The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-04

Philip Gibbs. in Harper's Magazine for l July |0T1oWARD the end of 1919, and in the beginning of 1920 I came into S touch with number of Americans who came to Europe on business enter prises or to visit the hattlefields. Tn private conversation they did not dis guise their sense of distress that there were strained relations between the pub lie opinion of England and America. Several of them asked me if it were true that England was as hostile to America as the newspapers tried to make out. By way of answer asked them whether America were as hostile to us as the newspapers asked us to believe. They 1 admitted at once that this was just and illuminating reply, because the in- l telligent section of American society
 people of decent education and good will twas far from being hostile to England, but on the contrary, believed firmly
 that the safety and happiness of the
 world depended good deal upon Anglo
 American friendship. It was true that
 the average citizen of the United States,
 even if he were uninfluenced by Irish American propaganda, believed that
 England was treating Ireland stupidly
 and unjustly-to which answered that
 the majority of English people agreed
 with that<view, though realizing the diff ficulty of satisfying Ireland by any
 measure short of absolute independence and separation.
 It was also true, they told me, that there was a general suspicion in the United States that England had made big grab in the peace terms for imperial
 aggrandizement, masked under the high sounding name of mandate" 2or the protection of African and Oriental states.
 My reply to that. not as political argu- ment, but as simple sincerity. was the
 necessity of some control of such states. If the power of the Turk were to be fabolished from his old strongholds, and a claim for the British tradition as an administrator of native races; but I added another statement which my | American friends found it hard to be- heve, though. it is the absolute truth. as nine Englishmen out of ten will affirm
  Empire. the vast and overwhelming ma jority of British people, not only in | England. but in our dominions beyond
 the seas, is aghast at the new responsf-. bilities which we have undertaken, and would reIinquish many of them. especial ly in Asia, with sense of profound re- lief. We have been saddled with new 1ntrc hyxv6 6ar,c 1,xy $SA v,nhf iNva &of certain statesmen who have earned the bitter animosity of the great body
 of the British people. entirely out of lsympathy with the imperiahstic ideals
 have not encountered single Amer
 ican in Europe who has not expressed,
 with what I believe is absolute sim
 cerity, friendly and affectionate re-
 whose ways of life they like. and whose
 language. literature and ideals belong to our united civilization. They have not found in England any of that hostility
 which they were told to expect. apart from a few blackguardly articles in low. class journals. On the contrary. they have found friendly folk, grateful for
 their help in the war. full of admiration for American methods, and welcoming
 them to our little old island.
 They have gone back to the United
 States with the conviction. which I share
 with all my soul. that commercial ri valry, political differences. and minor .irritations. inevitable between two pro- sressive peoples of strong character, nust never be allowed to divide our two nations. who fundamentally belong , to the same type of civilization and to : the same code of principles. Most of ) the so-cailed hostility between us is the mere froth of foul-mouthed men, on : both sides. and the rest of it is due to , the ignorance of the masses. We must } lget to know each other. as the Ameri-
 cans in Europe have learned to know Ius and to like us. and as all of us who , have crossed the Atlantic the other way