Apart from peace, American
public opinion believes in commerce and industry, Protestant morality,
athletics, hygiene, and hypocrisy, which may be taken as the main
ingredients of American and English Kultur. Every American I met in the
Far East, with one exception, was a missionary for American Kultur,
whether nominally connected with Christian Missions or not. I ought to
explain that when I speak of hypocrisy I do not mean the conscious
hypocrisy practised by Japanese diplomats in their dealings with Western
Powers, but that deeper, unconscious kind which forms the chief strength
of the Anglo-Saxons. Everybody knows Labouchere's comment on Mr.
Gladstone, that like other politicians he always had a card up his
sleeve, but, unlike the others, he thought the Lord had put it there.
This attitude, which has been characteristic of England, has been
somewhat chastened among ourselves by the satire of men like Bernard
Shaw; but in America it is still just as prevalent and self-confident as
it was with us fifty years ago. There is much justification for such an
attitude. Gladstonian England was more of a moral force than the England
of the present day; and America is more of a moral force at this moment
than any other Power (except Russia). But the development from
Gladstone's moral fervour to the cynical imperialism of his successors
is one which we can now see to be inevitable; and a similar development
is bound to take place in the United States.
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