The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-08-09

A WESTERN EDrToR's LIPS TOUCHED wrrn
PROPHETIC FIRE.

Mr.. Watterson, of the Louisville Courier
Journal, writes that If the results Of bis OBJ
servations have not been of the most admiring
and amiable kind, ''it is not because enter
tain any aettled ill-will against the English or
have had especial reason to complain of my
particular misfortune in encountering a. super
fluffy of English insolence and ignorance.
Assuredly, have long understood perfectly
well that there caunot possibly be any sympa-
thy between the United States and England
as political establishments. There Is an ire
pressible conflict between them, and this is
only the greater as a use OF a common Lam
guage enables each to express its dislike and
distrust of the other with greater directness
and emphasis. Nor is this natural and ineyi-
table conflict of interests likely to be moder-
ated when the time comes, as come it will,
for Anglo-German complications. Hitherto,
the Irish vote in America has been strong
enough to keep our politicians at a respectable
distance from British leanings. To this ele-
ment, will presently be added a still larger
and more powerful body of citizens.
In the meantime there is a practical indiE
ference among the native American part of
our population. Our people care simply moth
ing about England one way or another. They
are almost unconscious of England except, as
in a case like that of the alabama claims they
be reminded of English cowardice by English
swageer, when, ldeed, having forced their
rights, they laugh and are content, and fall in
to state of indifference again. The state Of
feeling in England, however, is more positive
The upper and middle English classes are ev-
er mindful of America, and at once hate and
fear the Americans. They l,now that we are
the lion across the financial and commercial
highway which they have Travelled without
obstruction for so many years. They know
that they have reached the top of the hill, and
that we are beginning t. press them over 1t.
They are by nature and by habit vain and
greedy, and though we have not yet pinched
them, we have touched their avariciousness
| aud their conceit.
Yet notwithstanding all these sources of
| bad blood, there exist many agreeable ties of
a personal description, and as England can
not afford to quarrel, she has pursued course
of prudent assimilation toward us so we get
on measurably, and, perhaps, may never come
| to blows. They had better not 1t is writ
| ten in the Book of Fate that before Lord Ma
cauley's prophetic heathen sits on London
| Bridge and surveys the ruins of st. Paups,
the Stars and Stripes shall wave above the
tower, while the Prussians, remembering
old Bluchers observation, fill their pockets
with the ill-gotten gold of Lombard street,
and disport themselves amid the fineries OF
Belgravia and May Fair. 1 am sure, for my
| part, that l do not want to see brigade of
| my coored fellow-countrymen quartered in
| Buckingham palace, though, if reports be
| true, they could do it no worse damage than
its last occupants. Neither should be glad
10 have Westminster Abbey improvised into
| Methodist church for the accommodation of
Billy Wilson and his pious Zouaves."