AMERICA AND THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 221, 27 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMERICA AND THE WAR.

A BRITISH MERCHANT'S VIEWS. SUPPLEMENTED BY OFFICIAL TESTIMONY. In a letter which we received this week from Mr J. Edwin Wall, of Messrs J. Edwin Wall and Son, of London and Birmingham, the writer touches at length on the much-discussed question a s to America's attitude in relation to the war. He says:— . There has been considerable criticism upon the attitude adopted by the American Government towards the war, and we have heard even strong criticisms upon American public opinion and sentiments. Wc have ourselves, when considering these criticisms, realised that the position of the United States Government has been a difficult and delicate one all along. It has been our opinion also that the United States have been able to render to the Allies greater service by maintaining a strict neutralty than by showing officially any partiality. Notwithstanding the noise and some commotion occasioned by the German element in America, we have always been convinced that the mass of American sympathy lay with the Allies, and certainly that the greatest and best people in America have appreciated fully and intensely what the Allies are fighting for; and have realised that America would be seriously affected in the future if the Allies do not fully accomplish their object. It is to be remembered, too. that there aio thousands of American volunteers fighting with the French and with the British forces.

Mr Thomas M. Beck, a former assistant Attorney-General in the United States, and one of the foremost of American speakers in the cause of the Allies, was recently entertained by The Pilgrims, in London. Lord Bryce presided at the function, and both these eminent men delivered very interesting and important speeches. The remarks of Lord Bryce are particularly interesting, because of his eminent position as a diplomat and a politician, and further as indicating the spirit of the intellectuals amongst the most ardent and .sincere pacificists. Lord Bryce said:

'•They "little knew in July, 1914, what they were going to owe to Mr. Beck and hk countrymen for their sympathy. Mr Beck, unsolicited by anyone on the part of the Allies, moved only by his own conscience and enthusiasm for what he believed to be right and justice, shortly after the beginning of tlie war set himself to study its cause* and he produced a look on the subject, which for clearness of statement and cogency of argument had not been surpassed. Mr Beck had also in Canada made speeches which had aroused further enthusiasm, if that were possible, tor the common cause. Mr. Beck, when he returned home, would wish to tell his countrymen what we in Britain felt about the war, and why we were resolved to prosecute it with the utmos tenergy. "We are told that there is a section of opinion in the United States, a small section as 1 brieve, which desires to see peace concluded forthwith on almost any terms. An address lately reached me signed by some Americans recommending this course. It said the war must end m a draw; why not make peace at once and save further bloodshed? I noticed that a large proportion of those who signed it came from Germany or had German names, and this fact'is significant. You may like to let me tell Mr Beck why neither we nor our Allies can follow that advice. 1 may say for all of us here that we are lovers of peace. 1 yield to no one in my love of peace, for which I have worked earnestly for 30 yearn in and out of Parliament, and we all of us feel the terror, the horror and suffering of this war as much as any pacifists in America can feel it. But we cannot agree to any such peace as suggested by the*.- gentlemen or by the German Government. There is no us.-> crying Peace, when there cannot be anv peace at present. •'ln the first place, we do not think the war will end in a draw. The Allies are go:ng to win. We believe it because the Allies will prove to be stronger on land than the Germans, and because we hold the unshaken and unshakeahle control of the sea. Secondly, peace cannot be made now because the German Government is not yet prepared for it on any terms we could accept. The German Government may know it is going to be beaten; but the German people do not yet know it. They are Ignorant of the true facts, and their Government, which has fed them with fa!sehoo;U and held up prospects of territorial gains, fears to accept terms which would roccogni-e its own failure. Thirdly, a peace made now on such terms as the German Government would accept, would be no permanent peace, but a mere truce. It would mean for Europe constant disquiet, fre>h alarms of war, more preprations for war, and further compctiton in prodigious aunents. Lastly, there can lie no peace now because we are fighting for great principles—principles vital to the future of mankind —principles which the German Government has out raged and which must at all costs be vindicated. •'Britain did nut enter this war to win anything for herself. What she wants now i- security lor herself and her Oversea Dominions, together with deliverance and compensation for Belgium for what she has suffered, delivi ranee for Northern France, and sue': changes in the East a, will make it ini-pis-iMo for the Turk'sh allies of Gornt.tny ever again to massacre their Christian subjects or become the vassals and took of G. rmany in her projected eastward advance. We n,v.<z •in en. This i- a conflict for the prin- < ;p'< s ■•! right, which were violated when inneceiit non-combatant*, were •hinsihteifd in Helmum and drowned .n the I.i.sitania. Tl>- Allies are bound •ml eve iv-ohed to pn.-eouto the war until vi'-torv ha* boon won for those principle* and for a pea. c established on the sure foundation- of ii>t\o and freedom." Mr 80. k-aid ,1m: "he"ould net d scuss f e political pol';-ie» iii til ■ party in pnwe! in the S:at •-. but iht thing of v.til imp irlani e f-u- the great future thai is to ci nn wa« the spirit of t!v peijile. This v.omM tell in the long run. nuue than any temper.!iv pnli-.v of any .-;] rty. and in r<-,p <■! of this lie Lad I'iiU gratin ng new- t.i briinr to h : s a ml'cm- . In i 1 i- j.:>l America lad viewed with varied feelings nnd v; ih e lack of <-i:-:irly preponderating view-, the great wars of Europe. Today Tiie fsvirwhi lining sentiment and

