finish his task, for there was still a Spanish army on the shore to be defeated. When that was done and the war ended, there we were, with no local government of natives capable of functioning alone and unaided. So much for our installation in these foreign and distant islands.

"But," continues the said European poppy grower or merchant, "why not now get out of the islands and leave them to the native?" It seems to me that the only way to answer this searching question is not smugly to plead the "White Man's Burden" doctrine, but frankly to point out that we cannot afford, for reasons of worthy national pride, to give complete freedom to those islands unless and until all the great colonizing Powers interested in the Pacific join us in guaranteeing the freedom of a Filipino Republic. It would never do for the United States to withdraw from the Philippines with any risk that, some years later, one of those colonizing Powers on the grounds of avenging its nationals or protecting its trade-the case of the English at Hongkong or the French at Tonkin; the Germans took all Shantung because two of their missionaries were murdered in Kiaochao-should move into some such vantage point as Manila, and stay there. Such a move would inevitably result in the disconsolate but defenceless Filipinos sending us such a heart-rending appeal to return to their assistance as would surely result in our people, always sensible to distress appeals, becoming embroiled with the colonizing Power aforesaid.

No, even though we repudiate the White Man's Burden whenever it means acquisition of lands belonging to other races, we cannot abandon the Philippines until their freedom is jointly guaranteed by all those colonizing Powers who still believe in the superior right of the White Man. We are not a colonizing Power. Also, this seems a proper place to rejoice that the United States is not a partner to the policy of colonial mandates to which the League of Nations is committed. It may serve for a group of colonizing European nations, but it does not square with the Monroe Doctrine.

CHARLES H. SHERRILL.

66

THE PLIGHT OF ENGLAND": A REPLY

BY LIEUT.-COMMANDER THE HON. J. M. KENWORTHY,

R.N., M.P.

THE Editor's article on this subject in the last issue of THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW has rightly aroused much comment in Great Britain. His friendly attitude towards us is very fully appreciated and he is known as one who did much to keep alive the friendship between the United States of America and Britain. For these reasons, and also in view of the whole tone of the article, it has aroused much attention. We are used to the pessimistic accounts in this country of politicians out of office, of captains of industry grumbling about high taxation, and of Trade Union leaders with many of the members of their Unions on the unemployed lists. And we take very little notice of the criticisms of known ill-wishers of our country. But Colonel Harvey's article is in quite a different category and has probably done more to arouse public attention to the needs of the day in Great Britain than anything else.

At the same time I shall find myself obliged to traverse many of the statements and arguments and to oppose certain of the conclusions. In the first place the preliminaries include an account of the declarations of Sir Esme Howard, as Ambassador in Washington, in which he stated that the time might come in the near future when the United Kingdom would be unable to meet her financial obligations to the United States. To speak quite bluntly, this declaration is nonsense. It was certainly unauthorized. No British Government would dare to instruct our Ambassador in Washington to make such a statement without the assent of the House of Commons. I know that assembly pretty well, as I am sitting in my fourth Parliament. Any Government putting forward such a suggestion would strike a blow at its own position which might prove fatal. For both the Labour and Liberal Parties and the bulk of the Conservative

Party itself, which now holds power in London, would instantly repudiate any such suggestion; if the Cabinet proceeded with it it would fall; and either a dissolution would take place or another Cabinet be formed more representative of the views of the great mass of the British people.

Let there be no mistake about this at all.

We are nowhere near default, and the burden of our payments to America for debt service, though heavy, is borne with a good grace and, moreover, without undue strain on our resources. We have built up British credit over centuries of effort and have just worked through a painful process of deflation in order still further to secure that credit. Rather than fail to meet our foreign obligations we would cut down every Government and social service and reduce the interest on our own internal debt. The service of our foreign debts will be the last on which we would economize. Everything else must go first. Let it be clearly understood that there is no responsible public man, business man or labor leader in this country who would not endorse every one of the above words.

