A DIFFICULT POST

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 29, 29 October 1919, Page 3

A DIFFICULT POST

BRITISH EMBASSY AT WASHINGTON

SOME INTERESTING SIDELIGHTS •

Washington is an extraordinarily difficult post bo fill. It is (writes Mr. Ignatius Phayre in the London "Observer") tlie political hub of a continent as large as Europe, the Executive and Legislative seat of a hundred and ten millions of "a composite and cosmopolitan people" —to hbo the phrase of President Wilson himself when lie was rousing those peoplo for Humanity's War. . The city iS one great sea of verdure, out of which palaces rise like marblo rocks and irf.ands. Washington's season is a brief one. It begins, in a quiet way, just before .Christmas, when the "cave-dwellers," or privileged families, .return to tlio Federal capital from (ill parts. But, officially, it is the New Year receptions at tho White House which mark tho opening of the Congressional and Diplomatic torn. Washington society is essentially aristocratic; curiously sensitive and critical, fastidious, wholly delightful, and quite un-Repubiican. The days have lons gone by when Farmer Rube, or the "small" man from Osbkosli, could stroll into the Executive Mansion to,!?alute Mr. President. The historic abode is no longer "the pee- ■ pill's." Gladstone and Robert Smillie mo not. farther apart in psyche and temperament than are Woodiow Wilson and his predecessor in office, "Old Hickory" Jackson. . That President's Inauguration Day sawhilarious mobs suvgins through the East Room of the White House and treading the big cheeses of the free lunch into a greasy pulp on tho carpets. It"* was M'Kin'.ey who began the process of restoring dignity to "the Palace"—as the First President loved to call tho Executive Mansion, Tho'Roosevelts placed its social function on a new plane—though even in their day uninvited guests "butted in," owing to unwarranted manoeuvring with tho invitation-cards. President Roosevelt himself told me he had one night been pbliged to raid his wife's: larder for supper because 700 peoplo sat down where less than 300 had been bidden to the feast. During the Wilson regime the White House became absolutely "invasion" proof. Inside and out it is guarded to-day by Secret Service men and official '"buffers" of all grades, from -Secretary Tumulty ("Governor" Wilson's old New Jersey friend) to Patrick M'Kenna, tho Presidential usher and doorkeeper. . America's 200 diplomatists abroad and her 1200 Consuls are nominally controlled by the State Department, but in reality by the President, who is his own Foreign Minister. And this Department has emphatically been a "secret" Bureau, from Robert Livingstone's day, in 1781, to that of Robert Lansing in 1913. Every Thursday the State Secretary receives the foreign diplomats, of whom the present doyen is M. Jusserand, the French Ambassador. •Of laie there have ljfen many changes In the Washington Corps Diplomatique, from Japan and Mexico to the newlyborn States' of Central and Eastern Europe. All the nations now wish to be represented .'hero by their ablest men; for America emerges from the war with great naval and military might, together with new status as the economic storehouse of the world. It is important' that Great Britain should bo adequately re,presented in Washington by an ideal envoy of the post-war school, a man of quick sympathy and radiant force, a born "mixer," of supnlo mind and the tough physique of a Texan mule. ' (Since thi* article appeared. Viscount Grey of Falloden, British Foreign Minister before and during part of tho war period, has been appointed to Washington.) _ For life in Washington is extraordinarily trying. Garden city though it b'e, the climateonce Easter is 'passed—puts a great strain upon a European j it is moist, hot, and enervating.

' Lingering Anglophobia. It would be absurd to nretend that Anglophobia is dead in Congressional halls and plsnvherfc. The traditions of n century do not so readily die. and our differences with America since 1812 have been many and serious. Britain's Ambassador in Washington is uniquely regarded and a peculiar light beats upon him. 11l 1800 Minister _ Jackson was given, his conge for issuing indiscreet circulars to his Consuls. In 1855 Crampton was dismissed for enliwting soldiers for the Crimean War. And in ISB3 Sackville-West had to leave "Washington because he advised Americans of- British birth to vote for Grover Cleveland's Presidency. These incidents may bo contrasted with the outrageous "dynamite diplomacy" of •Toluinn von Bernstorff in 1915-16, aided bv Dr, Dumba, von Pnpen, Heinrich Albert. and tho rest. Yet ever since Sir Julian I'auucefote's tenure Britain's has been "the Embassy" in Washington, and is thus commonly referred to by nil. It is a huge - red-brick palacc in Connecticut Avenue —"tho one' that stands back in a yard," as obliging-negroes will toll the visitor. The drawing-rooms, overlooking the avenue, are stately. The dining-room is panelled with old English oak, and the ballroom is much the largest and handsomest in Washington. • On tho same floor is the Ambassador's 6tvidv. From 'this open tlm regular offices of the Embassy; these have'a separate entrance' down below at the side. Though not an old house, tho British Embassy has seen more thaii half a century of Washington life, and has turned out a very fine investment in real estate for the home Government. Sir Edward Thornton, who built this solid nile, was shrewd enough to go into the country" for a likely site, lie built the house in a barren waste of unpaved streets. To-day Connecticut Avenue is Washington's Piccadilly, with the Austrian Embassy opposite, ' Germany and Italy close by, nnd the White House only ten minutes from the big portico of "the Embassy," where the shy and scholarly Spring-Bice had so trying a time from 1911 onwards. The salary which tho Government pays the holder of this great post is absurdly inadequate. It figures on the_ current Estimates at J32500 a year, nnu out of this the Ambassador must now pay income and supertaxes amounting to .£1162 10s. In the most favourable circumstances tho British representative will only draw a net salary of JJICOD 12s. lid., besides a non-taxable sum of JE7500 aa "frais »'# representation." Upon this pay iie must maintain a huge palace and great estate, and that in the most lavish city in the world, whore the Presidential household needs clever contriving to make both ends meet on .i 20,000 a year. .