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Great Britain and America. He was, apparently, a little sympathetic towards the aims of the Southern States. But he admired the Northern soldiers, their self-denial, their patriotism. He admired the philosophical spirit in which politicians at Washington said: 'We are splitting into pieces and of course that is a gain to you. Take another cigar.' He came back to England with 'faith in the Northern army,' although he thought that the Gulf States would probably be able to maintain their secession. It is not better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven... The hell to which I allude is the sad position of a low and debased nation. Such, I think, will be the fate of the Gulf States, if they succeed in obtaining secession.' His book was published in 1862.

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Mr Freeman, one of the most widely read of historians, and a man who held very strong opinions, had written a 'History of Federal Government from the Foundation of the Achæan League to the Disruption of the United States.' The first volume, which traced Federal Government down to 145 B.C., appeared in 1863. No further volume was published. In 1882 he visited the United States, of which he was a great admirer. Fond of taking wide views of every subject with which he dealt, interested especially in tracing the continuity of historical forces, he stoutly maintained in his robust way that the Americans were merely Britons transplanted on the other side of the Atlantic. It was, in his view, owing to the fact that the British and Americans were really so similar, that the two nations were always comparing each other and finding differences.

'It is when things are very much alike that we most diligently mark the points in which they are not alike. Take, for instance, the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The main features in the constitution and customs of the two are so closely alike to one another, and so utterly unlike those of any other universities in the world, that there is a certain pleasure in tracing out the endless minute points in which they differ. So it is between England and America' ('Some Impressions of the United States').

Mr Freeman certainly appears to have felt himself at home in the United States. On landing at New York, his first impression was, 'How like England!' On re

turning to Liverpool his first feeling was, 'How like America!' In the interval he had associated for months with people whom he found to be fundamentally English -'more English, it may be, sometimes, than the kinsfolk whom they left behind in their older home.' Freeman's 'Impressions' were published in 1883.

Other British men of letters followed Freeman— Herbert Spencer, Matthew Arnold, and, in particular, James Bryce, at once the most sympathetic and the most discriminating of British observers. No praise is too high to be given to the author of the 'The American Commonwealth' as the interpreter of the United States to the British public, and even as, in a sense, the interpreter of the American public to itself. That great work of social and constitutional appreciation could only have been written by a man who was not, in essentials, a foreigner. A foreigner can write a profound philosophic description as Alexis de Tocqueville did of America, but he cannot write a flesh-and-blood description which the people described will recognise as true, balanced, fair, normal. This is what Bryce did. His book was first published in 1888. A masterly treatise from the American side is 'The Government of England,' by Mr Lowell, the President of Harvard, published in 1908.

The diplomatic relations of Great Britain and the United States prove how underlying community of sentiment and understanding can eliminate prejudice and solve serious disputes. Sir Charles Vaughan, Lord Lyons (in spite of the Civil War), Lord Pauncefote, Lord Bryce, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, all had the happiest of personal relations in Washington. Their record of irritating and often profoundly serious disputes settled by negotiation bears witness to their diplomatic usefulness as well as to their social success. In Great Britain Charles Francis Adams, James Russell Lowell, John Hay, Whitelaw Reid, Walter Hines Page were able to establish social and diplomatic connexions which were of incalculable service to the cause of peace in both countries.

The position of Charles Francis Adams, Minister to the Court of St James during the Civil War, was the most difficult of all American diplomatists. He found

prejudice against him in London. He may also have brought some prejudice of his own with him. His son, in 'The Education of Henry Adams,' says:

"Thanks to certain family associations, Charles Francis Adams naturally looked on all British Ministers as enemies; the only public occupation of all Adamses for a hundred and fifty years at least, in their brief intervals of quarrelling with State Street, had been to quarrel with Downing Street.

But the kind of reception given by British society to Minister Adams was quite different from that accorded to foreign diplomatists. He was treated by society as one of themselves, in opposition it is true, but still as, socially, a friend or almost a countryman, just as Liberal politicians were regarded by their Conservative opponents:

'Little by little, in private, society took the habit of accepting him, not so much as a diplomat, but rather as a member of opposition, or an eminent counsel retained for a foreign Government. He was to be received and considered; to be cordially treated as, by birth and manners, one of themselves. This curiously English way of getting behind a stupidity gave the Minister every possible advantage over a European diplomat. Barriers of race, language, birth, habit, ceased to exist. Diplomacy held diplomats apart in order to save Governments, but Earl Russell could not hold Mr Adams apart. He was undistinguishable from a Londoner. In society few Londoners were so widely at home. None had such a double personality and corresponding double weight.'

