TIME SOMEBODY SPOKE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 190, 1 November 1927, Page 8

TIME SOMEBODY SPOKE

THE Americans are such hospitable people in their own country that visitors are particularly careful not to offend them. One hates to cause any suspicion of ingratitude where one has taken the salt of a host. And equal with the hospitality of the American is his “touchiness.” He is really a spoilt child; and it is time that somebody spoke and told him so. Fortunately, the man has arrived with the time. Sir Hugh Denison, Australian Commissioner to the United States, has directly attacked that wild man of Chicago, Mr. Thompson, who, as Mayor of one of the greatest of American cities, has been misusing his high office to blackguard all things British. It was a mild attack, but quite sufficient to stir the tender susceptibilities of the Americans. “It seems a pity,” said Sir Hugh, “that in times of peace and goodwill, a man in Chicago should be stirring up racial antagonism, which tends to destroy the good feeling that for ten years has been growing up between us.” Keenly intellectual, “touchy” to an extreme, almost hysterically sensitive to that foreign opinion which has for too long spared them criticism, the American people will seize upon this public utterance of Sir Hugh Denison with an avidity that will cause the whole country to grind its teeth and ask itself seriously how it stands in the estimation of other nations. There will also be rubbed into American hypersensitiveness Sir Hugh Denison’s reference to Senator Borah—that blatantly bitter gentleman who is afraid to educate himself. Sir Hugh expressed his astonishment that the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate should be a man who, admittedly, had never visited any other country—and who persistently refused to go abroad because of his fear that travel would alter his American point of view. A magnificent mass of brain, surely, to direct the relationship of the great United States with other nations! While there are Thompsons and Borahs unfortunately influencing public opinion in America by a publicity which is only gained by its sensationalism and is utterly divorced from reason and far-sightedness, there is little hope of America understanding or being understood. The courageous utterance of Sir Hugh Denison may prove to be one for which the whole world—including America—will ultimately find itself grateful.