The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-13 00:00:00

America as an Ally.

Cornelius O'Dowd is a pleasant, truthful writer, and in
this month's number of Blackwood takes his text from an
article in the Pall Mall Gazette, styled—" America as an
Ally." Corny begins with a frank confession of his own
error.

" I go," he says, " with every word of the Pall Mall
paper, and not entirely without some sins of the kind on
my conscience. I recognise what mischief mere petulant
and snappish remarks on national traits have done to the
good understanding between America and ourselves."
We complain of something beyond snappish and petu-
lant remarks. Our stand is made against national insti-
tutions misrepresented ; national objects, wishes, and
aspirations distorted ; national manners, habits, and
thoughts caricatured. We maintain that the example has
been set, and persistently followed, by England; and we
repeat that this country has lent herself as a most formid-
able ally to the bitterest enemies she ever had, in a large
body working incessantly in the Union in a hostile spirit
against her—the Irish in America. "It sounds like a
paradox, but I believe it to be strictly fact, that the
common language we employ, which should have been,
one might well suppose, the best bond of union between
us, has actually served to widen the breach, and exasperate
the soreness between us." This is indeed a fact, and one
well worth deep consideration. The initiative was taken
by English writers, men and women, whose main object
was to write a telling book which could command a ready
sale. We prefer hearing our neighbours abused to praised,
we laugh at peculiarities, foibles, and caricatures well
sketched, which throw ridicule on those who we know in
our inmost hearts are rapidly outstripping us in the race
of material well-being, who are growing into greater con-
sequence than ourselves. What would be said if we, in
private life, acted the part we have done towards our
kindred over the Atlantic. if we published our sarcasms,
our strictures, our caricatures, invented the greatest ab-
surdities, and then sent these papers in bushels to those
we attacked, our relations with our neighbours would soon
become complicated. Our cousins, who had before regarded
us as the elder branch, the head of an honourable family,
who, in spite of serious quarrels in which they had been
the victors, were inclined to venerate the seat whence
their race had sprung, and the old family who still kept up
the dignity of tho clan, might be expected to turn savagely
from such wanton, unjust, and impolitic attacks; and so it
has been.

" Why this regard and delicacy for the efforts of Go-
vernments of such States as those of South America, for
whom we care nothing, and why all these lavish comments
and searching rimarks on those whose qualities for good
or ill are unquestionably all our own ? Why, I would
ask, single out all that we can for praise on one side, and
only record what we can find fault with or object to on
the other ? I believe the reason to be this, that in treat-
ing of the Spaniard, the Frenchman, or the Russian, we
always discuss his habits and his modes of thought as
those which have reference to certain things in climate
and country different from our own; we accept them as ways
which are not our ways, but those of a people who have
other measures and other standards, and which, though
we are not prepared to adopt, we in no wise wish to dis-
parage. We make no such allowance when we come to
discuss Americans. We bring them all to the bar of
Piccadilly, and whatever falls short of that measure wo
pronounce unworthy and inadmissable. The language
we used in common lent itself to this : wo come to the
contest with the same weapon. If we quoted a speecht
for reprobation, we had not to dilute the incriminate p.
by translation ; we give the words of the spe_a.kosn
spoke them, quite forgetting the while that this sr as
pea_ er
was addressing people essentially unlike our There is
own,
whose tastes and requirements were net Ours.
*much eloquence in America, but there is
much bombast
too, and popular audiences aro not satisfied
ed with oratory
that would fulfil all the canons of correct taste. Now, had
the speaker held forth in French or Spanish, the mere
h
difference of language wouldhave tempered o
a our cri
Mticism,
and we never should have dared to object tn astro;
tion or a figure because it was not what habit had aeons-
tQmed us to. Not so with the American. Speaking the