The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1928. THE PRESIDENCY AND AFTER

Hokitika Guardian, 14 November 1928, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1928. THE PRESIDENCY AND AFTER

Mu Hoovkr lias won the Presidential seat by a huge “plurality,” and he sees to have carried Congress as well. His success lias been due less to his own positive merits than to the weak points in his opponent’s armour. The Republicans have a splendid organisation, a huge fighting fund, a very able though unimpressive figurehead, and they have the support of the majority of the very large number of people in the United States who object on principle to Liquor, to lammam, and to the Roman Catholic Church. Anybody who imagines that Prohibition is the sole or even the chief public question on which this campaign has !>eon fought, says an exchange, must be very inadequately acquainted with American social and political conditions In particular, the sectarian issue has been raised in a highly acute form, and the Democrats, in their efforts to combat the influence of the Ivu Tv lux Klan. and the appeals made by leading

Republicans to Churches to use their inline lice against A 1 Smith,, have been compelled to emphasise very strongly the religious aspect of the conflict. But there is another phase of the struggle which the Americans appear to realise more clearly than outsiders. Al. Emith stands for New York—the enormous cosmopolitan city which now dominates the United States. 'The influence of New York represents the influx and the ascendancy of the foreign elements which have invaded the country and have introduced strange and alien factors into its civilisation, and in this sense the Republicans are conservatives. making a stand against a new foreign “culture” that seems likely to overwhelm them and their tradiions. For the moment the Democratic Party seems doomed to fade out of existence. But whatever he its fate, the “hundred per cent” American for the time being holds the stage. Most people will agree that Britain and the United State's are on tolerably good terms at present, and that the two nations are not at all likely to fight one another. At .the same time the attitude of the American people, as a whole, and the American Government toward Britain has been for some time past quite needlessly irritating and unfriendly. The tone taken by ilie Americans in discussing the AngloFrench naval compromise was anything but amicable, and three weeks back Washington asked the British Government in a very peremptory and impatient fashion what, was the reason for delaying the final settlement of the new arbitration treaty. There are signs that British public opinion is becoming rather sensitive to the constant “pin-pricking” to which the Old Land has been subjected lately by the Americans. A short time ago Mr Samuel, a Conservative M.P. publicly charged the Americans with a number of serious breaches of the friendly relations that were supposed to he established between the two countries during the war. He reminded his hearers that America, after imposing the League of Nations upon Europe as a condition of peace, had repudiated it; that after inducing Britain to drop the Anglo-Jnpane.se alliance the Americans refused to co-oik* rate with Britain in China., and used their freedom of action to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese to. the detriment of the other Powers; that America, while denouncing the Anglo-French compromise and refusing to admit Britain's claim for ships to defend her vast Empire, has now, in spite of her desire for “the outlawry of war.” publicly announced her intention of building the strongest fleet jn the world. Tll much the same tone Lord Melchett, speaking in New York a little later, bluntly told the Unerica ns that Britain is quite competent to manage, her European affairs without assistance, and expressed in pungent terms his regret that whenever the European nations try to settle their differences they are greeted with suspicion and hostility from across the Atlantic, It seems this rather acrid

criticism of the Americans is well deserved and if Anglo-American friendship does not prove permanent, Britain will be less to blame than the United States, However, .Mr Hoover will probably reveal himself as a friend of Britain. It would take very little to bring about a real friendship. Mr Hoover certainly knows Great Britain from the inside, and due to that knowledge lie should he able to- shape a wise policy course which would have a farreaching effect on the international relations, and change the whole atmosphere of the world outlook on the future and the great possibilities by reason of a re-approachment between the two nations.