CHAPTER II -- KINDRED BRITAIN

FOR America the word "Britain" is of profound significance.
It evokes a multitude of thoughts.  Whether the word be
taken in its narrowest sense as meaning merely England, or
extended to the British Isles, or broadened to include those
self-governing dominions which go to make up the English-
speaking commonwealth of nations, or, finally, widened to
signify the vast assemblage of lands and peoples known as
the British Empire, we Americans instinctively realize that
here is something which to us is of deep concern.
    This is true of Americans generally, whatever their
origin, because the United States is an English-speaking
country, settled mainly by people of British stock, who
built up a civilization, fundamentally Anglo-Saxon in
character, that has set its stamp upon all who have reached
our shores.  For most Americans the significance of Britain
is not merely a matter of cultural acquirement but also of
racial inheritance -- in other words, something in the
blood.  Despite recent immigration from Southern and Eastern
Europe, the population of the United States is still
basically Anglo-Saxon, while a decided majority of its
inhabitants are of British or kindred North European stocks.
     The essentially Anglo-Saxon character of our stock and 


                           

civilization makes a study of things British at once
peculiarly interesting and peculiarly important.  Since race
is unquestionably the basic factor in human affairs, we have
weighty reasons for observing our British kin.  This will
aid us not only in our relations with them but also in our
own domestic problems.  For with folk so similar, a
knowledge of what sort of people the British really are, and
of what they are thinking and doing, will throw much light
on what sort of people we ourselves are and what is the
significance of our thoughts and actions.
    It is a narrow and short-sighted view which holds that
the parallel development of the British and American peoples
is due chiefly to ease and frequency of intellectual
intercourse -- that we are so much alike because we can read
each other's books and newspapers and can talk without an
interpreter.  That is rather putting the cart before the
horse.  It ignores the much more fundamental query as to how
we both got that way.  You can realize the significance of
this point by a very simple test.  Compare a conversation
you have had with an Englishman and a conversation you have
had with a person of some other nationality.  The chances
are ten to one that in analyzing those conversations you
will discover a very significant distinction between them --
the fact that you met your Englishman on a footing of more
instinctive comprehension.  As you look back you will
probably remember that there were a lot of rather subtle
things like viewpoints, ideals, prejudices even, which you
could more or less take for granted with the Englishman, but
which you could not thus tacitly assume with the other.
     I am not here referring to knowledge of facts; your


                           

Englishman may have been ignorant, while the other man may
have been learned in the topics you discussed.  Likewise, I
am not concerned with the outcome of those conversations;
you may have disagreed violently with the Englishman and
have agreed fully with the other.  Yet even that violent
controversy between yourself and the Englishman had an
intimate note; that is to say, in all probability it was not
a clash between absolutely antagonistic ideals, but rather a
family row over details -- a magnifying of differences,
perhaps just because you two had started with so much in
common.
    All this is of great practical importance, because it
furnishes a clew to the understanding not merely of personal
contacts between individual Englishmen and Americans but
also of the relations between the American and British
peoples.  We two peoples cannot be really indifferent to
each other, any more than members of the same family can be
really indifferent to one another.  Anglo-American relations
must be characterized by a peculiar family quality which
contains great possibilities for good and for ill.  Things
which between other nations might not make a ripple can, as
between Americans and Englishmen, promote warm sympathy or
provoke bitter resentment.
    That is why the fullest possible understanding is so
necessary between the two peoples. Here, if ever, "a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing."  Englishmen and Americans
who know each other just well enough to see their
differences are apt to quarrel.  Englishmen and Americans
who know each other intimately realize that such differences
are far outweighed by common likenesses and


                           

usually succeed in maintaining friendly harmony in outlook
and action.
    Such friendship was never more needed than it is today.
The American and British peoples are unquestionably the
strongest and stablest elements in a very troubled world,
and their friendly co-operation is the best hope of the
future.  Probably no reflective American or Englishman
thinks otherwise.  And yet, desirable though this may be, it
need not necessarily come about.  Minor points of friction
exist and misunderstandings are always liable to arise.  The
best way to better Anglo-American relations is to know each
other better, thereby gaining that broader vision and deeper
insight that can sense the relative importance of things and
act accordingly.
     Who and what, then, are these British kin of ours?
Racially speaking, the British people are at once a blend
and a mixture.  That fact gives the key to their national
character, and explains both their past history and their
present tendencies.  An English writer once called his
country Teutonic with a Celtic fringe.  Translating this
into modern racial terms, we can say that the population of
Britain is predominantly Nordic, with a Mediterranean
element that varies widely in strength in different parts of
the island.
    Britain's racial destiny was fixed about 1500 years ago,
after the fall of the Roman Empire.  Down to that time the
British Isles had been inhabited almost entirely by the
slender, dark-complexioned race called Mediterranean, which
still inhabits most of the lands about the Mediterranean Sea
and which settled the British Isles long before the dawn of
history.  After the fall of Rome swarms of


