THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD.
By EVELYN WRENCH.
SINCE the return of Mr. Baldwin from New York on Saturday, the question of the repayment of our debt to America has been discussed from every angle. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did well, in his interviews on arrival, to emphasize the fact that New York is not America. The great financial houses in Wall Street and many of the people in the Eastern States may fully appreciate the British point of view, but the last word rests with Congress. It is difficult for the stay-at-home Briton to realize how far off Europe seems to the farmer in the Mississippi Valley and in the Pacific States. An argument which is constantly heard in the Middle-West is that America was the one country that got nothing out of the War, and in this respect its position is contrasted with that of Great Britain. For, when the American looks round the world, he sees vast territories added to the already gigantic British Empire— German South-West Africa, German East Africa, Samoa and New Britain, and the mandated "dependencies" of Irak and Palestine. It is useless for the Briton to object that he may consider these responsibilities a doubtful blessing.
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