While seeking to make all England and English dominions in one spirit,
King Edward constantly used his influence to maintain peace both at
home and abroad. He was a man whose natural kindliness of heart
endowed him with the double power of making and of keeping friends.
Furthermore, he was a born diplomatist. He saw at once the best
method of handling the most difficult questions. Those who knew him
intimately said that "he always did the right thing, at the right
time, in the right way."
To a great extent he was a creator of international confidence. In
his short reign he succeeded in overcoming the old race feeling which
made England and France regard each other as enemies. Again, Russia
and England had been on unfriendly terms for nearly two generations,
but the King, by his strong personal influence, brought the two
countries to understand each other better.
He saw that Europe needed peace. He saw that the outbreak of a
general war would strike the laboring man a terrible blow, and would
destroy the fruits of his toil. When he ascended the throne (1901)
the contest with the Boers in South Africa was still going on.
General Botha, one of the Boer leaders, publicly stated that the King
did everything in his power to secure the establishment of an
honorable and permanent peace between the combatants. More than that,
even, he was in favor of granting a large measure of self-government
to the very people who had only just laid down the arms with which
they had been fighting him.
But the King's influence for good was not limited to the Old World.
It extended across the Atlantic. Mr. Choate, who was formerly our
ambassador to England, said that Edward VII endeavored to remove every
cause of friction between Great Britain and America. While he lay on
a sick bed he signed a treaty relating to the Panama Canal, which made
"it possible for the United States to construct the waterway and to
protect it forever."[1]
[1] This was the treaty repealing the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850.
See the address of Honorable Joseph H. Choate before the New York
Chamber of Commerce, June 2, 1910.