Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1918-08-25
LORD .BRYCE's SPLENDID
TRIBUTE TO AMERICANS
Independence Day Celebrated With
Enthusiasm b. Notwithstanding
People OF the Earth.
PROUD OF AMERICA
Former Ambassador Declares for
Half Century Sense OF Unity Be-
tween England and United States
Has Been Growing Closer.
tBy international News Service. }

-
owe give below the full text of
Viscount Bryce's striking address de-
livered at the great Angola
fellowship meeting at the Central Hall,
Wcstminster)
This Is Independence Day. For the
people of the United States it is the
national birthday, the day when the
tree of their separate national life was
planted. But II was planted in war.
For many year the day was cele-
brated in the United States with hos
tility and defiance BY us in Britain
marking the severance OF precious ties
And now after l4a years. 1t is being
celebrated by both peoples with like
enthusiastically the children of those
who revolted against the British
Crown as by the children OF those who
sadly admitted the loss OF that crowns
choicest jewels This fact, this joint
celebration. is more eloquent than any
words. What had been a day of anger
on one side, and OF grief on the other,
has become for both day OF affection
and rejoicing.
i need not ask what history might
show to have been gained or lost for
each country. II may be thought that
IL some political connection between
chem had been preserved, two things
at least. would have been gained. The
war OF lsl2-an unmixed evil for both
nations-would have been avoided; and
though the North American colonies
would soon have become practically
the mediation of the Mother Country
would probably have averted the War
OF Secession. and secured the peaceable
extinction OF negro slavery. On the
other hand. it may have been we'll for
US and for the world that no one State
SO powerful as Britain and America
united in one would have been should
have grown up. A State so immensely
strong might have been led into ag-
Grcssion and injustice by the thirst for
world dominion-a passion whose fatal
consequences we seen in the moral de-
gradation OF Prussianized Germany.
ANOTHER KING GEORGE FOUND
CELEBRATING FOURTH Or july
What forces have brought Britain
and America again together. and how
comes it that in the fourth generation
another King George is joining on be.
half OF his people, in tive celebration
OF this day which records the eNtinc-
ton of all the bitterness that arose
in the days of George lila bitterness
that could never have arisen had the
will of the British people ruled in ldI5
as it rules to-day. for the severance
came because we had then perversc
court and a nonrcprescntative Parlia-
ment. 1t is not merely blood relation
ship that has brought this happy con-
summation Quarrels between relatives
are often the most bitter. 1t is a sense
of the other and stronger ties that
bind us Il gcther. You remember the
lines in Millions "Lycidas':
For we were nursed upon the selfsame
hill.
Fed the same flock by fountain. SHADE
and rill.
Our greatest poets-Chaucer. Shaket-
pearc Millionaire the common glory
Of our race. Common to both peoples
is the love of freedom and the taiih'
in freedom which. sown long ago IN
y.
the days of Milton and Hampden and
established civil and religious liberty
on founda tons never thereafter to b"
shaken. With the love of freedom, ana
as it's proper accompaniment, Britaih
and America have both reversed the
moral law. have held to good faith
between nations. have recognized their
their beliefs. their ideals sometimes
differ in expression. but are substan-
tally the same. The national heroes
of both have been men who were great
by their courage and by their sense d
right and duty, from King Alfred do"r
to Washington and Lincoln, whom
Britain as we'll as America counts
among the heroes of the world.
1t is these things that have made
each nation respect the other even at
moments of tension. Deep down In the
heart of each, almost too deep for ex-
preston, there has been the sense that
the other possessed those essential
virtues by which nations live; and
each had n secret pride in seeing that
the other retained what both felt to be
the finest characteristics OF tho ancient
stock. we saw another quality of that
stock shine forth in the energy with
which the people of the United States
have overspread the vast continent.
have planted everywhere the self
iHSlllNtlonS, are dSSlmIidl-
ing and turning into useful citizens
the immigrants who came in huge
and turbid food. and have built up n
fabric OF industrial prosperity such as
has never been seen elsewhere.
For half century the sense of unity
had been growing closer. when an event
happened which revealed both nations
to themselves and to one another. TIE
German government suddenly invaded
Neutral and peaceful Belgium. Britail
sprang into the breach, and within
three years raised an army OF mo-,
than five millions-ten times as large
as that she had when the war began.
Germany followed up her first crime.
by perpetrating UPON noncombatants
and neutrals n succession of outragss
unheard of before. 1t was then the
turn of America.
"a NEW STAR BLAZED FORTH"
IN WORLDS TOURNAMENT
We in England have scarcely yet re-
allied the magnitude OF the new de-
parture which America took when she
entered the war. The oldest and best