                           

tall blond Nordics, coming from Germany and Scandinavia,
invaded Britain and ultimately transformed the island's
racial character.
    This Nordic influx was, however, of a peculiar nature
and had peculiar results.  If the Nordics had come all at
once in vast numbers they would have quickly overrun the
whole island, would have subdued the Mediterraneans at a
stroke, and would ultimately have intermarried and formed a
generally mixed population.  But just the reverse of this
took place.  The Nordics came in relatively small numbers,
settling first on the eastern coasts and gradually working
inland.  Also, the Mediterraneans put up a stiff fight and
gave ground slowly.  In other words, a situation arose very
much like that which occurred during the settlement of
America -- an invading frontier pushing slowly westward,
with fierce hatred between invaders and natives, little
intermarriage, and therefore a thorough racial replacement.
For this reason Eastern England is to-day almost purely
Nordic in race.
    Yet Britain was not destined to become a purely Nordic
land.  The western fringe of the island is rugged and
relatively infertile.  In these wild lands the
Mediterraneans found refuge, while the pursuing Nordics had
no special temptation to conquer them.  For a long while
Britain was divided between two sharply contrasted races,
the Nordics occupying most of the island, while the western
fringes, especially Wales, Cornwall, and the Scotch
Highlands, were solidly Mediterranean.  In time these race
lines became somewhat blurred by intermarriage; yet even to-
day England and Scotland are four-fifths Nordic, while Wales
is mainly Mediterranean in blood.


                           

with Mediterranean qualities like heightened temperament, 
quick imagination, and artistic feeling.  This Mediterranean 
dash has been too slight to upset English stability and 
poise, but it has been enough to give England many brilliant 
individuals and partially to correct the tendency to heavy 
seriousness common among pure-blooded Nordics, whether in 
England or elsewhere.
    Despite the valuable contributions that the
Mediterranean element has made, it is unquestionably the
Nordic stock that is mainly responsible for Britain's
greatness.  To Nordic energy, intelligence, and common sense
are due both England's political development at home and
that extraordinary achievement, the British Empire, which
today covers nearly one-fourth of the entire land surface of
the globe and contains fully one-fourth of the world's total
population.  Nordic, likewise, is the combination of
inventive genius and business ability which made Britain the
industrial and financial centre of the world.  It is often
said that Britain's present wealth is due to the fortunate
accident of rich coal and iron deposits beneath her soil.
That is true, in a sense.  But it is also true that these
deposits would not have been developed without a remarkable
combination of English and Scotch inventors, manufacturers,
financiers, and workers, who first realized the possibilities 
of coal and iron, got the jump on the rest of the world, and 
thereby gave Britain the economic position which she has ever 
since retained.
    Because Britain's progress has been so consistently
successful, some observers have been tempted to think that
it just happened -- in other words, that it was due to good
fortune or fatality. Nothing, however, could be more 


                           

untrue.  The closer we study English history, the more we
realize what immense problems Britain has had to face, and
what intelligence, determination, hard work, and common
sense the British people have shown in their solution.
    During the past century Britain has gone through one of
the most tremendous transformations that the world has ever
seen.  A hundred years ago Britain was still mainly an
agricultural country, capable of feeding its relatively
small population, which then numbered only about 14,000,000.
To-day the same area -- England, Scotland, and Wales -- has
a population of 43,000,000, four-fifths of whom live in
cities or towns.  Instead of being self-feeding, Britain
grows only enough foodstuffs to nourish its people ninety
days in the year.  The rest of its food has to be imported,
together with all sorts of other raw materials and
manufactured products.  This, in turn, means that the only
way the British people can pay for these things is by
exporting to foreign countries a corresponding amount of
goods or services.  Accordingly, Britain's very life to-day
depends upon a complex and delicately adjusted system of
manufacturing, commerce, shipping, and banking, which she
has slowly built up and which at all costs she must
maintain.
    And yet, as already remarked, the very building up of
this system has involved a transformation of Britain's
economic, social, and political life so profound that most
other countries would probably have fallen into civil war or
revolution.  The British have, however, succeeded in
avoiding these evils and adjusting themselves peacefully to
new conditions.


