©ail# |lemo» TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1915. AMERICA'S DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 266, 20 April 1915, Page 4

©ail# |lemo» TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1915. AMERICA'S DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO ENGLAND.

Tlie present attitude of America towards tlie great war is disappointing, but not altogether inexplicable. By America we mean the Government at Washington. We believe the bulk of American people sympathise heartily with us in the causG for which we have been compelled to draw the sword. Many of the leading American newspapers have expressed that sympathy freely and fearlessly. And there <s every reason to think that the nation as a whole wishes us success, because it knows that we are lighting for freedom and against despotism. But the popular sympathy hag not yet received the official imprimatur. President Wilson has not yet said a word to show that the White House is "en rapport" with the stand which Britain has taken. And for this silence there is an obvious reason. It is a case in which the moral ronvictions of America clash with her financial interest. She must approve of our standing up for the saeredness of the treaty with Belgium, but she dare not express her approval for fear of losing the custom of German, which is such an important item in her national revenue. We think, therefore, that it is only fair, to remind her that she is confronted toilav by a dilemma precisely similar to that which wo had to face fifty years ago. On the outbreak of the great Civil War the moral sympathy of Great Britain was wholly witli the North, but her financial interests were largely bound up with tho cause of the South, Consequently London, Manchester. Liverpool and other leading cities of England advocated the cause of the -South. Rut eventually Britain woke up to realise that her moral sympathies must take precedence of her financial interests. She began to see that while the loss of the cotton from the South would be a misfortune, sympathy with the 'States that were fighting for the upholding of Blavery would he a crime. And she resolved to bear the misfortune rather than to commit the crime. When she paw that, the victory of the North"meant i I negro emancipation, while that of the [South meant the perpetuation of slav- j prv, it became impossible for her to con- j ceal the side on which her sympathies lay. The indignation at her nonchalance 1

expressed in the stinging linek of Lowell's satire on Jonathan and John: Ef 1 turned mad dogs loose, John, ■Upon your front parlor stairs, Would it just meet your views, John, To wait,and sue their heirs? ' "Old Uncle G," ses he, "I guess, I only guess," sez he, "That ef Vattcl on his toes fell 'T would kind o' rile J. 8., ¥.7. wal ez you and me"

This woke her up. Queen Victoria, r'.e Prince Consort and John Bright all boldly expressed their sympathy with the North. The blood of Britain was fired. Though she took no part in the war she cheered the Federals on to victory. The position is now reversed. The mad dogs are turned loose on our front parlor stairs. We are fighting for the same ideal for which Abraham Lincoln and the North fought sixty years ago. There is the same conflict between interest and duty in America now as there was in Great Britain then". We have every right to expect America to act now as Britain acted then by putting her moral sympathies before her financial interests. We do not look to her for any material support. But we look to her for what we value far more—her outspoken protest against the despotic ambition and national treachery we are fighting, her sympathy with the agony through which we are passing for a cause Which is as sacred to her as it is to us. The maintenance of her callous indifferenco now would be as much a crime as the keeping up of Britain's silence would have been in the 'sixties. If the question be asked, "Would not the declaration of America's sympathy with the Allies in this great struggle be a v!o?a> tion of strict neutralty?" our answer is .a very simple one. If strict neutrality means that the American Government and the American people are not Ito be allowed to express their opinion on a great moral issue, not to be allowed to say what they feel about the violation of Belgian neutrality, about the invasion and devastation of 'that unhappy country, about the giving up of towns like Louvain to military execution, about the unnameable outrages perpetrated by the Germans on defenceless victims, th:n all we 'have to say is that sffch neutrality would be a degradation of her dignity and an ineffacablc stain upon her national honor. America is the greatest free nation in the world. For her to say it is no business of ours whether the freedom of Belgium and France is regained or lost for ever would be for her to forfeit the glory she lias won by her sacrifices f or the flag of freedom. We are not so,presumptious as to entertain the hope that the Press of this Dominion can directly influence the public opinion of the United States; but we do dare cherish the hope that the practically unanimous voice of the whole Press of the British Empire may bring home''to America the appeal to which she cannot listen unmoved. "Men whose boast it is that re Come of fathers brave and free Tf there lives a man on earth whom ve tfv your efforts can set free, Ye, ve are not free nor brave While there breathes on earth a slave "