magnificent command of Admiral Jellicoe and Admiral Beatty would seem to be relatively "small beer." Let us frankly admit all this. Indeed, it were idle to attempt to conceal it. The Americans know it and are saying it. Indeed, it is the only thing many of them are saying on the Naval question.

It is, perhaps, more difficult for Englishmen to arrive at correct opinions concerning American affairs than upon the

A paying "Stunt

affairs of any other country, as may be gathered from the sorry stuff continually cabled to London by experienced, able and assiduous correspondents of London newspapers in New York. They are lucky if they get hold of the wrong end of the stick less than four times out of five. We are also misled by the fact of the Americans writing and talking the same language as ourselves but frequently using words in a totally different sense. Another great source of European misconception concerning transatlantic events is the large and communicative American colony established abroad, which, speaking generally, is more ignorant of American affairs than the foreigners it instructs. Then we have American tourists, who are frequently too polite to admit anything unpleasant. They usually "play up to the legend of the English-Speaking Union and the Pilgrims' Club, not infrequently giving us to understand that Britain, as "the Mother Country," is adored from New York to San Francisco. Occasionally American Ambassadors talk in this sense. They conceivably argue that it pleases their after-dinner audiences to hear such flapdoodle, and as it hurts no one else there is little harm in it. Those of our readers with any first-hand knowledge of the United States-and we are glad to know that the National Review is increasingly read both in North and South America-are aware that the "Anglo-Saxon " legend is pure and unadulterated rubbish. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the Anglophobe elements in the United States were never more poisonous nor more powerful than they are to-day. Moreover, they show no signs of

diminution. On the contrary, they are growing. It is the fashion in some quarters to attribute this phenomenon to the Irish imbroglio. If Ireland disappeared to-morrow, Anglophobia would remain rampant throughout the United States. It extends far beyond Irish-Americans and GermanAmericans. It seems to be in the blood and in the atmosphere. It is assiduously fomented by one of the greatest newspaper organizations extant, which admittedly works this "stunt " because it pays, and for no other reason. Its chief, Mr. William Randolph Hearst who is neither a German, an Irishman nor a Bolshevik Russian-has said as much. Show him any more paying "stunt" than abuse of England and he will cheerfully and persistently pursue it.

That "Naval
Holiday

99

We know of no remedy, still less of any preventive, for this strange and sinister disease, which runs through the United States like sleeping-sickness. Propaganda, fondly and foolishly advocated by some, would but provoke counter-propaganda. Every, friendly activity would be met by ten hostile demonstrations. Anglophobia assuredly cannot be cured by any extraneous influence, but only by "selfdetermination." The Americans must work out their own salvation, one way or the other. For the time being the omens are unfavourable, and those may be right who declare that the fever must be allowed to run its course before there is any hope of the patient's recovery and return to normality. In either event, whatever the future may have in store as regards Anglo-American relations, nothing could be more fatuous than any suggestion of "a Naval agreement, a Naval understanding," a Naval holiday," or whatever formula may be adopted. Let us frankly face the fact taught us by the fate of the League of Nations in the United States, which was rejected mainly because Great Britain was believed to want it. Any form of cooperation between the British and American Governments is outside the range of practical politics. Any proposition originating in London would be rejected either by the Executive or by the Legislature, many of whose members

66

are spoiling for a row. It makes little difference whether a Democratic or a Republican President occupies the White House. It is a delusion to suppose that we should do better under one Administration than under another, or that any President is in a position to make any agreement with Great Britain upon any matter that matters. It would lack the sanction of public opinion. Should it pass the White House and the State Department, it would fail in Congress.

