest . of calumny is fanned by the Press, by the clerics, and by the popular orators evidence is as unheard as music in a cyclone, and we can but wait patiently until the tornado has blown past. Englishmen may, however, be a little relieved to find that much of the hatred—that part of it, at least, which is born of jealousy and fear—extends in full measure to the 'United States. We have repeatedly quoted evidence of this from the speeches of statesmen, and it is gradually becoming clear that their utterances do not misrepresent the peoples. At one of the greatest meetings 'ever held in Vienna (Wednesday, Oct. 23), a meeting which was attended by great Austrian aristocrats as well as leading economists, and which was, so to speak, blessed by the Austrian Premier in a letter read aloud, America was denounced as the grand " peril " of the future. She was aiming, said Dr. Peez, a great industrial, at "universal economic supremacy," and must be fought by strict Protection. "Count Buquoy," says the Times correspondent, "argued that the problem should be con- sidered under these different aspects, as the United States was a great Power,—firA as a centre of production; secondly, owing to its command of capital ; and, thirdly, on account of the brute force at its disposal. A survey of the manipulation of its trusts and its 'corners' in grain, &c., revealed a series of crimes which were associated with an unparalleled ruthlessness in the conduct of busi- ness.'" Other speakers expressed the same fears, and the entire meeting unanimously passed resolutions, of which one demands a "union of Central Europe against Trans- oceanic competition," and another that the United States and Argentina, a country which Agrarians specially dread because of her increasing production of wheat, should be debarred from the full advantages of commercial treaties. The words of the resolution are : "That while treaties for longer periods may be concluded with other countries when they afford adequate protection to native production and export trade, those with the United States and the Argentine Confederation should only be for short terms." Resolutions at meetings do not usually matter much, but these must be read by the light, not only of Austrian feeling, but of events in Germany, where, if the Agrarians triumph, as apparently they will, the idea of a union of Central Europe against American exports of food will be eagerly accepted, and will be pressed on France, where, be it remembered, Protectionists are still completely in the ascendant, M. Delcasse refusing reductions even to Russia, from whom he was begging admission for French wine. There is, in fact, real danger that if the Conserva- tive parties on the Continent, who include the Agrarians, the Clericals, the Absolutists, and a vast mass of peasants, should achieve a temporary triumph, a grand effort will be made to try an economic boycott of the United States and the Argentine Republic as a protection for the "vital interests" threatened by their competition.
Nor is the movement due to economic nervousness alone. The bitter jealousy of Great Britain which has for years been growing on the Continent, jealousy of her prosperity, her freedom, and her apparently endless power of expan- sion, and which has guanoed men's minds till every kind of hatred grows there readily, has of late years extended itself to the -United States also. The crushing defeat of Spain, which they had not ex d, shocked the Continental peoples, and especially tErt&tholic peoples, who felt, as by a sudden revelation, that a new, a great, and a probably hostile power had been born into the world. The enormous increase of American wealth which followed, and the evidences of American enterprise, increased the impact of the shock, which was not diminished by the accounts, poured out in reams by friends as well as enemies, of what Qount Buquoy calls the "un- paralleled ruthlessness "of America in business. That such prosperity, and power should accrue to an English-speaking Republic without an aristocracy, a conscription, or an ancient past disgusts as well as alarms the upper classes of the Continent, and changes economic alarm into a kind of angry despair, which shows itself in futile proposals such as we have just recorded. • The movement will pass, and probably the hatred with it, though the hatred of the poor for the rich seems with some races never to die away. The policy which dictates the "Milan decrees" never succeeds, and Napoleon when he tried it was not hampered by the question of food, and had almost absolute power in his own hand. Four or five Courts, and four or five Parliaments, not to mention, four or five peoples, will not hold together long enough to work America serious mischief. The "aggressive economics " of which the Austrians complain will die away gradually from internal causes, and "commercial supremacy" will cease to be sought the moment it is found not to be profitable. We do not suppose, therefore, that the Continent will be foolish enough to attack America directly, or to run the risk of any battle of Armageddon with the Anglo-Saxon race. Cataclysmal events very rarely happen in politics. It is well, however, for our countrymen to perceive that a nation may be detested though it is not seeking to conquer South Africa, and to recognise that the causes which drive the Union and Great Britain together are not entirely sentimental. We have, it is true, a common origin, a common literature, and in many ways common aspirations, but we have also common interests of a very binding kind. America, though it thinks itself Protectionist, is not Pro- tectionist about food, and the kind of awestruck horror of free competition which great parties on the Continent are now betraying tends to drive all who speak English and sell and buy food freely into a single defensive group. That is a fact which is worth remembering when we grow frightened by the American commercial "invasion," or hear that America is doubling her Fleet, or read speeches in the Senate affirming that Great Britain must be allowed no influence over the Nicaragua Canal. If we may not say as yet that the two States have common enemies, at least they have common rivals, who seem at this moment just a little implacable.
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