                          

     How?  Primarily because of their national character 
-- in other words, because of their racial make-up.
     No one can be long in England without being struck with
the basic unity of the English people.  Of course, there are
extremes of wealth and poverty, of education and ignorance;
and these produce a wide variety of manners, ideas, and
opinions.  Yet beneath all such differences we somehow sense
the fact that these people are fundamentally of the same
stuff.  Englishmen who have lived abroad get this impression
as sharply as observant foreigners.
     Not long ago an English friend of mine who lives in New
York City was telling me his impressions of a trip home --
the first in several years.
     My friend goes to his New York office daily in the
subway and is thus accustomed to rub elbows with about every
racial and national type on earth.
    "Do you know," he said, "the first time I rode in a
London tube I had the queerest feeling!  I couldn't place it
at first, but I soon found that I was looking at the people
in the car and comparing them with the people in the New
York subway.  And then I realized that all the people in
that tube car were very much alike -- and very much like me;
I can't tell you how queerly it hit me; I just can't forget
it."
    In that simple anecdote lies the secret of Britain's
stability.  In other words, even when Englishmen talk and
think differently they feel alike.  That is why foreign
students of English politics are always going wrong in their
prophecies.  How many times have we heard the statement from
some foreign observer that England was


                           

standing on the verge of revolution?  Our observer may have
made a careful study of the facts, have read all the
speeches, analyzed all the arguments, and proved quite
logically that such irreconcilable standpoints could not be
compromised.
     And yet the revolution just didn't come off!  After
everybody had had his say and had blown off steam, those
angry Englishmen instinctively realized that every one of
them was "very much alike -- and very much like me."
Whereupon a compromise adjustment was somehow evolved, the
crisis was ended, and the country went on its way.
    The stable, evolutionary character of English political
life is well illustrated by the present situation.  The
advent of a Labor government to power -- the first in
British history -- is certainly a momentous event.  But
there is nothing revolutionary about it.  When I was last 
in England I made a careful study of British political
conditions, and I was interested to observe the quiet,
temperate way in which political possibilities were
discussed and discounted.
    Talking informally with representative spokesmen of all
the political parties, I found that, when not talking for
publication, they differed singularly little in their
estimates and judgments.
    Although the election which swept the Conservatives from
power and resulted in a Labor cabinet was not yet on the
political horizon, most persons with whom I talked
considered a Labor government a distinct possibility within
a relatively short period.  Yet neither Conservatives nor
Liberals were really alarmed at the prospect.   A


                         

few die-hard Tories and one or two Liberals did express
frank pessimism, but the more general view was that the
Laborites weren't such a bad lot after all; that they might
make some foolish mistakes at the start, but would quickly
learn by experience; and that they would be held in check by
all sorts of moderating forces like the Liberal elements
within their own ranks, the permanent officials of the
government services, and the criticism of an alert and
intelligent public opinion.
    Equally instructive was the attitude of the Laborites
themselves.  In the first place, it must be remembered that
a large proportion of the leaders of the British Labor Party
are not workingmen in the ordinary sense of the word, many
of them being highly educated intellectuals drawn from the
upper and middle social classes.  But whether intellectuals
or hand workers, and however sharp their criticisms of
existing institutions, very few of them had even a
theoretical leaning toward violent revolutionary methods.
    I well remember a talk I had with one of the so-called
wild men of the Glasgow group -- the most radical wing of
the Labor Party in the last Parliament.  This radical M.P.
was a picturesque person -- a live wire, with keen gray
eyes, a great shock of hair, hat cocked aggressively to one
side of his head, and a Glasgow burr that you could cut with
a knife.  He was scathing in his criticism of the existing
economic order and eloquent concerning the "intolerable"
condition of the British working classes.  I broached the
possibility of revolutionary action.  He shook his head
emphatically.
    "No, no," he answered gravely; "I'm fundamentally
opposed to revolutionary methods; they defeat their


