The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1917-04-17
THE TWO ENeLANps.
Ono We Have Forgotten; the Other
We Fight With. :


The Star concludes from the tenor
of some OF the letters that reach this
ONCE that the spectacle OF the United
States fighting side by side with Eng
land Is not pleasing to all Americans.
The objections made to such an ALI
ance are various. but none of them.
upon close examination. appears to
be remote from a common basic one,
and that one is that England was an
unjust and oppressive ruler OF the
Colonies and that even after we had
shaken ourselves loose from her grip
she kept on hectoring US through the
years Of our infancy and only quit
when we got so big 1t made her ner-
vous to see US get white in the face.
The England OF 1875 and of many
succeeding years was not a friendly
England to young America. The Eng
land of those years was Tory Eng
land, or, more properly, the English
government was a Tory government.
1t did not care for democracy and was
quite open about 1t. 1t was against the
French revolution. 1t was against par
liamentary reform at home, and its
principal idea Of government was that
it was a convenient arrangement by
which a few powerful families were
able to hold all the jobs and collect
the taxes.
But there was another England that
held very different views. 1t had al
most as great. grievances against the
Tory government as the Americans
had. 1t was that liberal England that
spoke with the voice OF Chatham, Of
Fox and of Burke and that some time
was to make its voice heard and re-
spected.
If Americans who picked UP from
early school textbooks an unfavorable
opinion OF the England that spoke
through the Hessian muskets Of the
revolution could keep this distinction
in mind they might see the injustice
Of confounding the England of Lord
North with that OF Lloyd George.
There was a revolution in England,
too, following that in America and
France. 1t was a slow and bloodless
one, but its results were no less GER
tain. 1t overturned the rotten borough
system by which the powerful Tory
families held parliament in their grip,
1t made ministers responsible to par
Lament and not to the crown, and 1t
curbed the power OF the lords until
their house became a. mere ornamental
appendage to the commons.
This revolution was not accom-
plished all at once. It was not fully
accomplished at the time OF the Amer
lean Civil war, and again the govern
ing and privileged classes were rang
ed against democracy and would
gladly have seen the Republic dis
membered. But by this time liberal
England was on more even terms with
Tory England, and it spoke with a
voice the government dared not ig-
more. Privileged England, acting un-
der the eye of liberal England, could
be little more than annoying. The
United States patiently kept a record,
and after the war the English govern
ment, with what grace it could, paid
for the indulgence 1t had allowed its
feelings to the tune of fifteen million
dollars.
Have you forgotten Bunker Hill?"
one CORRESPONDENT asks Indignantly.
Why, yes, we should hope so. And we
have forgotten George III, and so
have most Englishmen. We have for
gotten the Alabama, too. The statute
OF limitations has run against them
all. .-@ ~. .'t 80
But what we have not forgotten is
that liberal and democratic England
Is now in the saddle at Westminster
and is fighting the battle of world
liberalism and democracy against
world toryism and autocracy. That is
the battle America is going into the
war to fight and 1t ought to be glad
to find in the ranks with 1t as an ally
the England that tried to speak in
1776 and was put down by the same