How Europe Sees America

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 May 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

How Europe Sees America

ETWKIvN the Old World and the

New there is an ocean wider than the Atlantic. The sea of misunderstanding is deeper and more dangerous. If all the evil things Europeans say and think about America were true, and if all the harsh things Americans think and say about Europeans were true, then there would be no escaping the conclusion that the two continents were inhabited by several hundred million people without a sense of justice, lacking in conscience and berett of reason, says a writer in the “New York Times.”

Since that is false, since in Europe and in America there is approximately the same sort of humans—one lot is descended from the other—living about the same lives, having about the same occupations, eating about the same meals, blessed by the same dreams, disturbed by the same means, and both inspired by a coanmon ambition to live in peace, prosperity and a reasonable happiness, may we not prefer the conclusion that Europeans and Americans are making a lot of popular mistakes about each other? There is on each side of the Atlantic a failure to understand the other point of view—a tendency to neglect the foreign case and to leap to conclusions in an unhappy manner. Europe sees in the United States a nation of vast wealth, of unmeasured treasure, and that gained through the misfortunes of those whom we called friends. How many tens of thousands of times in the past few years has Uncle Sam been pictured in Europe as a plethoric gentleman, seated on a pile of ill-gotten gold, gazing in stony indifference at the sufferings of an impoverished Europe? Then there is the Shvlock cry which has gone up. and continues to go up, because the Washington Government has been trying to collect the billions lent to the Allies after we came into the war. Because England has been

'■ making payments to us in execution of a settlement that has proved of great benefit to her economically and financially, let it not be supposed she is satisfied with the business. There

is as much feeling in England about the war debts as among the debtors who have not been paying. It is the European conception—and there is no little sincerity about itthat these loans represented the contribution oi’ the United States to the common cause when she was unable to send many troops, and that these American dollars went the way of the allied soldiers killed between April, 1917, when America entered the war. and a year later, when she got into military action. Their sons went and America’s dollars went—and they are both gone beyond recall. That is the European view. Now, there are reasons for wiping out of these European debts to America—reasons that may or may not prevail—but they are not based on a probable repentance of the United States for the error of trying to get all the world’s gold America has not now got. For the sake of the future it would perhaps be w T ell for Americans to realise that cancellation of the war debts

would not end European criticism of the United States, would not restore complete good feeling. The debt-col-lection effort forms only a part of the Old World’s indictment. For at the bottom of the European feeling toward the -United States is Europe’s refusal to admit that America has arrived. Since the United States has existed, Europe has had a superiority complex toward her. And it hurts!

The international political role of the United States in the past few years Europeans have seen fit to look upon w'ith disgust. Bear in mind that the average European knows no more of domestic American politics than the average American knows about the interior politics of European countries. That is why, when America refused to join the League of Nations she did so much to found, when she refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which she did so much to make when she refused to ratify the tripartite Rhineland agreement, Europe saw only a nationalistic policy to do every one else to America’s own advantage. America made a bargain, she made many bargains, and then she backed out.

Europe Ifor France unquestionably spoke for the Continent) had said that if America really wanted to talk disarmament, Geneva was the place and the League of Nations was the boss. In European eyes America had recently been giving a great exhibition of supreme nationalism, unfettered and unhampered, in her dealings with Latin America. Here America was told that there existed & League of Nations that was dealing with the matter Mr. Coolidge mentioned; and that “call down” to the American President thrilled Europe. America’s attitude in international politics recalls to Europe’s mind the picture of the poker player who, with two aces back to back in a stud poker game, is afraid to shove in his blue chips. We chuck in a few white chips and Europe sticks along hoping to outdraw us, and despising us as pikers the meanwhile. We, of course, do not put our role on the level of a poker game. We are out to save the sou! of the world. But the world does not want to be saved, especially by us.

The biggest question in international politics to-day, is whether Europe is going to pool its chips to have a real freeze-out game with us. Matters are drifting that way. We are doing about all we can to divide the world into two parts—us and the rest. Perhaps we do not realise it; certainly most Americans do not; but that is the way the tide is flowing.