European Powers, which England
does not in her heart serenely believe herself quite competent to deal
with. British pride has grown no less in the last three hundred years:

"Come the four corners of the World in arms
And we shall shock them."

Americans should disabuse themselves finally of the idea that if England
desires an alliance with the United States it is because she has any
fear that she may need help against any other enemy. Englishmen are too
well satisfied with themselves for that (with precisely the same kind of
self-satisfaction as the United States suffers from), and much too
confident that, in whatever may arise, it will be the other fellow who
will need help. But if England has no misgiving as to her ability to
take care of herself when trouble comes, she is far from being ashamed
to say that she would infinitely prefer that trouble should not come,
either to her or to another, and she would join--oh, so gladly!--with
the United States (as for a partial attainment of the same end she has
already joined with France on the one hand and with Japan on the other)
to make sure that it should never come. Has the United States any right
to refuse to enter into such an alliance--an alliance which would not be
entangling, but which would make entanglements impossible?

At Christmas time in 1906, the following suggestion was made in the
London correspondence of an American paper[15:1]:

"The new ideals which mankind has set before itself, the infinitely
larger enlightenment and education of the masses, the desperate struggle
which every civilised people is waging against all forms of social
suffering and vice within itself, the mere complexity of modern commerce
with its all-absorbing interest--these things all cry aloud for peace.
War does not belong to this phase of civilisation. Least of all can it
have any appeal to the two peoples in whom the spirit of the Twentieth
Century is most manifest. Of all peoples, Great Britain and the United
States have most cause to desire peace.

"There should be a Christmas message sent from the White House which
should run something like this:

"TO HIS MAJESTY KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH:

"To your majesty, to her majesty the Queen, and to the people
of the British empire, I desire to express the best wishes of
myself and of the people of the United States. At the same
time, I wish to assure your majesty that you will have both
the