May 23, 19 1 8 
Land & Water 
posals upon lines of the famous letter, directly involve the 
fall of this country ; not of France or Italy, but of England. 
Of all the marvels of the great war none is more marvellous 
than the blindness of those who fail to perceive so glaring a 
danger when it stares them in the face. It is a prodigy 
which can only be explained by the peculiar history of 
Victorian England with its isolation from the world, its 
extraordinary illusions, its singular domestic peace and 
happiness, and, above all, its self-confidence. But even if 
we regard the survival of those illusions as the explanation 
of certain modern follies, those follies remain enormous. 
There are actually people writing and speaking to-day as 
though the acceptation of such terms, not by France, mark 
you, whom they actually benefit, but by Britain, would 
have been statesmanlike ! 
Of two allies, one, Britain, dependent upon sea-borne 
commerce, the commercial rival of the chief enemy, the 
power chiefly interested in Eastern affairs, and possessed of an 
empire for which the East and communications to it are life 
and death, was to be left without any results from the war !' 
Its commercial rival was to remain vmdefeated ; the Eastern 
Mediterranean and all the ways to Asia were to be at the 
mercy of the Central Empires ! A iiew code of maritime 
warfare (or murder), which had destroyed the security of 
sea-born6 commerce, and therefore of the mere food by 
which tlie English remained physically alive, was to subsist 
unchastised and even unreproved ! 
Such would have been the situation of Britain if peace 
had resulted upon the lines f>f the Emperor of Austria's 
letter. 
The other ally, France, would indeed have had remaining 
before it an undefeated enemy, but ,the one prime national 
demand, the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, would have 
been satisfied. The great source of iron supply in Europe 
would have been acquired by France. The war would have 
tenninated with a sense in France if not of victory, at least 
not of defeat ; not one of the conditions thus threatening 
Britain need have concerned the totally different necessities 
of a continental people. 
Happily, there was no question of France listening to such 
proposals, for they were nothing more nor less than the 
betrayal of Britain. But the stupefpng thing is that conceit, 
or the habit of security, or both combined, should have led 
men who would have been ruined even in their private 
possessions by such a peace (let alone in their national pride) 
to regret or half-regret that it did not come ! 
There is only one melancholy consolation connected with 
such a thought, and this is that ineptitude of such a sort 
has not much longer to live. The war has done un- 
bounded evil, but it has also done some good if it has killed, 
as surely it is killing, the state of mind which makes such 
follies possible. 
An undefeated Prussia is ultimately the end of England, 
and, in particular, is it the end of fortune and security for 
that silly, comfortable, belated handful from whom these 
proposals come. A Prussia not only undefeated, but left 
specially strong against England alone and allowed to buy 
off her allies by special sacrifices to them alone is the speedy 
and immediate end of England. What room is there for 
argument in a thing so plain ? 
British- American 
ilr. Arthur Page, the ivrt'cr of this article, is the son 
of the. United Stales Ambassador in London and one of 
the best-knoitn publicists in America. 'He sucfeedcd his 
father in the editorial chair of the " World's Work " of 
New York, which the latter had left to be Ambassador 
in this country. 
Mr. Page not only explains clearly xvhy the United 
States, in defence of its ideals, "had to stand beside the 
armies of many nations now fighting in the Old World 
the great battle of human freedom," to use the King's 
historic language but he also foreshadows how after victory 
is won, America and the British Empire may still work 
together wholeheartedly in the same cause. 
GREAT BRITAIN and the United States are now 
undergoing the fourth great crisis in their rela- 
tions with each other. Curiously enough, these 
serious crises do not occur over the subjects 
upon which the two countries do not agree, but 
arise from the recurrent forgetfulness of the one all-important 
subject upon which tha two people most emphatically do agree. 
In the great crises which have confronted the two countries 
in their relations with each other in the last 140 years, the 
main question has not "been either's advantage t6 the detri- 
ment of the other, but how rapidly the two nations acted on 
the realisation that the continued existence of both depended 
upon their close co-operation. When I speak of existence, 
I mean existence as free, self-governing nations, for in neither 
country do we believe a lesser existence than this worth 
having. The most fatal thing which could happen to either 
country would be to lose its political liberty. The serious 
crises which have confronted the two countries have been 
threats against this common heritage. 
The first threat occurred in 1802-3. Napoleon had 
Marslial Victor Perrin all prepared with an army and a fleet 
ready to sail for Louisiana to re-establish despotic power in 
Nortli America. If he had succeeded in this, the free institu- 
tions of the L'nited States and Canada would have been 
continuously menaced by an immediate proximity of a most 
despotic and aggressive neighbour. This American expedi- 
tion was one step in Napoleorf's plan of world empire, which 
included, of course, the destruction of Great Britain, even as 
Chancellor Michaelis has informed us the present German 
plan does. 
This crisis was met with great foresight and success. 
Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. He 
was of a pacific nature, but ever ready to fight for free institu- 
tions. The menace of Napoleon's plan was amply apparent 
to him. The result was a co-operative arrangement made 
with Great Britain early enough to prevent war. Addington, 
who was then the British Prime Minister, promised the 
1 
Relations: By Arthur Page 
American Minister, Rufus King, that if Napoleon sent an 
army to America the British Fleet would take and hold 
New Orleans for the United States. Jefferson sent James 
Monroe to Paris to tell Napoleon that the United States 
would buy Louisiana, which he had just forced Spain to 
give to him. Napoleon, knowing the alternative if he refused 
to sell, accepted the offer because, as he said, he did not 
often have a chance to sell what he would otherwise have 
had taken from him. 
The co-operation between Great Britain and the United 
States was sufficiently foresighted to prevent Napoleon's 
attack on free institutions in America. If the co-operation 
had continued, it would have prevented the war of 1812. 
It was at that time the most vital interest of the United 
States that Napoleon should not drive every Liberal govern- 
ment out of Europe, and particularly that he should not 
defeat the British Navy, for had he done so the United States 
would have been the only free government left in the world, 
and it could hardly have maintained itself against an auto- 
cratic Europe, with many times its population and war- 
making resources; and with command of the sea. It was, 
likewise, of the greatest importance to Great Britain not to 
have any more enemies than she could help while engaged 
in the life and death struggle with Napoleon. The states- 
manship which allowed the war of 1812 to occur against the 
major interests of both countries is a good example of the 
kind of foreign policy to avoid. 
The next crisis was in 1823. This one, like the crisis of 
1803, was handled with foresight and without bloodshed. 
The Holy Alliance, as every one knows, planned to exter- 
minate Liberal government in South America as a step towards 
getting rid of it all over the world. James Monroe, who in 
1803 had gone to Paris to buy Louisiana for Jefferson, was 
President of the United States. George Canning, as British 
Foreign Minister, followed the precedent set by Addington. 
When Canning's proposal to join the force of the British 
Fleet to the armed resistance which America was prepared 
to offer to the plans of the Holy Alliance reached Monroe, 
he sent to his old chief Jefferson, then in retirement, for 
advice. The advice he got, which sounds uncannily as if 
it were written now, w;is as follows : 
Dear Sir, Monticello, October 23rd, 1S23.' 
The question presented by tlic letter you have sent me 
is the most momentous which has ever been offered to my 
contemplation since that of independence that made us a 
nation ; this sets our compass, and points the course which 
we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on our 
view, and never could we embark on it under circumstances 
more auspicious. 
Our first and fundamental maxim should be: Never to 
entangle o\]r.selves in the broils of Europe ; our secoml : 
