AMERICA AND THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1652, 19 December 1916, Page 4

AMERICA AND THE WAR.

An interesting article on Ihc attitude of the Middle W est of the United States to the European war appears in a recent, number of the Outlook. The situation is described as follows; —Ml may fairly he said that the Middle West has never found 1 lie war so vital a mailer as it has been to the Eastern States, The Middle West is not in such close touch with Europe or European affairs. To the farmer of the prairie European problems seem remote. He still maintains much of the traditional isolation of the nation. The interdependence of nations is more or less of an empty phase to him. In this sort of an atmosphere the peace plans of Mr Bryon and Mr Eord have been peculiarly effective. They have appealel to Middle Western idealism, and have had the enormous additional advantage of not cut liny’ across Middle Western economic' prosperity. Thus it comes to appear both idealistic and materially profitable to keep out of any risk of war. ‘War,' runs the argument, ‘is a horrible thing, and as needless as it is horrible. Thank (tod, we are not as these mad Europeans, in whose cpiarrel we have no part!’ It is this frame of mind that has given especial force in the Middle West; to (he campaign argument that President Wilson has ‘kept the country out of war,' and that always has tended to lake the edge off the acuteness of feeling on issues arising from submarine warfare,”