TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GUMMIDGES OF BRITAIN AND AMERICA.
WE are a peculiar people, and so are the Americans. Both nations keep an appallingly large percentage of Mrs. Gummidges—people who chew melancholy and disagreeable facts, or rather alleged facts, with the avidity of the most hardened chewers of gum. The only difference is that our Gummidges pretend that the disagreeable things to which they are always drawing attention are inexpressibly painful to them. It is, indeed, because of their painfulness that they dwell upon them. The staple goods of the pessimists on both sides are what they call the unfortunate but undoubted hatred of America for Britain and of Britain for America. They begin, no doubt quite truthfully, by saying that by some strange accident they themselves have always happened to be very friendly with the inhabitants of the other country whom they have happened to meet, but that no hopes must be raised upon this. Those accidental friends assure them with sighs and regrets that they are entirely exceptional. Their sincerity obliges them to say that the whole of the rest of America loathes Britain, or that the whole of the rest of Britain regards America with the most acute suspicion and dislike. They in fact take up an attitude similar to that of Swift. The great misanthropist said that while he loved individually Tom, Dick, and Harry, he hated mankind as a whole. So they love individual Jonathans or John Bulls, but hate Americans or Englishmen as a whole. It is amusing to note an unconscious piece of self-flattery in this attitude. Undoubtedly Mr. Jones of New York and Mr. Smith of London find the position they so fervently deplore on public grounds personally rather agreeable. If pressed to be candid, they would probably reconcile the facts by saying, " Well, of course, I understand why the people on the other side happen to like me and are so remarkably friendly. You see, I am a man of the world and know how to get on with them. Therefore they very naturally find me ' so different.' They tell me, indeed, that if all my compatriots were as reasonable, friendly, and sym- pathetic as I am there would be no difficulties. But this, unfortunately, is not the case ; and therefore, taking the nation as a whole, they cannot but feel ' deep enmity towards the declared enemies of their country,' " &c., &c. In a word, it is always pleasant to be an exception, and this pleasure is exploited for all it is worth. If these unamiable egoists enjoyed their self-conscious pessimism alone, we should not trouble about them. Unfortunately, however, they infect other people. The mass of the men in the United States and also the mass of the men here never have any direct or intimate contact with the other side of the English-speaking world. They haVe to take the attitude of " the other fellow " on trust. It is a very happy chance if they are not infected by the people who shake sapient heads and solemnly assert : There is, unfortunately, no doubt that, taken as a whole, they hate us. You'd soon find that to be so if you saw much of them."
We say, without the slightest fear of contradiction, that all this " natural animosity " talk on both sides is the purest rubbish. Instead of the feeling between Britain and America being bad at this moment, and getting worse, we believe that, in essentials, it was never better and that it is tending to improve. Of course, when one says this to a hard-shell British Gummidge, one is immediately asked how one accounts for the facts that there are four or five outstanding official points of friction between the American Republic and the Britisi Empire, that many public men have said very offensive things about our Government, especially as regards Ireland, and that the American newspapers, or at any rate some of them, are filled with abuse of Britain as a cruel, rapacious, and decadent nation. It may be worth while to say a word or two in answer to these allegations. The official causes of friction are no doubt disagreeable, but they can and will be got over ' • and indeed, if they are properly explored," to use an odious and much over-used but all the same rather convenient phrase, they will probably end in a better understanding. We do not, however, mean to mention them specifically just now. Rather we want to draw attention to the fact that the new President of the United States—the man who has the right to speak for America in the way in which our King can speak for the British Empire—has since he was elected on three occasions used language in regard to Britain of a kind which has no parallel in Presidential statements. To begin with, there was the ever-memorable message to the Sulgrave Trustees which ran as follows :— " I believe that when the wisdom of America is summoned to assist the world in building a workable, as distinguished from a bungling, agreement or association for the prevention of war, the unity of the English-speaking peoples will play no small part, not to invade the rights or exclude the fellowship of other nations, but to protect and include them."
Next there is the remark made by Sir Philip Gibbs in the current issue of the Review of Reviews in which he recounts an interview he had recently with President Harding. Sir Philip Gibbs asked for a message to the English people. The President, we are told, was a little startled at the suddenness of the request, but in spite of that gave this interviewer, " earnestly and with real emotion," a message which ran as follows :—
" Friendship between tho United States and Great Britain is essential for the welfare of the world. Americans of the old stock look upon England as the Mother Country, and we regard that always as a cherished inheritance, not to be forgotten."
For a man so careful and, in the best sense of the words, so reserved as President Harding to use the phrase Mother Country in such a context is extraordinarily significant. It is not a mere piece of rhetoric. It means something- s great deal to those who understand.
