AMERICA AND BRITAIN.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9081, 22 February 1908, Page 5

AMERICA AND BRITAIN.

SPEECH BY UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR. Press Association. —Copyright. Received February 31 ,-9.46 p.m. New York, February 31. The Pilgrims Club bauqnetted . Mr Whitelaw Reid, the American Ambassador to England, at New York, on the eve of liis returning to Loudon. Mr Reid ridiculed the sensational Press nonsense about Britain’s obligations to sustain Japan in a war against the United States. Firstly, he said there was not the ghost of a probability of any war with Japan, and secondly the Auglo-Japauese treaty simply provided that in the event of any aggression on Japan’s recognised territorial rights in the East Britain would sustain her. Only a lunatic could believe that the United States would cross the Pacific to try to rob one of her oldest and truest friends. Mr Reid referred to the stately procession of warships peacefully bearing the American flag around the Western Hemisphere, recalling to America its commanding position not merely in the Atlantic, but in the Pacific Ocean, which is to carry the commerce of the twentieth century.