a
juster appreciation of the British character and Empire.

It is in America, doubtless, that missionary work is most needed,
inasmuch as all England would at any minute welcome an American alliance
with enthusiasm; while in the United States any public suggestion of
such an alliance never fails to provoke immediate and vehement protest.
It is true that that protest issues primarily from the Irish and German
elements; and it may seem absurd that the American people as a whole
should suffer itself to be swayed in a matter of so national a character
by a minority which is not only comparatively unimportant in numbers,
but which the true American majority regards with some irritability as
distinctly alien.

There are a large number of constituencies in the United States,
however, where the Irish and German votes, individually or in
combination, hold the balance of power in the electorate, and not only
must many individual members of Congress hesitate to antagonise so
influential a section of their constituents, but it is even questionable
whether the united and harmonious action of those two elements might
not, under certain conditions, be able to unseat a sufficient number of
such individual members as to change the political complexion of one or
both of the Houses of Congress, and even, in a close election, of the
Administration itself. Nor is it necessary to repeat again that when the
anti-British outcry is raised, though primarily by a minority and an
alien minority, it finds a response in the breasts of a vast number of
good Americans in whom the traditional dislike of England, though
latent, still persists solely by reason of misapprehension and
misunderstandings. Therefore it is that so many of the best Americans,
who in their hearts know well how desirable an alliance with England
would be, are content to deprecate its discussion and to say that things
are well enough as they are; though again I say that things are never
well enough so long as they might be better. However desirable such an
alliance may be, however much to the benefit of the nation, it would,
they say, be bad politics to bring it forward as a party question. And
to bring it forward without its becoming from the outset a party
question would be plainly impossible.

* * * * *

But would it be bad politics? Can it ever, in the long run, be bad
politics to champion any cause which is great and good? It might be that