o reason why we should be impolite to other nations. The
fact is, being almost impervious to criticism ourselves, we naturally
find it difficult to avoid wounding the feelings of a people which is
particularly sensitive in that respect."

"Very well," replies the American. "Now, we want to put this right,
don't we?"

"We do," replies the other, with quite un-British enthusiasm. "No one
who has spent any time as a visitor to this country could help----"

"Why then, tell me," interpolates the other, "what is at the back of
your country's present resentful attitude toward America?"

The Briton ponders.

"Didn't someone once say," he replies at last, "that 'he that is not
for us is against us?' That seems to sum up the situation. We on our
side are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the freedom of the
world. We know that you are not against us; still, considering the
sacredness of our cause, and the monstrous means by which the Boche is
seeking to further his, we feel that you have not stood for us so out
and out as you might. Only the other day your Government announced
that in their opinion it was time that both sides stated plainly what
they were fighting for! Now----"

The other checks him.

"Don't you go mixing up the officially neutral American Government,"
he says, "with the American people, or the American people with the
inhabitants of America. In many districts of America, the balance of
power lies with people who have only recently entered the country, and
who have not yet become absorbed into the American people. As for our
present Government, it was put into power mainly by the people of the
West--people to whom the War has not come home in any way--and the
Government, having to consider the wishes of the majority, naturally
carries out the instructions on its ticket. That is how I, as an
average American, sense the situation. However, that is not the
point. Listen!

"You say that America has not helped you very much? Let us consider
the ways in which America _could_ have helped. Military aid? Well, of
course that is out of the question so long as we remain neutral, as we
agreed just now we certainly ought to remain. Still, there are more
than twenty-five thousand American citizens serving in the Allied
Armies to-day. Did you realize that?"

"I did not," says the Briton, interested.

"Well, it is true. There are battalions in the Canadian Army composed
almost entirely of men from the United S