Getting Together | Page 8

World.
Our mutual relations are further complicated by the possession of a common language.
In theory, a common tongue should be a bond of union between nations--a channel for the interchange of great thoughts and friendly sentiments. In practice, what is it?
Let us take a concrete example. Supposing an American woman and a Dutch woman live next door to one another in a New York suburb. As a rule they maintain friendly relations; but if at any time these relations become strained--say, over the encroachments of depredatory chickens, or the obstruction of some one's ancient lights by the over-exuberance of some one else's laundry--the two ladies are enabled to say the most dreadful things to one another without any one being a penny the worse. They do not understand one another's language. But if they speak a common tongue, the words which pass when the most ephemeral squabble arises stick and rankle.
Again, for many years the people of Great Britain were extremely critical of Russia. Well-meaning stay-at-home gentlemen constantly rose to their feet in the House of Commons and made withering remarks on the subject of knouts, and Cossacks, and vodka. But they did no harm. The Russian people do not understand English. In the same way, Russians were probably accustomed to utter equally reliable criticisms of the home-life of Great Britain--land-grabbing, and hypocrisy, and whiskey, and so on. But we knew nothing of all this, and all was well. There was not the slightest difficulty, when the great world-crash came, in forming the warmest alliance with Russia.
But as between the two great English-speaking nations of the world, it is in the power of the most foolish politician or the most irresponsible sub-editor, on either side of the Atlantic, to create an international complication with a single spoken phrase or stroke of the pen. And as both countries appear to be inhabited very largely by persons who regard newspapers as Bibles and foolish politicians as inspired prophets, it seems advisable to take steps to regulate the matter.
This brings us to another matter--the attitude of the American Press toward the War. A certain section thereof, which need not be particularized further, has never ceased, probably under the combined influences of bias and subsidy, to abuse the Allies, particularly the British, and misrepresent their motives and ideals. This sort of journalism "cuts no ice" in the United States. It is just "yellow journalism." Voil�� tout! Why take it seriously? But the British people do not know this; and as the British half-penny Press, when it does quote the American Press, rarely quotes anything but the most virulent extracts from this particular class of newspaper, one is reduced yet again to wondering whence the blessings of a common language are to be derived.
But taking them all round, the newspapers of America have handled the questions of the War with conspicuous fairness and ability. They are all fundamentally pro-Ally; and the only criticism which can be directed at them from an Allied quarter is that in their anxiety to give both sides a hearing, they have been a little too indulgent to Germany's claims to moral consideration, and have been a little over-inclined to accept the German Chancellor's pious manifestoes at their face value. But generally speaking it may be said that the greater the newspaper, the firmer the stand that it has taken for the Allied cause. The New York Times, the weightiest and most authoritative newspaper in America, has been both pro-Ally and pro-British throughout the War, and has never shrunk from the delicate task of interpreting satisfactorily to the British people the attitude of the President.
Journalistic criticism of Great Britain in America is frequently extremely candid, and not altogether unmerited. Occasionally it goes too far; but the occasion usually arises from ignorance of the situation, or the desire to score an epigrammatic point. For instance, during the struggle for Verdun in the spring, a New York newspaper, sufficiently well-conducted to have known better, published a cartoon representing John Bull as standing aloof, but encouraging the French to persevere in their efforts by parodying Nelson's phrase:--"England expects that every Frenchman will do his duty." The truth of course was that Sir Douglas Haig had offered General Joffre all the British help that might be required. The offer was accepted to this extent, that the British took over forty additional miles of trenches from the French, thus setting free many divisions of French soldiers to participate in a glorious and purely French victory.
But this sort of foolish calumny dies hard, together with such phrases as:--"England is prepared to hold on, to the last Frenchman!" While not strictly relevant to our present discussion, the following figures may be of interest. In August 1914 the British Regular Army consisted of about a hundred and fifty thousand men.