The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-31
Friendship of Eng
land and America
BEST GUARANTEE E.
Mr.. Balfour's Belief in An
glo-Saxon Civilization.

London, Jan. 3O.-Arthur James Bal
four, first lord of the treasury and lead
er of the ministerialists in the house of
commons, delivered his annual address
this evening to his constituents at Man
chester.
After speaking of the intrinsic diff
Guilty which continental nations find in
understanding Great Britain's aims"
he continued as follows But there is
surely one great country which by COM
munity of language, religion, blood,
origin and even institutions, Is well
fitted to understand us and country
which we should be we'll fitted to under
stand. Need say that country to which
refer is the United States? Some for
eign critics, cynical by profession and
training, hold the view that the friend
ship now happily subsisting between the
English-s speaking peoples on both sides
of the Atlantic is but the growth Of the
moment and depends upon a transitory
community of interests.
They affect to believe that when this
disappears, friendship also will disap-
pear. They hold that if British trade
should feel injured by some inconveni-
ent tariff Immediately the sentiment so
generally felt at this moment in Great
Britain toward America would vanish
like the leaves in autumn.
According to my observations" said
Mr.. Balfour, "the world of cynics is al
ways wrong. believe the cynics wrong
in this case. If our good relations really
depended upon those fortuitous circum-
stances, while the latter might be the
foundation of an alliance, they could
not be the foundation of what is in
lfnitely more important-of that species
of friendship which, in season and out
of season, through good report or i'll
is not to be shaken by mere personal
circumstances
1T was in this hall, in 1896, that /
| first spoke of the international reIa-
tons between the United States and
England, in those dark days of the
venezuelan controversy, when public
feeling in America had been aroused
by the wholly unfounded suspicion that
South America, and when, by natural
reason, we felt that our brethren on
the other side of the water had neither
judged nor treated us with knowledge
and frankness.
II then expressed my faith that the
time would come when all speaking
the English language and sharing the
Anglo-Saxon civilization would be I'M
tied with a sympathy which no mere
political Emergencies could permanent
ly disturb.
Il felt then, though ! spoke my in
most convictions, that / must impress
my hearers as something of dreamer
and an idealist, or as a prophet only
hoping for what he himself can hardly
expect to see realized. But the three
years that have elapsed since have
wrought surely marvellous change in
the relations between the two countries,
q change which l believe is not destined
to be reversed a change which has
brought back these two great commu-
mites to their normal relations, dis
turbed as those normal relations We're
by more than a century of unhappy
discord, a change, which once made. is
a change that ought to be permanent,
for 1t is founded, as l hope, upon mu-
tual sympathy, mutual comprehension
and the mutual belief that each great
and free community desires to see the
privileges it enjoys extended far and
wide to all continents and among all
nations.
And if / am right, and that common
sympathy be implanted deep in the
breasts Of those two great nations
there cannot be greater guarantee for
future peace, freedom. progress and
civilization, not only of this or that
country or community alone, but Of
the whole human race