As a matter of fact many of our business men returning recently from the United States have reported that harm has been done to the credit of this country by the utterances of our own leaders of thought with regard to the financial and commercial plight in which we find ourselves. I shall deal with the reasons for this presently. Let it suffice for the moment to state that we are suffering like every other combatant country in Europe, and most of the neutrals, from the results of the War; and that it has been necessary at all costs to shake our people out of their complacency.

But what is really the opinion of Britain at Washington and in Wall Street?

The best test will be the terms offered to the several public debtors of the United States. These are avowedly based on the supposed capacities of the several countries to pay. Two settlements have been arrived at so far, one with Britain, the other with Italy, apart from the small matter of the Polish debt. Supposing these to be arrived at with an eye on the paying capacity of the two countries, if we compare the terms agreed upon for interest

and sinking fund to Italy with similar terms for Britain we find that the capacity of Britain to pay is reckoned at fourteen times that of Italy. In other words, if for our debt we had received the same terms as Italy has for her debt, we should be paying only one-fourteenth of what we actually do pay in a year now.

But it may be said that Britain is going from bad to worse and that her trade is actually declining and her unemployment increasing; and very impressive figures are marshalled in the article referred to. I, also, shall quote some figures, but at the outset I would like to draw attention to a national trait among the English which frequently deceives strangers and with which we sometimes even deceive ourselves. This is our national habit of grumbling and self-depreciation.

Nearly all the successful business men with whom I am acquainted are on the verge of ruin all the time, according to their own statements. I hardly know one man over fifty years of age in Britain who is not continually saying, at any rate in private, that the country is going to the dogs. Also it must be remembered that the political leaders of the Opposition parties in Britain are more vocal and active than the leaders of the Government who are engaged in administration, and who, generally speaking, must stick to utterances about their own Departments. Whatever party is in power, the Opposition has made a point of dwelling on the dark side of affairs and not on the bright side. This is with the quite legitimate object of weakening the credit of the Government in power.

And it is not a recent development.

For example, when a Free Trade Government is in power in Britain, the Tariff Reformers have always declared the country to be on the verge of ruin. The most notorious of these cases was the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain when he was leading the Tariff Reform campaign during the more or less Free Trade Government of Mr. Balfour, now Earl of Balfour, and during the actual Free Trade Government of his successors.

In the article referred to, it is stated baldly that England's period of productivity is passed:

Her sole function henceforward can be none else than that of "middleman" or manufacturing intermediary between producers of raw materials and consumers of finished articles, working under the competitive disadvantage of huge costs of both fetching and carrying.

We have always been great middlemen and carriers of goods. Our carrying trade is of the very greatest importance, situated as we are, and makes it possible for us to maintain our great mercantile marine which, in spite of war losses, still represents thirtythree-and-one-third per cent. of the world's tonnage. This mercantile marine links our Empire together and provides a valuable reserve of ships and seamen for the Royal Navy on which, in its turn, our whole Imperial power rests. Did not the United States spend some billions of dollars in attempting to build up a mercantile marine herself to act as an intermediary, and was not this sound policy on her part? But our manufactures are now going ahead and our export trade is actually increasing, as I shall presently show.

We are, however, suffering with the rest of Europe as a result of the incalculable damage of the late War. What this damage was in material destruction, in loss of life, in dislocation of trade, in abandonment of agriculture, in the withdrawal from production of tens of millions of men and women, is quite impossible accurately to assess. The actual material damage done in Britain was not great, and we have been a little slow to appreciate the impoverished state of the world in consequence. Also the cessation of hostilities was followed by an artificial and transitory "boom". It has taken a long time for our people to understand our position in the world clearly; and before the War we had got into rather pleasant habits of not working too hard. The great industries and commerce of Britain were built up by very hardworking and adventurous men during the middle of last century; and their successors found it comparatively easy to carry on and even to increase their businesses. All this is past now, and our people are beginning to realize it. Also this must be remembered: There are many sections of all classes in Britain who are not working as hard as they should even now, and are spending far too much of their time and money on luxuries, sports and amusements. But these actually form a reserve of energy and effort