                           

own ends.  Violence, once employed wholesale, can't be
stopped.  Ye need ever more and more of it, and ruin is the
final result.  Of course," he added with a twinkle in his
eye, "I'm not saying I object to a bit o' rough stuff now
and then to throw a scare into the opposition.  But  -- no
real violence; no revolution."
    Perhaps even more significant was a talk I had with one
of the few Labor intellectuals who sympathize with the
Bolshevik doctrine of the revolutionary dictatorship of a
militant minority imposing its proletarian will on a nation.
Despite his intellectual leanings, however, he was as
convinced as every one else that a revolution in England was
impossible.  Not only were the upper and middle classes too
powerful, but the working classes were not inclined to such
action.  Leaders and masses alike, he said regretfully, were
too much imbued with what he rather scornfully termed
Liberal maxims like the will of the majority and the rights
of minorities to make a revolution even a remote possibility.
    This I believe to be an accurate statement of the case.
The British workingman is about the poorest material for a
red revolution that can be imagined.  Generally speaking, he
is a slow, steady fellow, content with moderate comforts and
averse to getting excited, especially over matters like
abstract theories and principles.  He might raise a riot if
you suddenly clapped an extra penny on his beer, but he
isn't a bit interested in fighting for a phrase like the
"dictatorship of the proletariat."  Of course there are
occasional exceptions to the rule, but I doubt if there are
more than a few thousand genuine revolutionists in the whole
of Great Britain.
    Among both Conservatives and Liberals the chief anxiety 


                           

over what a Labor government may do lies, not in the
sphere of domestic politics but concerning the non-white
portions of the empire.  The importance of this matter can
be appreciated when we remember that the entire white
population of the empire, including the British Isles and
all the self-governing dominions, is only about 60,000,000,
whereas the non-white population of the empire is over
400,000,000.  Some of the non-white portions of the empire
and its dependencies, like India and Egypt, to-day are
restless and difficult to govern.  Furthermore, the
relations between the non-white colonies and the white self-
governing dominions present a problem of increasing
seriousness.  The demand of the Indians to migrate freely
throughout the empire -- a demand absolutely rejected by the
white dominions -- is an especially ticklish matter.  It is
most emphatically loaded with dynamite and if roughly
handled might cause an explosion that would literally blow
the British Empire to bits.
    On these thorny problems Conservatives and Liberals hold
opinions which, however they may differ in details, are
basically the same.  The Labor Party, however, has in the
past taken quite another attitude, and has favored much
wider concessions to Indian and other demands for self-
government than the older British parties have thought wise
or possible.  Accordingly in both Conservative and Liberal
circles there exists a widespread apprehension that a Labor
government may make mistakes in imperial policy that can
never be rectified.  As a prominent Conservative said to me:
"My chief fear is that Labor in power may light a fire in
India that neither they nor we can afterward put out."
Whether this pessimism is justified


                           

remains to be seen.  It shows, however, the gravity of
Britain's imperial problems and the necessity for continuous
statesmanship in their handling if irreparable damage is to
be averted.
    More pressing even than imperial questions are the
problems arising from Britain's industrial situation.  We
have already seen how during the past century England made
herself the industrial heart of the world, thereby gaining
great wealth and increasing her population nearly 300 per
cent.  But we also saw that this vast population was
dependent for its very life upon precisely that same complex
and nicely adjusted system of manufacturing, commerce,
shipping, and banking which had brought it into being.
    We Americans can hardly realize what such a situation
means.  Our country is so large, our natural resources are
so vast, and our climates are so varied that we could get
along fairly well if all the rest of the world were to sink
beneath the ocean.  For Britain, however, such an event
would be the most frightful catastrophe.  Left to herself,
more than half her present population would literally have
to starve.  Britain's economic situation is thus
fundamentally artificial.  It is not a natural but a man-
made creation, which can be maintained only by tireless
foresight, energy, and skill.
    Furthermore, for many years past it has been getting
harder for Britain to keep up the pace.  There are two main
reasons for this: the increasing severity of foreign
competition and the steady growth of her own population.
When Britain became an industrial nation, about a century
ago, she had the field almost to herself, and for a


                           

long time she made something like monopoly profits.  But
little by little other nations began to take a hand in the
game, so that to keep her foreign trade against competition
Britain had to work harder, produce more efficiently, and
sell more cheaply.  That was the only way that she could
support her population.  Also, that population was rapidly
growing.  In other words, it was getting harder to feed
British mouths, and there were ever more British mouths to
feed.
    Britain's present economic difficulties are no recent
development.  They are of long standing.  As far back as the
year 1872 the balance of trade began to run against her;
that is, her exports fell below her imports.  And the
balance of trade has continued to run pretty steadily
against her ever since.  Of course, Britain has covered the
balance by "invisible exports" like shipping services,
banking profits, and returns of capital invested abroad.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that it became increasingly
difficult to support her population.
    As a matter of fact, not all her population was properly
supported.  The widespread poverty in England's great cities
and industrial centres has long been proverbial, and
England's poor consisted not merely of her degenerate pauper
elements, who were practically unemployable, but also of
many persons able and willing to work yet unable to find
work, or able to find it only part of the time.  The result
was a vast mass of people underfed, living from hand to
mouth, and dependent upon public or private charity.  Their
numbers were disclosed during the war, when Britain's man
power was systematically examined by draft boards to
determine their physical fitness for military


