The Sun FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1928 NO REASON FOR HATE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 281, 17 February 1928, Page 8

The Sun FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1928 NO REASON FOR HATE

THERE is really no need for excitement over the naval expansion policy of the United States and the assertion by a professor of history to the Naval Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that, because of it, hatred for the people of Great Britain is flaring up in America. ~ If it never be allowed to become violent, a little hate on both sides of the Atlantic will not do any harm. It will tend to keep national conceit on each side within the limits of moderation. In any case, such hatred as may exist, will not affect the exchange of cocktails and cinema thrills for quiet works of art and literary lectures. It is to be regretted, of course, that anti-British feeling should not be confined exclusively to the odd American type as represented by Big Bill Thompson, whose notoriety in Chicago has become a blatant joke; and for the reason that the type is also to be found among politicians and fighting men in the United States an' American warning to America about the foolishness of provocative talk is to bb welcomed with keen appreciation. Responsible administrators in Great Britain have made it clear that there is no hatred of America for its ambition to rank as a mighty naval Power; also that there is no intention, even in that event, to follow in a mad race for increased naval armaments. And such is the honest mood of the whole British nation. But there is a distinctive difference between hatred and resentment, and unquestionably the vaulting policy of the United States in respect of the construction of fighting craft to an American billion-dollar limit lias been resented, and resented very keenly throughout the British Empire. It is certainly difficult to understand the cast of political thought which in one form urges disarmament and something like the outlawry of war, while, in another, it finds exercise in preparing for the construction of an additional twenty-five cruisers, nine destroyers, thirtytwo submarines, and five aircraft carriers. 'This dual policy of a peaceable nation is so contradictory as to be ridiculous. It has been asserted, both in the States and in Britain, that war between the two nations is unthinkable. Such conflict is unthinkable because the people in both countries wish it to be unthinkable, but the experience of history has been that war cannot be averted merely by wishing for enduring peace. As has been well said time and again explosives are made that they may be exploded, guns are created to shoot, submarines are made to sink ships, cruisers are armed for the purpose of sinking each other, and bombing aircraft and poison gas are designed for the ghastly destruction of human beings. If nations have too many of these murderous devices, it is certain that, in the end, some idiot will set them all to their deadly work. But the main reason for regret, and also for justifiable resentment, is the staring fact that America stands with Soviet Russia outside the wide circle covered by the League of Nations. America pleads for and preaches world peace, but refuses to throw its moral and material weight into the League that it designed for the sake of world peace. The danger lies not so much in the risk of nations hating America as in their laughing at it for its nebulous and incongruous foreign policy.