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Show American Patience Tried The friendship of the United States is one of the greatest assets of the British, according 'o Sir Gilbert Parker, who in the course of a recent interview had much praise for the American government gov-ernment and the policy it has adopted in the present war. He said in part: "There has never been a war in modern times when a neutral nation did not challenge a belligerent nation because cf its interference with neutral rights. The United States has certainly cer-tainly been greatly tried by our orders .n council. There has been, indeed, a series of difficulties. In this business of neutral rights the American people have been called the pedants. There may be pedants among them, but beneath all is a deep-seated respect for international law, for the keeping of treaties, for a perfect observance of the rules of civilization. "From the beginning I have thought that the United States took a course almost inevitable in her position. Here is a conglomerate population. popu-lation. The war was a European business. What did we do in 1S70 when France, our then friend, was set upon by Germany? The American people loathe war; so far they have stood out; only an overpowering sense of duty would drive them into war. "We have sensationalized our own shortcomings; shortcom-ings; we have overemphasized our own stolidity; we have had our family j-.rs in public; we have, to paraphrase a mordant epigram, wheeled our council table into the street apparently indifferent indiffer-ent tr tw -.-:c like the Unit ed States were being influenced against us by evidence provided by ourselves. "They are not averse to their government bringing pressure to bear upon Great Britain in regard to the blockade and all the questions involved in it; but war against Great Britain has never been in their minds, while at the same time there were circumstances which might very easily have drawn them into war with Germany after the sinking of the Lusitania. They have not forgotten Manila and what the British fleet did there, in aid of Admiral Dewey, to defeat German purposes against the United States. "I think the governments of both countries have preserved the very highest traditions of diplomacy. di-plomacy. Never has diplomatic correspondence been maintained on a higher level, and never the firm tiling said with greater good feeling on both sides. "We have tried our friends in the United States greatly; we have tested their confidence in us to the full. "We shall do well to remember that the people of the United States must, sooner or later, be a vast controlling factor in the destinies of modern mod-ern nations. There is the population; there is the. wealth: there is the character. The Civil war showed what that character is; when an occasion again sets the test, it will employ itself to the supreme advantage of the world. It will be well for us. while preserving principle, to remember that friendship with the United States is one of the greatest assets in this time of our trouble and poignant endeavor." |