It Britain reads correctly the portent of these two laws she will know that they are manifestations of that resentment which the American people has been accumulating against Europe since the world war. Britain should know, too, that Americans attribute to her the inspiration of and the leadership in what they call a designed campaign to belittle America's contribution to the victory in order that the war debts might be cancelled or repudiated, great cancellation campaign of 1926.
It was disillusioning and maddening to American public opinion. And since that time the taste of victory fall that America sought) has soured, and such shibboleths as "our heroic allies" and "a world safe for democracy" have become mockeries in the United States. No class in the nation has been more embittered than that of the ex-Service men, 2,000,000 of whom were in France.
It is doubtful if the American public ever took seriously the "common front" cry during the war. At no stage between 1914 and 1917 was America really fearful of what a victory by Germany might mean to her, Not only was the ocean between ihe two countries but America believed that, whatever course a possible war with Germany might take, she would' win decisively. (It is much-stressed history over here that America has never been defeated a war.)
Most Americans today understand that the United States went into the war because Germany had molested her shipping. and in so doing had harmed her nationals, which was the reason why the United States went to war with Britain in 1812. Some Americans believe that a plot of the fiscal agents of the Allies and the munition makers brought about her entrance in 1917. In any event, America, angry and disillusioned, has contrived by law to make it impossible that defence of her commerce or the sale of munitions shall again be the cause of her going into a European war.
The common American opinion is epitomized in these words spoken ten years ago by Mr, Garrard Winston, a lawyer of repute, an officer during the war, and a former Under-Secretary of the Treasury: "Once the war was over, the United States was not so much thanked for going in as blamed for going in late. So with the war debts—we might not be so much praised for cancellation as criticised for being so slow about it."
Because British officialdom, Press and publicists took the lead in the movement for cancellation, virtually all Americans think of the war debts solely in the terms of Britain's debt.
Americans do not realize, as perhaps the British themselves do not, that the British Government has a much cleaner slate than the Governments of Italy and France. Nine out of ten Americans would be surprised at the proof that whereas Britain borrowed £1,000,000,000 and repaid £400,000,000, France has repaid onl: £100,000,000 of £800,000,000 borrow-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.