Kaiser Wilhelm's
Successor

THE reader may regard our diagnosis as unduly pessimistic, or what is commonly called "alarmist." We sincerely trust that such may prove to be the case, and shall be delighted if events put us completely in the wrong and our after-dinner optimists as completely in the right. It would be a novel experience for them. Meanwhile, there are the facts to be disposed of. In the past Great Britain was habitually accused by her Pacifists of "forcing the pace of naval construction. The late Lord Fisher, who loved sensationalism and was accordingly beloved by the sensational Press, may conceivably have been somewhat previous in introducing the Dreadnought era, but speaking generally, the British Admiralty preferred to await challenge and then outbuild with improved types. It was not our interest as the leading naval Power to provoke avoidable competition, and, as a matter of fact, under Governments that regarded the Fleet as a necessary nuisance we tended to lag behind our margin of safety, at any rate as regards accessories from which no electioneering capital could be made. Be this as it may, our action has been exemplary since the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, and were virtue infectious, the world would be on the high road towards naval disarmament. If armaments be as wicked as old-time Pacifists averred, the chief cúlprits in this new campaign for maritime supremacy are a Pacifist President of the United States and his Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels. Indeed, the latter appears to be usurping the rôle formerly monopolized by Kaiser Wilhelm II in those

distant days when "the Admiral of the Atlantic" signalled to "the Admiral of the Pacific." Mr. Daniels once ranked as a Pacifist among Pacifists, only to become a Jingo among Jingoes. He was as anxious, if not more so, as any responsible American to keep the United States out of the Great War, but having once tasted blood, there is no holding him. We don't complain. We don't mind. It is not our affair. It solely concerns the Americans, who may build as many ships as they please so far as we are concerned-indeed, the more the merrier. They have never done anything like their share of the thankless police work of the seas, which they preferred to leave to the weary Titan. It is high time they "weighed in" and "did their bit." If Mr. Daniels, or any other Demosthenes, can persuade them to lay down fifty super post-Jutland battleships, each of 100,000 tons, carrying twenty 40-inch guns and costing £50,000,000, so much the better.

WE are, however, entitled to object, and we do object, to Mr. Daniels or any other professional Pacifist misrepresenting the essential facts for the purpose "Ginger 99 of making bad blood between the United States and Great Britain by falsely depicting us as respon sible for the huge war bill he is presenting the American taxpayers as an expiring memento of an administration which is not generally regarded by American naval officers as among the most notable of recent American achievements. All inland people are proverbially ignorant concerning the sea affair," and can be easily fooled by unscrupulous politicians-from Wilhelm II to Mr. Josephus Daniels. The latter, to whom the propagandists of the Great German General Staff could teach little, has produced a table for the enlightenment of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, vividly recalling the placards with which his predecessor in the naval race was wont to ginger up -the Berlin Reichstag. Mr. Daniels would have these unsophisticated legislators imagine that the present strength of the three navies of Great Britain, the United States and Japan is respectively represented in

battleships as follows: Great Britain, 26 ships, 635,650 tons; the United States, 16 ships, 435,750 tons; Japan, 6 ships, 178,320 tons. Other types are also measured in numbers and tonnage, e.g. Great Britain, 334 destroyers, tonnage 356,418; the United States, 260 destroyers, 308,280 tons; Japan, 27 destroyers, 26,926 tons; and so on. It recalls the Dark Ages to have navies reduced to a basis of tonnage. The futility of this table is demonstrated by the figures in a second table, showing the ships authorized " under the various building programmes of these three Powers. Mr. Daniels informed the House Naval Committee that Japan projected fresh construction of 368,370 tons, but the actually authorized constructions were as below.

WE reproduce these statistics because they govern the present acute discussion, in which no one can usefully participate who does not realize that the Nil British Empire, whose very existence depends on Sea Power, which means keeping open the Ocean Highways between her far-flung Dominions, is building no modern capital ships, while the United States is doubling her Fleet, though, as a self-contained, self-supporting Power, a navy is more of a luxury, or at any rate less of a necessity, to the Great Republic than to the British Empire. This table of "authorized" construction prepared by the Navy Department for the House of Representatives is as follows (see Morning Post, Washington correspondent, January 14):