SIR A. GEDDES AND U.S. FRIENDSHIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 June 1920, Page 10

SIR A. GEDDES AND U.S. FRIENDSHIP.

OUR PARALLEL ROADS. CRITICS WITHOUT VITAL KNOWLEDGE. London, April 20. Sir Auckland Gcddes, the new British Ambassador, who will shortly leave to take up his duties at Washington, speaking in London at a dinner given to him by The Pilgrims, said: The essential condition of the working of the magic of peace so necessary to save civilisation is that the two great English-speaking communities—the British community of Nations, the American community of Federated States, should sail forward in mutual respect and understanding—in naval Blang, as chummy ships—to the uncharted seas of the future.

It does not help either respect or understanding to cry "peace, peace," where there is no peace, or love and trust if love be cold and trust worn thin. I hope and believe that this is not the case with any considerable section in either of (he great English-speaking communities, but it would be folly—criminal madness—not to recognise that there are pamphlets printed and daily and weekly papers published, circulated, read, and doubtless believed, by some, on both sides of the Atlantic which dissemble the love and conceal the trust so thoroughly that one is forced to believe that there is neither love to dissemble nor trust to conceal in the minds of the writers, or, at least, in those of the men who pay the piper and by immemorial right call the tune. All articles, all speeches of that sort deliberately partial or careless of securing impartiality, or worse, designed to encourage Anglophobia or Americanophobia are evil, always have been evil, but never more evil than now.

HABIT OP CRITICISING. It is so fatally easy to criticise, particularly at a time like this, when human thought is boiling and breaking down the rapids. Within the confines of any country any critic on the bank, in the spirit of the urchin of the streets, can shout directions to the man who labors at the helm of the ship of State. "Yah! Why don't you keep straight? Bah! Why don't you do what you said you were trying to do? Rotter! Incompetent!"

To all of which the laboring steersman can only reply: "I do what I can, not what I would" In this mill-race of thought my first care is to save the ship. The habit ,of criticising other ' nations, without the slightest regard for their difficulties and fears, is not con-

fined to England and the United States, but it has dangers all its own when hurled from England to the United States or vice versa. The papers in the two countries who say these things, and the pamphleteers who write such things use a language which in words is similar on either shore of the Atlantic but in word values is wholly different, and in methods of abuse is as the poles asunder. The result is that criticism of Britain by Americans has at once the intimacy almost of domestic criticism, and yet stands alone as international comment, because the criticism of our doings by other nations passes unread by the majority, who do not understand the language of their critic. I have no doubt that with the parts rcveifeed the same is true.

NATION'S STRAIGHT FURROWS. The United States is a great nation, in truth an Empire, which has founded 4S States, each of which, if it had.-.been in Europe, would have been a separate Power, has bound these States together in a Federation, has beaten back murder and pillage, has destroyed slavery at a bitter price, in blood and tears. And the British Empire? In spite of blunders, in spite of difficulties, sometimes faltering, the Anglo-Scottish-Wclsh partners of Britain, with, in the main, the closest co-operation of Ireland, have held high the torch of civilisation.

Is there not a parallelism here which qualifies the United States and British people to understand and to respect each other? Is not, after all, the main difference between them the result of the historical accident that one has had to think mainly in terras of continuous land, the other of continuous sea? Both peoples have driven the furrows straight and true and most astonifhingly parallel in their efforts to cultivate civilisation. 1 have the most profound admiration and affection for both. I pray that it may be my lot, if any distemper should : arise between thera, to return to my original profession of physician and act as healer. That, at all events, is my ambition. THE TRUE TEST. Sir Auckland Geddes, replying at the American Luncheon Club, in London, to the toast of his health, proposed by Mr. J. W. Davies, the American Ambassador,said: "Nations cannot be judged by a few chance specimens of their citizens. Judge Britain by her actions as a nation during the war, during if you will one month of the war (April, 1918), and I think mi Briton or friend of Britain need be ashamed of his citizenship or his friendship. "Judge America by her action when she came into the war, her wholehearted and instantaneous adoption of Compulsory military service, and—even more striking—the voluntary rationing of the use' of food and fuel in millions of households, and I think no American or friend of America need be other than proud of his citizenship or his friendship."