Page 9 Advertisements Column 4

Taranaki Daily News, 19 March 1921, Page 9

In an address before the members of the Overseas Club in London Major lan Hay Beith (“lan Hay”) said that, rightly or wrongly, the English were looked upon by other nations as the strangest, queerest, and most incomprehensible people on the face of the, earth. The languid interest which we as a nation took in our neighbours was negligible compared with the speechless amusement with which they sometimes regarded us. How did the French regard the British? During the war we struck the French pretty favourably, but just now the French were not quite pleased with |is. It was not altogether surprising. it hvas the easiest thing in the world to shake hands with an opponent, but to remain persistent friends with an ally for an indefinite period was a feat as yet unrecorded. America was traditionally anti-British, but conscientiously pro-British. There were three barriers to understanding :Garbled history, the Atlantic Ocean, and the possession of a common language ; for it was easier to start trouble with somebody whose language you knew than with somebody whoce language you did not know. The two great sections of the English-speaking world were a complete mystery to one another. An Englishman’s real ambition in life was to get a railway compartment to himself, while the Americans were gregarious, and liked to meet freely. The American found the Englishman always indulging in an atmosphere of mild depreciation of himself, his affairs, and his relatives. But with fundamental things America were nne mdivisibV