The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-06-27
DO WE DISLIKE ENGLAND, !,
lNew York Times.l

The English jonEnaliss who inquired through tAsse eoissaas sAe esAeE dag, why America dis6ked England, would De surprised by the number and explicisness of the answers to tAis inquiry that have been received al this office. The number of these anSwers at least tesaikes to the popular interest on the subject The na- ture ot the answers is twofcld: One fogm of answer is not an explanation, but de- rial. The writer declares that Americans do not dislike England. Those who Ad- nit the dislike. explain und justify it hy citing the fact that the sympathy oi Eng- land during our civl var went witA the attempt to destroy the government oi the Unised States. They allege, also, that England is a dominecriag and bullying power, which has go, herself heartily dis liked in every qua,ter of the globe.
 We are not prepared to deny that there is something in these explanations, and that they go some distance toward jnsti tying dislike of England on the part of those who entertain 1t. At the same time we should say that the best general TO- I ply to our eorrespondent's inquiry Is the simple statement that Americans do not dislike England. There is certain sur vival of the feeling felt by the revolution i: but although this is of some value as ma terial for Fourth of July speeches. and al- though tt is an active sentiment among American schoolboys. it does not much affect the adult American. There is n great deal Of talking and writing against Insh birth, who hnd it useful in politics That ush-AmeSicans dislike England heartily there can be no doubt nor, tn our opinion, can there be much doubt that they have very geod reasons for dis liking her. They are quite willing to have their sentiments accepted as those of the American people, and if one were to derive his opinions from newspaper articles composed by ir;sh-Amez:css writers for lrish-American readers, he would very likely conclude that the American people spent in hating Eng- land all the time they could spare from their more urgent occupations.
 l Americans know very we'll that this is not the case. So far from considering that the interests of civilization would be served by the defeat of England, they are much more nearly of the opinion ex- pressed the other day by Vienna news paper, tA.t "the last days of England's power would be the last days of European liberty" This, 1t Is true, is an exaggera- ton of an important truth. England has been tho pioneer in Europe of political progress, and is to-day politically by far the most advanced nation h Europe She has shown that an extension of civil liberty not only does not threaten the ! zG t. Ak guarantee of order. She alone has been unaffected by the revolutionary storms which have swept over the continea,, be- cause she had gained by peaceable evolu. tion the goal which other nations were compelled to aim at through revolution
 It is true that the social and political con- stitution of England still continues anom. allies and inequalities from which our country Is happily free. There arc still survivals in it of privileges inherited frem an earlier stage of political progress. But this Is precisely because the free England of modern times has been developed by slow and peaceable process from feudal England without . solution of historical continuity. What we have done is an advance upon the English example which would have been alike impossible in England itself, and in this country with out the example of England.
 It is quite impossible for intelligent America to sympathizs with the govern meut of Russia, which Is in form an au- tocracy, and in fact brutal and corrupt oiigarchy, against power to which civ filtration owes as much as 1t owes to Eng land. As for the sentiment of individual Americans toward individual English men, that Is quite another matter. It de- pends altogether upon the character Of the individuals concerned. Bot we do not believe there is . community in the United States in which an Englishman who is likeable asa human being finds himself disliked because he is an Eng. lishman, or finds his nationality disad. vantage to him in any resnect whatevey