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NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1926

UNCLE SHYLOCK LOOKS ABROAD

BY THE EDITOR

I. TO JOHN BULL

UNCLE SHYLOCK reports a rising barometer. Thus far the European "ill will" which in the early summer threatened to engulf his fair land in dire calamity, mental, moral, spiritual, financial and commercial, has not made a dent in his thick skin. Although, in consideration of all the circumstances, he did feel the title somewhat rasping at first, his sense of humor already enables him to accept it with a smile. After all, it is no more irritating than the "Hog" he was dubbed by contemptuous Spain not so long ago when he was paying her twenty million dollars for distant islands which he did not want as a gift and would pay twenty times twenty now to be well rid of. So long, too, as old John Bull can give a grunt of satisfaction at "Perfidious Albion," as implying a marvel in diplomacy, and Mlle. Marianne can regard the calling of her offspring "Froggies" as a tribute to her culinary art, there seems to be no real reason why Uncle Sam should balk at a term which does at any rate signify tacit admission of a debt.

Yes, indeed, Uncle Shylock is "quite all right," as they say in the Mother Country; "Sam" was well enough in our bucolic days but it really ceased to be apt when Dobbin succumbed to Ford and was gradually becoming as shopworn as the English Channel. The bald heads of Wall Street find it congenial naturally and the

Copyright, 1926, by North American Review Corporation. All rights reserved.

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bobbed heads of Broadway accept it as a tribute to their profession, possibly in remembrance of Portia, while Down East, we hear, they are beginning to name their twins Shy and Lock, irrespective of sex.

It is with no little gratification that we convey the pleasing information to the major Allies that their late-very late, as they sometimes bitingly remark-Associate is duly appreciative of their pretty compliment and will not fail to make use of both syllables if at any future time they should again seek gifts in the guise of loans for the purpose of waging war upon one another.

We hasten to add, however, that this observation does not apply to the splendid country that came forward promptly and voluntarily and made a settlement which then seemed to be eminently fair. Recent episodes have not impaired in the slightest degree the respect, admiration and genuine friendship won by sturdy old John Bull in squarely meeting his obligations quite regardless of the heavy burden necessarily imposed upon him. Indeed, so far as our folks are concerned, the clearing of the air afforded by silly departmental bickering has been helpfully enlightening. Naturally the sudden appearance of a brother of the deeply lamented and well beloved Northcliffe as a calumniator of the American people came as a surprise, though hardly as a shock, because of their own familiarity with blatant misrepresentatives of true public opinion; but it would be idle to deny that the somewhat caustic remarks of a leading member of the British Cabinet did, in fact, lend color to rumors that "ill will" toward the United States possessed England no less than the Continent.

Such a manifestation inevitably gave rise to real disquietude which, however, quickly faded from temporary resentment into mere passing contrition when the fact developed that the Chancellor's petulance found no small measure of justification in our own ineptitude.

The primary responsibility for the annoying performance clearly rests upon the ancestors of Frederick W. Peabody, Esq., counselor-at-law, of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, seven generations of whom on both his father's and his mother's sides, he freely admits, lived in this country "one hundred and fifty years

as American subjects of the British Crown and one hundred and fifty years as American citizens" and thereby imposed upon their living descendant a double-barrelled obligation to voice their joint or several convictions. Along about the first of June unmistakable rumblings began to indicate a disturbance below and, after listening intently every night for nearly a month, Mr. Peabody became convinced that those of his ancestors who comprised the English section were turning in their graves. Due meditation having pointed clearly to dissatisfaction with the international debt settlements as the cause of the movement, Mr. Peabody promptly, as in duty bound, exercised his "firmly established right to petition the Government for the redress of a grievance" and addressed a communication to the President of the United States defining "the redress I ask, nay, demand" as "cancellation of every dollar and cent" advanced to the Allies.

The letter was one of many that reached the Executive Offices one morning and was passed on, in regular course, to the Treasury. The President or the Secretary may or may not have read it; probably not, as the former was playing hookey in the Adirondacks and the latter was packing his grip for the steamer. The surmise that neither ever saw it is strengthened by internal evidence. The document comprised an eloquent appeal reflecting great credit upon the sincerity of the writer's emotions, but unhappily Mr. Peabody did not succeed in his avowed purpose "to maintain an attitude of courtesy as becomes a citizen in addressing his President."

"What mandate," he truculently, and quite absurdly for a lawyer familiar with the Constitution, the Acts of Congress and the pronouncements of both National conventions, demanded, "has your Administration received from the people of the United States to do the things you have done? Upon what authority has your Government assumed so to act for them? What better right have you to assume that the Government has truly represented them in the matter, than I have to assume that the Government has misrepresented them shamefully?"

Queries such as these might be pardonable as evidencing nothing worse than a state of ignorance, but what can be said of the following hurled at a President by "an American in every

fibre and bone and drop of blood" for seven generations backward

The difference between your assumption and mine is this: yours takes it for granted that money is America's god; that we are a nation of money-grabbers, without conscience, gratitude, loyalty, magnanimity, justice or honor: while mine is based upon the ineradicable, the burning conviction that Americans are just and generous and loyal and of one mind in the belief that it profiteth a nation nothing to gain the whole world and lose its own soul.

That insolence such as this, surpassing in offensiveness anything of like nature that we can recall, required even an acknowledgment, to say nothing of an answer, ought, we think, to be plain to the most ordinary intelligence. But no such view achieved penetration. Nor in point of fact did the legitimate part of the communication find understanding. The question raised by Mr. Peabody was one of National policy, not of accountancy or of differentiation between guns and food as "war supplies," and could and should have been answered conclusively, if at all, by a mere reference to President Coolidge's plain declaration to Congress, to wit:

I am opposed to the cancellation of these debts and believe it for the best welfare of the world that they should be liquidated and paid as fast as possible. I do not favor oppressive measures, but unless money that is borrowed is repaid credit cannot be secured in time of necessity, and there exists besides a moral obligation which our country cannot ignore and no other country can evade. Terms and conditions may have to conform to differences in the financial abilities of the countries concerned, but the principle that each country should meet its obligation admits of no differences and is of universal application.

But the Treasury, having discovered in an insulting communication an opportunity to exploit its argumentative ability, hastened to reopen the largest debt settlement, incidentally the key to all the settlements, made with great difficulty three full years ago, and thus far peaceably maintained despite the extraordinary delicacy of the situation which has arisen from the relative diminution of England's capacity to pay. Whether the real purpose was to renew the closed negotiations, in the joyous hope of getting better terms, has not been revealed; this, however, being the only logical outcome of the shrewd endeavor, we should guess

not.

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