It is sincerely to be hoped that in the domestic
quarrel between 31r. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt the English Press and English opinion generally will remember to be circumspect and discreet, and to avoid concluding that everything they read about the deadly animosity between the rival Republican leaders is true. Again, they must not assume that because Mr. Taft appears as the special advocate of peace and arbitra- tion, while Mr. Roosevelt shows himself a fervent, not to say fiery, destroyer of pacificist illusions, that therefore Mr. Taft is "the only friend" of international goodwill and Mr. Roosevelt its sworn enemy. Mr. Roosevelt is in no true sense a Jingo, though he is clearly most anxious to prevent his countrymen from getting into the very undignified posi- tion of using grandiloquent language about international arbitration in general while refusing to arbitrate in specific eases or wherever they think that arbitration would be con- trary to their special interests. For example, the language Mr. Taft is said to have used of late in regard to the treat- ment of ships using the Panama Canal hardly seems con- sistent with the absolute fidelity to the spirit of treaty obligations which is essential to a regime of universal arbitra- tion.
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