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For several months it has been the pleasant duty of the writer of the following deliverance to travel around the United States, lecturing upon sundry War topics to indulgent American audiences. No one—least of all a parochial Briton—can engage upon such an enterprise for long without beginning to realize and admire the average American's amazing instinct for public affairs, and the quickness and vitality with which he fastens on and investigates every topic of live interest. Naturally, the overs

Let us take this welter of interrogation categorically, and endeavour to frame such answers as would occur to the average Briton to-day. But first of all, let it be remembered that the average Briton of to-day is not the average Briton of yesterday. Three years ago he was a prosperous, comfortable, thoroughly insular Philistine. He took a proprietary interest in the British Empire, and paid a munificent salary to the Army and Navy for looking after it. There his Imperial responsibilities ceased.

"Do I realize that you are pro-Ally over here? Well, somehow I have always felt it, but now I know it. When I get home I shall rub that fact into everyone I meet. What our people at home don't grasp is the fact that America is inhabited by two distinct races—Americans, and others. The others appear to me—mind you, I'm only giving you a personal impression—to consist either of alien immigrants who have not yet absorbed their new nationality, or professional anti-Ally propagandists, or people of m

So the average Briton and the average American retire to a secluded spot, and "get together." The American repeats his question: "Why can't your people over there be a bit kinder? Why can't you consider our feelings a bit more? You haven't been over and above polite to us of late—or indeed at any time." "No," admits the Briton thoughtfully, "I suppose we have not. Politeness is not exactly our strong suit. In my country we are not even polite to one another!" (Try as he will, he cannot help sayi

The only fact of importance which fails to emerge with sufficient clearness from the foregoing conversation is the fact—possibly the courteous American suppressed it from motives of delicacy—that America is by comparison more pro-Ally than pro-British. The fact is, the American is on the side of right and justice in this War, and earnestly desires to see the Allied cause prevail; but he has a sub-conscious aversion to seeing slow-witted, self-satisfied John Bull collect yet another scalp. Americ

Therefore, whenever a true American and a true Briton get together, let them hold an international symposium of their own. If it were not for the unfortunate interposition of the Atlantic Ocean, this interview would be extended, with proportional profit, to the greatest symposium the world has ever seen. Meanwhile, we will make shift with a company of two. The following counsel is respectfully offered to the participants in the debate. Let the Briton remember:— 1. Remember you are talking to a f

Practically every one in this world improves on closer acquaintance. The people with whom we utterly fail to agree are those with whom we never get into close touch. Individual Americans and Britons, when they get together in one country or the other, usually develope a genuine mutual liking. As nations, however, their attitude to one another is too often a distant attitude—a distance of some three thousand miles, or the exact width of the Atlantic Ocean—and ranges from a lofty tolerance in good