The San Francisco call., 1895-12-29
British Subjects Glad to Think
That the Trouble Has Blown
Over.
QUITE ANXIOUS TO REASON.
Americans in London Will Meet and
Express Desire for a Harmoni.
Gus Settlement.
Copyright. 1895. by the New York Times

than the fact that the Times to-day gives
the first place on its telegraphic page to
two columns from Johannesburg and
Berlin about threatened trouble in the
Transvaal and relegates its New York dis
patches to a secondary rank. This quite
typities the feeling here that the Anglo
American difficulty has practically blown
over.
1t also helps to explain why the English
are SO glad to think that it has blown
over, illustrating as it does the enormous
range of their facilities for getting into
hot water with every body IN every quarter
OF the globe. Il was Armenia fortnight
ago; it is the Transvaal to-day; it will be
the Mekong tomorrow, the Niger next
week, Egypt all the time, and so on in an
endless circle of frontier friction and i'm
perial risk.
That was why said week ago that on
no account short of being boldly pushed
into it would England consent to
view a conflict with America as in any
way possible. 1t is too conscious of being
already overloaded with responsibilities to
willingly take on such portentous added
burden. No doubt good deal of pathos
emotions toward America with which
England has been teeming this week, but
it would be unfair to suspect in them any
large element of insincerlty. The English
have been an imperial race so long that it
is ingrained in their blood to like people
who can be of use to them and automati-
cally to reserve their dislike for others.
There is no conscious deceit in it, but only
imperial instinct. They have fastened in
their minds the dim but resplendent ideal
of time when EnglIsh-speaking people
shall rule the world and as America nat
urally assumes the larger part in this
vision they think that they like Ameri-
cans more.
OF course, such a manifestation as the
o-called appeal from the English author
tiles may be treated as a wall of people
terrified about their copyrights and there
have not been lacking other interested con-
+ributions to the less dignifed side of the
discussion, but the main spirit of the
weeks expressions has been, if not disin-
terested, still honest enough.
The message of the Prince of Wales and
the Duke of York was, of course, officially
sanctioned by the Foreign Office. Consti-
tutional princes are trained from child
hood to walk political c1alklIne with
painful solicitude, and they could not have
dreamed OF sending such a telegram with
out the consent of the Prime Minister.
The fact that such a step is unprecedented
in English annals shows the very impor-
tance which official England, on second
thought, attaches to preventing rupture
with America. Nobody here caviled at
its being sent, which is, perhaps, even
more eloquent sign OF the popular will
iugness TO let it be understood that a mis-
take had been made and that they were
ready to meet the American views on the
matter in any reasonable way. The whole
controversy mightindeed have been robbed
of most of it's bitterness and Englishmen
might be frankly saying to-day that no
harm has been done in waking them up
rather sharply to the fact of their
negligent remissness in dealing with
Venezuela if concerted outrageous
abuse of President Cleveland had not been
imported from America into the affair at
the very outset. The mails Will be bring
ing this back to you, and you will Iind
that from the beginning Englishmen were
told that the President of the Republic
had deliberately prostituted his Office and
coniured up the specter of war to secure a
third term for himself; that only hood
lums supported him, and that every decent
element in American citizenship stood
aghast and revolted at this criminal be-
bayior. When Congress revealed itself
unanimously at his back we were told that
they were corrupt, cowardly politicians,
who were striving to outstrip the President
in a race for the votes of the ignorant
jngo mob.
Now that a deadlock on the tariff and
revenue measures has arisen between the
Capitol and the White House, we are in
formed that Congress discovered that the
country was solid against President Cleve-
land and 80 hastened to retrace its steps.
For ten davs the British mind, has been
fed exclusively on this sort of thing, with
hardly a correcting note of any kind and,
though I dare say it has contributed TO
allav British apprehensions and evoke
British amiability, these ends seem to me
to have been bought at larger price than
any seIf-respccting community ought to
be asked to pay.
The American Society in London is to
hold meeting Monday 10 CONSIDER reso-
luton expressing the earnest hope and
confident expectation that all existing
differences will be harmoniously and ami
cablv settled. The secretary and moving
spirit of this society is second cousin OF
Joyeph chamberlain, who was born here,
but lived for many years IN the United
States.
Everyth ing has its funny side, and the
Prince of Wales suddenly finds himself
being used by the Liberal press OF Ger
many and Austria as club with which to
belabor his nephew, the Kaiser. These
editors point out that Emperor William
has always spoken contemptuously OF the
press, publicly called newspaper men can
didates for starvation and otherwise
vented his spleen on journalism, whereas
his broad-minded uncle actually answers
reply paid" kilograms from newspapers OF
foreign countries and uses the press as a
means of peace and good will. Iherc
oupht to be grounds for lese majeste prose-
cutioa in some of these Berlin compari-
sons. which would give the Prince OF
Wales place in history that he could
never have expected for himself. There Is