                           

service.  The amount of physical unfitness due, not to
inborn degeneracy, but to poor living conditions, which
those examinations disclosed was far greater than had been
previously imagined.
    Of course, during the war living conditions among the
poor were much improved.  Millions of men went off to fight,
while every able-bodied man and woman left at home was sure
of a job to keep Britain's war machine supplied.  The
problem of unemployment virtually disappeared.  But this was
an artificial, unhealthy situation which could not last and
which was bound to be followed by an acute reaction.
Britain was mortgaging her future by huge taxes and loans
which would have to be repaid.  The war once over, back came
the millions of soldiers demanding jobs, while at the same
time the war boom collapsed in that great industrial
depression which hit not only England but the whole world as
well.  With markets everywhere disorganized, and with some
of her best customers, like Germany and Russia, more or less
out of business, Britain's foreign trade was hit a body blow
and her whole industrial life slowed down.  Once more the
spectre of unemployment raised its ugly head.  To avert
wholesale semistarvation, the British Government
supplemented existing measures of poor relief by a great
system of unemployment insurance.  The need for such action
is shown by the numbers of persons applying for assistance.
Since the year 1920, when the system went into effect,
averages of from 1,000,000 to 1,800,000 persons have been
assisted as totally unemployed, while the number of persons
assisted as being only partially employed has averaged about
500,000.  These people, be it remembered, are


                           

genuine employables, able to work if work can be found.  In
addition to them is the host of unemployables -- the
physically unfit, mentally defective and degenerate elements
who are supported by public or private charity.
    Such is Britain's unemployment problem, and it is
difficult to see how any political action can really solve
it.  Wise measures can better it somewhat, while unwise
measures can make it much worse.  But the cure -- if cure
there be -- lies outside Britain, in the general world
situation.  The hard fact is that, as things now are,
Britain's industry and trade cannot support her population,
which continues to grow and thus makes the problem more and
more difficult.
    Britain's population is increasing between 300,000 and
400,000 a year.  How are these new mouths to be fed?  Many
Englishmen advocate wholesale emigration to the dominions.
Great efforts have been made and much money spent to this
end.  And yet the annual quota of British emigrants to all
parts of the world averages less than 200,000.  Thus not
even the annual increase of population is taken care of.
But under present world conditions Britain probably has at
least 5,000,000 more people than can be supported in
reasonable comfort.  Here, truly, is a problem that will
test British statesmanship to the full.
    It is assuredly one of the great motives in British
foreign policy.  Determined as she is to build up her
foreign trade, Britain feels it absolutely necessary to
restore stability and prosperity to the Continent of Europe.
This explains British policy toward Germany and Russia.


                           

It likewise explains in great measure her policy toward
France, which most Englishmen regard as blocking the road to
Europe's economic recovery.
    It is useless for Frenchmen to talk to Englishmen about
the possible future political dangers that British policy
may evolve.  The present economic motive is so pressing that
most Englishmen are willing to take the political risks that
may be involved.  A prominent French politician hit this off
very well when he told me about a conversation he had had
with a British cabinet minister not long after the war.  The
Frenchman asked the minister if he did not think England was
playing a dangerous game in trying to build up Germany and
Russia -- the two powers which she had most feared in the
past -- and pointed out several unpleasant political
possibilities.
    "Well," replied the Englishman, "all you say may be
true, and if it turns out that way we may have to fight 'em
ten years hence.  But now we must trade and make money."
    It is very easy to label this sort of thing as short-
sighted and to call the English a nation of shopkeepers and
similar unpleasant things.  That, in fact, was the way my
French acquaintance felt, and he told the anecdote I have
just narrated to prove his point.  To me, however, it proved
something quite different -- namely, British coolness and
common sense.  Englishmen rarely waste time spinning
elaborate logical theories of what may happen in the future.
Instead, they look at what is happening in the present, see
what is amiss, get after it, and keep their eye on the ball.
That is why, in the long run, they usually come out on top.


