Anglophobia

“ It is the way in this country to laugh at the German Hausfrau, and pity her for a drudge; and it is the way with many Germans to talk as if all Englishwomen were pleasure loving and incompetent. The less people know of a foreign nation the greater nonsense they talk in general, and the more cocksure they are about their own opinions. A year ago, when I was in Germany, I asked a friend I could trust if there really was much Anglophobia abroad except in the newspapers. ”

“ ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE
If one be a sufferer from anglophobia, a tour of the globe by conventional paths may produce rather more irritation than is good for man—to such a traveler the British Empire is a chronic nightmare, for the red flag is everywhere. Every harbor seems choked with English shipping, if not guarded by a British warship; and Tommy Atkins is the first man met ashore. If your prejudice against Great Britain be unjustly conceived, you will probably revise your judgment before the earth is half circled ”

“ British Canadians love a mother-country which has never wilfully given them cause for complaint, and they take hostility to her as hostility to them.
It is only with genuine Anglophobia that we deal. There are two spurious varieties, about which nothing can or need be said. One is the Anglophobia put on to win the Irish vote. The governments of Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, France, of all the European countries, in short, in which there are disunionist, rebellious, or ultra-revolutionary forces at work, have in their turn to resort to measures of repression ”

“ Don’t you people over home understand that these Germans, from the Kaiser to the lowest peasant, are all in such an exalted state of Anglophobia that they regard everyone with distrust, and are especially suspicious of us. My advice to you, as Lawrence would say,”—referring to one of his under-secretaries, a college mate and intimate friend of Edestone’s,—“is to ‘can that high-brow stuff’ and come down to earth.” ”

“ As for the Anglophobia, the Englishman who thinks the less of him for that must have very poor and unhappy brains. A Frenchman who does not more or less hate and fear England, an Englishman who does not regard France with a more or less good-humored impatience, is usually "either a god or a beast," as Aristotle saith. ”

“ There are practical reasons for allaying Anglophobia, if it can be done. We are always told that a war between the kindred nations is inconceivable. We may hope that it is very unlikely; but there has not only been a good deal of hatred, there has been a good deal of fighting, between kinsmen since Cain and Abel. A leading American journal said the other day that the American people could not help rejoicing in any reverse that might befall England. It may well be so, considering what the journals, which are the only teachers of the masses, every morning and evening tell them ”

“ The Little Budget for June gains distinction from Henry Clapham McGavack's brilliant essay on American Anglophobia, entitled "Blood is not Thicker Than Water." This acute analysis of anti-British sentiment among certain classes in the States reveals a lamentable result of bigotry and historical ignorance; which may, we hope, be cured by the new bonds of alliance betwixt the Old and the New Englands. As Mr. McGavack well demonstrates, most of our Anglophobia is manufactured by the alleged "historians" who poison the minds of the young through mendacious textbooks. ”

“ The debate inspired an outburst of Anglophobia which was most distressing to the best friends of the United States and Great Britain. The American press, as a whole, honoured itself by championing the President, but certain newspapers made the debate an occasion for unrestrained abuse of Great Britain, and of any one who believed that the United States should treat that nation honestly. The Hearst organs, in cartoon and editorial page, shrieked against the ancient enemy. ”

“ There are, probably, only a few men in Europe who know whether this is so or not. But if it is, it would be only fair to denounce such a treaty as soon as may be, for very many years must pass before it would be possible for the public to forget and forgive the action of Germany. Nor can we entirely exonerate the German Government, for we know the Germans to be a well-disciplined people; and we cannot believe that Anglophobia could have reached the point of mania without some official encouragement—or, at least, in the face of any official discouragement. ”

“ All tyrannies are bad, but of the two would you not prefer a tyranny which forces you to pay a small tea-tax to a tyranny which forces you to do wrong? Surely this subjection of American politics, of the American press, and sometimes even of American taste, to the Irish vote, will some day cut a strange figure ha history.
The other kind of factitious Anglophobia is that which is got up by the Protectionists. Protectionists and their organs always appeal to the patriotism of the people against the admission of British goods. ”

“ He practically admitted that the Anglophobia so common on the continent of Europe is the outcome of jealousy. [10] He acknowledged the proved superiority of the Anglo-Saxon over the Latin races, and he set himself to examine the causes of that superiority. The general conclusion at which he arrived was that the strength of the Anglo-Saxon race lay in the fact that its society, its government, and its habits of thought were eminently "particularist," as opposed to the "communitarian" principles prevalent on the continent of Europe. ”

“ Is there any limit to the affronts which American legislatures and Presidents may offer to Great Britain when they are in urgent need of the Irish vote? Is there no limit to the quiet sufferance of those affronts by a proud and powerful nation? However, apart from the danger of war, on which it is odious to dwell. Anglophobia does mischief in more ways than one. It drives British emigration from American shores to Australia at a time when the self-governing element in this country is in danger of being swamped by alien elements, and stands in need of reënforcement. ”

“ There is another sort of extra-horse that the Government, or its organs, are fond of riding for a short "spell," when the others have been hacked rather too hardly. They have christened it—"Perfidious Albion." To speak the truth, however, the Anglophobia is not confined to the Abolitionists or Republicans when anything occurs to make any particular journal cross or querulous, you are almost sure to meet, that same week, a sanguinary leader, with the threadbare motto—"delenda est Britannia." ”