Only a week ago came another message from the President of very special importance not only because it was the President who was speaking, but because the message was sent to a gathering of unusual interest. The occasion was the second annual dinner of the Reunion of British War Missions to the United States, a body over which Mr. Balfour most appropriately and most happily presided. The Chairman read an excellent message from the King, in which he expressed his regard for " our kinsmen across the sea." This was matched by a message from the President which was read by Mr. J. Butler Wright (American Chargé d'Affaires) " On this occasion of the second reunion dinner of the Associa- tion of British War Missions to the United States, permit me, through you, to express my high appreciation of the association's praiseworthy object to promote good understanding and better acquaintance between the peoples of the United States and Great Britain. Desirous as I am that friendliness and goodwill should always exist between the peoples of the two great English- speaking nations, I am happy to extend my greetings and best wishes to an organization whose avowed purpose it is to contri- bute to this desirable end by seeking, through kindliness and instruction, to remove misconceptions, and to bring the two peoples to a better knowledge of each other."
Mr. Harding does not here employ the strong personal note which is to be found in the other two messages, but his latest message has an excellent tone, and its importance is very much increased by the fact that it was given forth by an American diplomat. American diplomats are always specially cautious in their public utterances. It would seem, however, that even this super-cautiousness is breaking down, for after he had read the President's message Mr. Butler Wright told of a personal experience which will deeply touch many an English heart :-- " Anglo-Saxon opinion, when aroused, had rarely, if over, failed to do the right and proper thing. He had the extraordinary pleasure of being waited upon ten days ago by a number of American students, who asked whether it would be permissible or misconstrued if they joined the ranks of volunteers to keep the home fires burning in this country. As in the existing circumstances there was a large number of volunteers, he thought it better that they should defer the question for a time, and they went away happy in the satisfaction that if they were wanted they would be ready to serve."
This reminds one of that delightful passage in Stevenson's Wrecker describing a row among the art students in a Paris atelier. The fight begins, if we remember rightly, by the Yankee Pinkerton jumping up on a chair and shouting out, " Americans and English to clear the room ! " And they cleared it. We have said enough to show that the President at any rate does not belong to the " Inevitable Animosity. Club " or "The United Anglo-Saxon Gummidge Association." Though we must defer to another occasion the discussion of the points of official friction, we must say something as to the _stimulation by the Press of the Gummidge " stunt." In this country the impression prevails that the American Press is almost universally hostile to Britain. The only exceptions supposed to exist are a few of the great dailies on the Eastern Coast. Since English people seldom read American newspapers and not many Americans read English papers, there is a splendid field for misunderstanding. Here the Gummidges love to shake their heads and talk about the Hearst news- papers and the American journalists who loathe this country and never miss an opportunity to defame her. We quoted not long ago some remarkable anti-Sinn Fein and pro-British articles from the San Francisco Argonaut- s paper which can hardly be called Eastern since it is published on the shores of the Pacific. That distinguished weekly must, however, we are told, be " written off " as a pure exception, or a freak. What ingenious story, we wonder, will our Gummidges discover in order to explain the Detroit Saturday Night- s paper, though no doubt of local importance, obviously published for the city of Detroit and without a thought of outside readers ? The issue of February 19th has an admirably written editorial article entitled " Sinn Fein Propaganda in America," illuminated by a cartoon which represents Uncle Sam looking at a stage Irishman whose hat is adorned with the legend " Sinn Fein." Beneath are the words " Uncle Sam—' Well, how many countries do you claim, anyhow ? ' " We wish we had space to quote the whole article, so admirable is it in its good sense and reticence, but unfortunately we can only give the last paragraph. Here it is :- "Nothing less than the dismemberment of the British Empire is the ambition of Sinn Fein to-day. Within a week it has been announced in a Detroit church by a gentleman newly come from Ireland that the British colonies were preparing to secede ; but the gentleman didn't know that a co-worker of his had been mobbed a few days before in New Brunswick, nor had the gentleman yet learned that South Africa was returning to power with an increased majority the party of General Smuts who stood against secession. Nothing can prevent the fomentation of this anti-British sentiment except the second thought of those Irish sympathizers who are engaged in it. It means the retardation of world peace and security, even it if fails, and if it succeeds it means war with England. It means at all times in our own land the demeaning of religion by endless disputation, abominable religious animosities or politics, and bitterness between neighbour and neighbour. There are plenty of sensible and broadminded Irish-Americans to stop it if they will. The Jeremiah O'Learys are few and far between—quite as few as those of whom Roosevelt said, their hatred for England makes them traitors to the United States.' We not only want peace abroad ; wo want peace also at home."
We most firmly believe that if they could be asked whether they approved or disapproved of this paragraph, ninetyper cent. of Americans would say they approved. No doubt both halves of the English-speaking kin show a curious aptitude for acquiescing in minority rule, but we cannot believe that here the nine men will let themselves be coerced by the one, or that we shall be blind enough to commit some folly which will enable the Gummidges to say, " We told you so ! Now you realize the unfortunate but deadly animosity which," &c., &c.
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