Obviously, in London, Charles Francis Adams was among congenial people. And yet nobody could have fought harder for the rights of his country than he did.

Because he is moving in an atmosphere which is not merely congenial but also akin to his own, an American Ambassador in London often establishes delightful relations with the British Ministers. On this account they have sometimes been criticised in their own country as if they were sacrificing the influence of the United States. Henry Adams, in the description of his father's position quoted ahove, states that the unique social position of the American diplomatist was a distinct advantage to his country. John Hay at the end of the century

was also criticised for being 'pro-English,' whereas, he says—with a little humorous exaggeration-all that he had done was to wring concessions out of Great Britain and to give nothing in return. To-day the work of Walter Hines Page is exposed to similar criticism.

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Page had received the same kind of upbringing as thousands of other cultivated Southerners. He had been at a classical university; he had taught; he had then taken up the career of a journalist. As editor of the • Atlantic Monthly,' and afterwards of the World's Work,' he had done valuable literary work. He had a respect for English history, and English public men; but he came to his diplomatic post in London in 1913 with the prepossession that the Old World was past its best. The future lay with the American nation and he was tenacious of their rights.

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From the moment that he came to London Page was attracted by British society, was at the same time aroused to keen criticism, and was also officially involved in a stubborn defence of his country's interests. His first ceremonial interview-in anticipation rather formidable-was with the King. It took place simply enough. Page for a few minutes afterwards conversed about the laborious and wearing office of President of the United States with Queen Mary. The Queen alluded to the position of King as an office. I am hoping that office will not kill the King,' she said. In Cabinet circles he recognised the type of public men which was his ideal for the United States: gently bred, high-minded, physically fit, intellectually cultivated, patriotic.' The rich families of Great Britain had habits which prevailed, although not nearly to the same extent, in America. When they make their money, they stop money-making and cultivate their own minds and their gardens and entertain their friends and do all the high arts of living -to perfection.' Page accepted the kinship of the British and American race simply as part of the nature of things -it was too obvious to be noticed. There was not merely kinship, there was fundamental goodwill. Leadership lay with the English-speaking people, but (in Page's view) it was passing to the American part of it. The vital question was, wrote Page to Wilson (Oct. 25, 1913): 'What are we going to do with the leadership of the

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world presently when it clearly falls into our hands? And how can we use the English for the highest uses of democracy?'

This idea that sooner or later the British and Americans would again be joined together, although, this time, with the Americans as the predominant partner-recurs persistently in Page's correspondence. The English and the whole English world are ours, if we have the courtesy to take them-fleet and trade and all; and we go on pretending we are afraid of “entangling alliances." What about disentangling alliances?' The language is exaggerated, as so often happens in familiar correspondence or conversation; but the idea is plain and convincing-that the English-speaking peoples have a common social and historical background, a spiritual solidarity, which transcends political divisions.

Page's work in Britain during the War is now known to every one through the publication of his letters, surely some of the most moving correspondence that was ever penned. At the moment controversy centres in the United States over the question of the neutrality of his attitude, and adherence to Wilson's views. Whatever be the verdict of historians on this point, on one other there is no doubt that he felt the call of friendship between Great Britain and America in the strongest degree. The touching brief inscription on his memorial stone in Westminster Abbey truly testifies to this. Page's sympathy, as Lord Grey points out in 'TwentyFive Years,' was due to the fact that he saw the American ideals expressed in Great Britain's attitude to the War.

It is often assumed that the friendship or feeling of kinship between Great Britain and the United States is a matter of importance chiefly to Great Britain. The opposite view is put forward strongly by Mr George Harvey, former American Ambassador to the Court of St James, in 'The North American Review' (December 1925):

'No one country has ever had so huge a stake in another as the United States has to-day in Great Britain. It was a colossal undertaking on the part of England to pledge payment in gold of sums aggregating one-half of our great national debt. But appreciation of even that magnificent

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