                           

    It is just these qualities of practical common sense and
dislike of theorizing that cause the English to be so
persistently misjudged by their more logical and
argumentative Continental neighbors.  Except when really
stirred, the Englishman is apt to draw into his shell and to
become aloof and inarticulate.  Not realizing how Englishmen
are thinking and working beneath the casual exterior of
British life, Continentals frequently underrate them and may
even come to think England decadent.  That is what happened
with the Germans before the war, and when I was recently in
Europe I found a distinct tendency of the same sort among
Frenchmen and Italians.  I discussed this point at length
with one of the most thoughtful of England's publicists,
having specially in mind the growing misunderstanding
between French and British public opinion.   My friend
considered that the way many Frenchmen were belittling
England was perhaps the most serious aspect of the whole
situation.
    "The British people," said he, "are grappling with their
problems and are bearing their burdens with unflinching grit
and determination.  This indomitable spirit is the basic
trait of the English people.  It also shows what great
reserves of energy and poise are latent within them, though
this is never visible except in crises, because the English
are ordinarily so inarticulate and so self-repressed.  That
is why Continentals are continually coming to believe
England decadent.  Germany made that mistake a short time
ago.  Well, perhaps that is not surprising, because England
had not been put to the test for one hundred years.  But
here is the extraordinary fact: people on the Continent are
beginning to say just 


                           

the same things to-day, despite the lesson of the late war.
And therein lies a real danger, because it may lead such
people -- notably in France -- to despise England and
challenge her in what she regards as life-and-death matters.
And then Britain will give the Continent another surprise."
    Grit and determination are, indeed, the underlying
traits of the British people.  Those traits do not reveal
themselves fully to the passing traveller, for the
Englishman is at once reserved and casual before strangers.
But after you have been in England a while and have got a
bit below the surface, you will be impressed by the calm
resolution with which the English are facing their problems
and bearing their burdens.  The problems are many; the
burdens are heavy.  England was hard hit by the war.  Her
people are frightfully taxed and her industrial life is
still somewhat out of gear.  The working classes are haunted
by the spectre of unemployment, while the upper and middle
classes have lost much of their old prosperity.  Britain is,
in fact, going through a period of profound readjustment --
never a pleasant experience -- and Englishmen admit frankly
that the process will be hard and long.  Yet practically all
Englishmen are firmly convinced that Britain will win
through.
    One of the points on which British public opinion is
unusually solid is the necessity of good relations with
America.  That does not mean that the English all cordially
like us.  Of course many Englishmen do, but others cordially
dislike us, while still others know almost nothing about us,
their chief acquaintance with things American being derived
from the omnipresent American moving


                           

picture, which usually presents either a distortion or a
caricature of American life.
    And yet, in the larger sense, all this matters very
little.  To judge Anglo-American relations on a basis of
individual likes and dislikes -- as is too often done -- is
a shortsighted and rather silly attitude that quite
overlooks the basic realities of the case.  The really
important thing is that, though some Englishmen may like and
others may dislike Americans, practically all Englishmen are
convinced that Britain must be on good terms with America.
That is one of the corner-stones of British foreign policy.
    Anglo-American relations are, indeed, inspired by a
happy blend of sentiment and self-interest, which is the
best guaranty for their stability.  As peoples, we may
sometimes rub each other the wrong way; but we both feel
instinctively that we are kindred in blood and basic ideals.
As nations, we may develop differences in policy; yet we
both know that such differences are vastly outweighed by the
interests we have in common.  We both realize profoundly
that real enmity between us would be a hideous disaster
which might well spell our common undoing.  This feeling is
particularly keen in the dominions of the British Empire --
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the rest.  The dominions
know that conflict in the English-speaking world would be
for them the worst of disasters.  They are thus added links
in the chain of friendship between Britain and America.
    All signs, therefore, point to lasting concord and
growing co-operation between the English-speaking peoples.
Disagreements may arise, but they will be settled by the
good sense and temperate reasonableness which characterize 


                           

both stocks.  Not for nothing are we both mainly Nordic in 
blood!  The intelligence and self-control inborn in the 
Nordic race can be trusted to give us sober second thoughts 
and to guard us against being swept off our feet by gusts 
of passion which might blind us to our larger interests.  
America and Britain will never again be foes; and so far as 
anything can be predicted, they seem destined to become 
steadily better friends.

Back to Chapter III -- The Nordic North
Patrick Henry On-Line?