“ And this nation talks of German atrocities! If all the lies spread by the English Press were true, even then England would have every reason to be dumb. Only he who has felt the effects of English hate upon his own person can understand the brutal deeds perpetrated recently on Germans in London and Liverpool. There, England's moral depth is revealed only too clearly, and before the world she seeks to drag us down to the same level. ”

“ England is hated because in many ways she has stood squarely in the path of Germany's progress and because in the history [51] of European diplomacy, doors leading to wider empire have been again and again slammed in Germany's face, usually by the hand of England. Germany hates England, according to German writers, because England, a kindred race, tried to betray western civilization into the hands of barbarism. Germany hates England because, to the German mind, England is hypocritical. The Englishman criticizes in others precisely what he does himself; Puritanical talk covers a sinful heart. ”

“ But there is no pervading antipathy to America in British literature; no Americanophobia, if one may coin so uncouth a word. Nor in the English press is there anything corresponding to the anti-British tone—I use a very mild expression—of American journalism. Only in special Tory or Jingo journals do we find vestiges of national ill-feeling.
Then there is social friction. Here I touch a subject of which, as it concerns the social character and manners of Englishmen, an Englishman is a very bad judge. ”

“ One groans at your intolerable tristesse. La vie en Angleterre est comme un marais. It is a scandal to human nature. It blows fogs, foul vapours, joint- stiffnesses, agues, pestilences, over us here,—yes, here! That is your best side: but your worst is too atrocious! Mon Dieu! Your men-rascals! Your women-rascals!'
'Good soul!' the princess arrested her, 'I beg that you will not abuse
England.'
'Have I abused England?' exclaimed the margravine. ”

“ To some it may appear 'one-sided,' but yet it is a moral duty to emphasize and strengthen our hate for England. Not only because we will hate, but because we must. Hatred ennobles when it is directed with full force against the evil and bad. And what is the evil? For an answer consider how the English pedlar-spirit with cunning and lies, has subjugated the world and holds it in bondage. ”

“ It might truly be said of the British Empire to-day that where two or three are gathered together, there hatred of Germany shall be in the midst of them. Turn where we will, from the Colonies to England, from England to her fleet, from the seas to the air, the Englishman lives and moves and has his being in an atmosphere not of love, but of hatred. And this, too, a hatred, fear and jealousy of a people who have never injured him, who have never warred upon him, and whose sole crime is that they are highly efficient rivals in the peaceful rivalry of commerce, navigation, and science. ”

“ The natives in Africa are incited against us, and we are even betrayed in Japan. This last act has raised a storm of indignation in our country which would alarm you, had you any idea of it. England will certainly make terrible amends for this underhand deed. The hatred which is raging among Germany’s [Pg 305] sixty-seven millions will avenge itself on England in a most fearful way. For a hundred years the fist of every German will be clenched whenever the word “England” is spoken. ”

“ It is lamentable that at this late period of the nineteenth century, a nation so enlightened as Great Britain should have failed yet to discover that a principal cause of the dislike and hatred towards England, of which complaints are rife, in her Parliament and press, is the offensive arrogance of some of her public men. ”

“ There are instances of Englishmen, who, while on their travels, shock foreigners by an ostentatious preference of England to all the rest of the world, and ridicule the manners, customs, and opinions of every other nation, yet on their return to their own country, immediately assume foreign manners, and continue during the remainder of their lives to express the highest contempt for every thing that is English.—— I hope he will entirely avoid such perverse and ridiculous affectation. ”

“ In the hearts of all those Germans who in this great time, are banished from the Fatherland and who do not know how things really stand, there burns a great hate, hate for England and the ardent desire to fight against her—the basest and most hated of all our enemies. ”

“ The very sight of an Englishman roused their anger and hate, and rather than be forced to live side by side with them and be governed by their laws, they struck out a line for themselves and trekked away north into the unexplored wilds. Taking their wives and children with them, and driving their flocks, they set out for the unknown, seeking isolation from the British, and a country they could call their own. ”

“ But there is that vile English nation! its ruler is now a woman and then a man, and then, perhaps, a woman again; its people are at one time like birds, and then they are like wild beasts, with dispositions more fierce and furious than the tiger or wolf and hearts more greedy than the great snake or the hog. These people have ever stealthily devoured all the western barbarians and like the demon of the night they now suddenly exalt themselves. ”

“ One young man acted as spokesman for the others, who signified their assent from time to time. The first reason for hatred of England, he said, was because when a German boy was shown the map of the world and when he asked what all the red “splodges” on it signified, he was told that all that territory belonged to England. That aroused his natural envy. Later in life, said this young man, he understood by historical reading that England had built up the British Empire by a series of wars, explorations, and commercial adventures which gave her a just claim to possession. ”

“ Of these, by far the most formidable in recent times have been the attitude of public opinion in Germany towards England—the hatred of England which has been sedulously and systematically inculcated among the people of all ranks—the suspicions of our policy which have been sown broadcast—the envy of our position in the world which has been instilled, without remission, by all and sundry the agencies and individuals subject to the orders and inspiration of government. An obsession has been created, by these means, which has distorted the whole field of German vision. ”

“ Never has the subject of Anglomania been so cleverly treated as in these pages, and it is not to be wondered at that society is deeply agitated as to the authorship of a story which touches it in its most vulnerable part. ”

“ In its ranks are many who love the old country and reverence its history and traditions, and these an Englishman only remarks with a readier excuse for what he must esteem an error. But there are others, and the melancholy fact, too long concealed or slighted, is that they are many and growing in numbers, who hate England and all things English. ”