AMERICA’S PRESIDENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1921, Page 7

AMERICA’S PRESIDENT.

HOW BRITAIN IS AFFECTED. CAUSE FOR CONTENT. In Great Britain the election of Senator Harding need cause only content, says the New York correspondent of the Morning Post. Even those Englishmen Who pin their faith to the League of Nations have no reason', it seems to me, to regret the result of the “solemn referendum.” This may appear paradoxical at first glance, but possibly if they look back to the winter of 1918 and contemplate what may be called the excessive manifestations of “the Wilson spirit” of that time, the paradox may become intelligible. After the black week in March, 1918, there was no staying the loyal insistence of the American people. Under this stimulus there came “the war to end war,” a promise utterly beyond human power to fulfil; also the war “to make the world safe for democracy,” with no qualifications regarding the quality of the demos, in spite of the appalling ob-ject-lesson in Russia. There may have been a question whether such a “crusade” atmosphere was necessary to fire America;! enthusiasm, but there could have been no possible question of the certainty of a swift reaction.

Assuredly the falsity of the excessive altruism of the winter of 1918 has been strongly revealed by the severity to recall the days of Mr. Balfour’s mission to America, when it was as much as a man’s good health here was worth to speak ill of the Allies. How few were the months before Italy was flouted, France scolded, and Japan anathematised; before avowed enemies of the British . Empire were honored with long hearings in legislative Chambers in America’s Capitol! Britons, it seems to me, may be profoundly thankful to the American people for their wonderful aid in the past years, thankful to Mr. Wilson for his helpful efforts, and to the many thousands of voters for Cox, who intended their votes to mean gpod faith, solidity with their recent Allies, and the Peace of Versailles; but most thankful of all ' for the “new deal all round,” an exi pression often heayd here lately, and i now realised by the ballot-box.

It has been proclaimed by his opponents that Mr Harding was a “weak” candidate. Perhaps so, but my observation of a quarter of a century of American politics is that a candidate for the Presidency who can coolly declare from the platform that he does not know what he is going to do about the League of Nations until he has consulted his colleagues after his election is ill-described by the word “weak.” Further, that a Presidential candidate who can publicly assert that Ireland is not a matter for the consideration of the American Government will not, after election, be an easy man to stampede for any cause whatever.

For 60 years Great Britain has always got along well with the Republican Party, which is essentially the party of business and sane conservation. This also in spite of high tariff, for be it reentered that British trade has never flourished more than in many of the years of American high tariffs. As for obvious rivalry and competition, they are to be expected, if indeed, not welcomed as peace-makers in the world race, so long as the level truth is realised that it is not at all necessary, even if desirable, that any one nation should dominate the e whole earth, and that realisation is now more likely to be “in the air.”