THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1909. ENGLAND, FRANCE AND AMERICA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9548, 21 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1909. ENGLAND, FRANCE AND AMERICA.

1 In view of the present international outlook the declaration of President Taft which appeared in our cables the other morning to the effect that England, France and America are friends can hardly be regarded as having bean made without a purpose. Anyhow its effect, on the European situatoin cannot be otherwise than salutary. Not many years ago a British statesman gloried in England's "splendid isolation," but the lone-hand policy is one which prudence will no longer tolerate on the part of any nation. The understanding between France and England is the natural answer to the threatening combination of Germany and Austria with the attitude of-Italy uncertain. Quite recently a French statesman asserted that France was ready, on the occasion of the Morocco crisis, to try conclusions with her great rival; and, serious as are the reports concerning French naval unpreparedness, competent | critics are satisfied that the army of France would gi«e a far different ac«eunt of itself now than in 1870. l't is admitted tl a . Great Britain is stil! easily capable of crushing Germany on the sea. Even reinforced by her Austrian ally, the issue of a struggle with France and England would be full of uncertainty to Germany, until the place of Russia and Italy is finally settiad. It is almost certain that both these Powers would be drawn into the vortex so that the next European war bids fair to be a European war in absolute fact as well as in name. But no calculations have counted on the possibility of American participation in such a struggle, although such a possibility undoubtedlyjexiats. President Taft's speech at the Champlain cslebrati.ons j in Canada explicitly recognises the j triple friendship of the United States, Great Britain and France, and the deliberate linking of the United States with the two Powers menaced the one on land, and the other on sea, by Germany, reads like a well-intentioned warning to that ambitious Power. It is by no means clear to the United States that the mighty navy which Germany is building does not hold a menace for America. The .Monroe doctrine is an instrument against which Germany has long rebelled, for the very simple reason that it opposes an effective barrier to German adventure in South America; and the United States lias nothing to gain from the substitution of German for British power on the ocean. The quarrels of England and America have long ago ended, and the former has now no ambition, on either American continent, contrary to the interests of the United States. Nothing now stands in the way of a perpetual peace between the two great divisions of the English-speaking people. The presence of the United States President to the Canadian celehrations is

an evidence that the coldness form- | erly existing between the great Dominion and the greater Republic } has passe.l away. Geographical fron- j ti>ars and dividing tariffs are proving more and more feeble to prevent the effectual intermixture of the peoples to whom North America jointly belongs. The great open ] spaces of Canada are being rushed j by the farmers of the United States j in ever increasing numbers; and, in j Canada, citizens of the United States, British Canadians, and French Canadians, are working in harmony j in that "triple friendship" mentioned by President Taft. It seems a natural thing that the three nationalities thus represented should draw closer together. The friendship bei tween France and the United States is ancient and romantic, while, now that old causes of friction have disappeared, the most natural alliance in the world would be that between England and the United States. Failing actual alliance between France, the United Stats, and Great Britain, President Taft's proclamation of a "triple friendship" among those Powers may do much to steady the international position; and in the mysterious ways of diplomacy this j may nave been the President's purpose.