'! , i':;iiii-ii! "t tin l American people :hv,vs exclude one element of the pipulation which hy reason of the ties ■ f l.lood to «ini ■ extent ran counter to ili'' HPi'wrnl opinion- was heart and n-u! fur th> Alii. -. This verdict was :i cnieniunplnee of theii political history, luit lliere ucii' certain features ol '.he v, rdii t which li >d not -tiffieientlv iiepre-s.'d the British.

In tlie first place it was a di?p:i«fdonat-. verdict, little afreeted hy racial k n hin. Tlie American pe'eple, if they had thought England rn the wrung, would not have he ituted los :v so. hi the econd p'ace i| was not an aoa-d-inie verd'et. hut one leached after lit- ureat-st intellectual controversy this <-<punfrv had known, fSerinnnv Appreciated the value or' American opi-

nion, and did not hesitate to appoint the maladroit Dr Dernburg, aided by millions of money and thousands of people, to influence that opinion in favour of Germany; but finally they had to admit that the judgment of the American people was a settled and matured judgment such as a court of law would pronounce upon all the facts. Lastly, it was a mditant verdict. To an extent which was not appreciated here, American people had been working to alleviate the suffering enured by the war, to stem the flow of Gcukiu propaganda, and in a thousand ways to build up a militant public opinion for the Allies. If this war was a war primarily of ideas, America, to some extent «t least, was in it, and thenpart had not been that of a cool and callous outsider, as was sometimes thought. "It might fairly be asked, it tins was the verdict pronounced by the American people, why had it not found a greater reflex in the action of the Government as a political entity? Ho could net discuss political politics, but there was a reason why from the very nature of the case the United States as a political entity could not take any other vart in this world crisis than the one it did. England and the I lilted States were both conservative nations and loved settled institutions. They clung to the old and dreaded tha new*. Never was a nation so dominated by a persistent tradition to which no party or pubic man until 1914 expressed' dissent, as wis the United Stutos with respect to the tradition of iu political isolation. This traditon went back to the mots of their being. It hud existed for three centuries amongst nine generations of men. Could it "ho reasonably expected that in a month or a year a nation, even in a supreme crisis of humanity, could throw aside a tradition of this character? In every true American soul in the lasc eighteen months there had been a conflict of ideals—one the ideal of political detachment or isolation, and the other the ideal that the interests of eivilisation were above all else, and that there was a conscience of mankind by which al events must infallibly be judged. THE SACIUFICKS OK BRITAIN. "The war (Mr Beck continued) had brought nearer to realisation than ever before in history a sympathetic understanding between Great Britain and the United States. Americans had scon a great Empire rise in this eristf of civilisation, and do the noblest thing the British Empire had doue in all its long and glorious history—namely, stake its whole existence to save Belgium and to come to the relief of Prance. (Cheers.) This had powerfully impressed the American people, as had also the immortal valour of Tommy Atkins. He might shock them if he said that the most beneficent statesman of modern times was undoubtedly the Kaiser, but the Kaiser had consolidated the British Empire, reinvigorated France and reorganised Russia, and had brought the United States and Great Britain nearer to a realisation of that symuathetic understanding upon which an entente cordialo must necessarily rest, than any other individual in the world. "We were entering upon the most portentous half-century the world had ever seen. The world in the next fifty years was going to be a seething cauldron of international hatred. The great Empire of the English-speaking race must stand firm for otherwise there was little hope that i\ civilisation in these dreadful years to come there would be maintenance of any lorm of peace in the only way that peace could be maintained —that was, ly truth and the vindication of justice. "Describing the things which the United States had done, .Mr Beck fa id that in the matter of munitions it was believed that they had in a sordid and mercenary way profited by the worldcrisis. Only a small proportion of '.he American people had profited, however, by the manufacture of munitions and be' wondered whether a thoughthad been given to the other side. America had not only abandoned a delong friendship with the first military Bower in the world l.y in i'»ing munitions but had incurred i!ie untying enmity of Germany by doing the Allies this service. They knew that, as surely as political events could be prognosticated, Germany would even up the grudge against the United States. When shifty politicians tried to put an embargo on the export of munitions, however, public opinion said "No." Was it realised, too. he asked, that American men. women and children had made sacrifices to the extent of ten million pounds to relieve the suffering caused by the war, that four thousand American hoys were fighting under the maple leaf of Canada, and that ten thousand more werc> lighting under the tricolour of France? If we in England did not like this or that thing in America, "he appealed to us to be patient with the American people, who had acted in the most trying and delicate circumstances, and whose loyalty to the Empire of the English-speaking races had been clearly demonstrated."