The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-23
SPIRIT or THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions OF the Leading Journals
upon Current Topios-oompiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
AMERICAN FRIENDLINESs.

ing the chronic difference between England
and the United States that, if any useful end
is to be gained the English and the Ameri-
cans cannst be addressed in the same Ian
guage Nobody who has the least knowledge
of the Americans will suppose that verbal
menaces will have the smallest effect upon
them. The arguments most likely to sue
ceed with them must be couched in mode
rate language and directed less to their fears
or sympathies than to their good sense aud
mental Judgment. We ourselves have shown
that we think them not incapable OF being
impressed by a candid statement of the liabili-
ties which on very strict construction of
public law this country has incurred, of the
concessions which it is prepared to
make for the purpose of satisfying
them, and of the advantages which both
nations would gain by prompt settlement of
their most recent quarrel. Yet it cannot be
denied that this very language, read in Eng
land, has tendency to deepen serious mis-
conceptions which are abroad here. The
popular impression of our countrymen is
that, though American demagogues may occa-
sionally rage together and the Fenians ina
gine a vain thing, the American people has
not forgotten the ties of common descent,
and is at heart friendly to Great Britain.
American travellers cannot in common de-
cency adopt any other tone, and the English
press is careful to explain away any indca-
tions destructive of the popular theory. Thus,
while on the other hand nothing but reasona-
blearguments are llkelyto affect theAmericans,
such arguments may possibly encourage
Englishmen in believing that there is nothing
to overcome in the Americans except wrong
conclusion of the reason. Yet the friendly
disposition of the Americans is entirely a
fgment of the English Imagination. We
even believe that an Englishman can hardly
do greater disservice to England than by
trying to persuade Englshmen of the friend
illness of the people of the United States to
this country. The assertion thus made of
the Americans is utterly false; it is extremely
dangerous; and it has not even the excuse of
indirectly promoting a useful object in spite
of its falsehood and perilousness. Occasion
ally it may be possible to produce friendship
between nations by the expedient which
made match between Benedick and Bea-
trice. But nothing is required to add to
the friendly disposition of this country
towards the United States. Friendli-
ness in all that goes to constitute the
friendship of States has existed OH our side
for half a century; nor have the Americans
the smallest evidence of unfriendliness to
rest upon except the alleged fact that, when
nation which had always been looked upon
by foreigners as one and indivisible and
which would have bitterly resented any other
view of its constitution, broke suddenly into
two halves, the sympathies of Englishmen
wavered for time between the fragments,
and were not exclusively given to one of
them. On the other hand, a statement con-
cerning the Americans which they know to
be ridiculously false has no tendency what
ever to diminish their hostility. They regard
it simply as evidence of weakness and
timidity, and, without adding a jot to their
friendliness, it increases their contempt and
encourages their presumption.
The mode of proving American friendli-
ness which Is now in fashion consists in
pointing to the small proportions of the
American army and the American navy. 1t
is admitted that, from one end of the political
scale to the other-from President Grant WHO
is their cedar of Lebanon, to Butler, who is
the hyssop that grows on their wall-their
public men never refer to this country except
to find material for picking quarrel with it.
1t is allowed that the conventional peroration
of an American stump speech is an invective
against Great Britain, and that the common
forms of Presidents message ere the pre-
else reverse of the common forms of
a Queens speech; since, instead of
congratulating the country on its
friendly relations with foreign powers it con-
talns, as OF course, some demonstration of
British misconduct. 1t is acknowledged that
their leading politicians, without manifesting
the faintest sense of arrogance impro-
priety publicly discuss the expedency of
imposing on this country ''such con-
ditions as no great nation has ever sub
mitted to except after disaster like Sedan or
Sadowa." But all this is thought to be neu-
tralized because the head of a department
who wants money to spend upon it declares the
American army hardly large enough for pur-
poses of police, and the American navy in
sufficient even for revenue duties But
the facts asserted do not bear the construction
put upon them, and, besides, they are not to
the point. The feebleness of the army and
navy of the United States has no analogy to
the feebleness of the British army and navy.
1t is quite true that the American navy is in
but poor condition, less, however, through
contraction of expenditure than through the
foolish commercial policy which depriVes the
American dockyards of good iron and good
workmen, and which limits the supply of good
seamen to their ships. II is very possible
that, if war were to break out the British
navy could seal the American men of war in
their ports. But the Americans do not RELY
upon their navy for the means of inhicting
immediate in jury upon this country. Through
their refusal to adhere to the Declaration of
Paris they are at liberty to employ privateers
and is is through vessels of this sort that they
hope, if not to destroy the great trade which
their own commercial exclusiVeness has
thrown mainly into British hands, to compel
II 10 be carried on at enormous cost Nor
have the petty numbers of the American army
the same significance or Importance as our
own military weakness For the American
regular army Is really what the British army
is not, the nucleus of an immensely larger
force. AS was shown at the beginning of The
Confederate wal, 1T can be extended in a var1
short time to vast dimensions by narti aIIy
trained regiments from the militia of the
several States, recruited in the last resort bv
ballot. But the English army and militia