to “federation of the English-speaking people,” if it takes in the
English-speaking people of the United States of America, it also
takes in great communities of English-speaking people in America,
Australasia, Africa, and other parts of the islands and continents of
the Ocean, which are not in the same political condition as the United
States. Herein comes a great political problem, which never presented
itself to any mind in the old colonizing days of Phœnicia and Greece,
and which never presented itself to any mind in modern Europe till
quite lately. The older state of things was familiar with distant and
scattered settlements which none the less formed a national whole, but
which stood in no political relation either to one another or to the
mother-cities from whence they were settled. The later state of things
was no less familiar with distant and scattered settlements, perhaps
forming a national whole, perhaps not, but in either case united to the
mother-country, the ruling country, by a common tie of dependence. The
fact that so many European colonies which were held in this relation
have parted asunder from the states on which they were dependent, the
great case of all, the winning of independence by thirteen American
colonies of England, the wonderful growth of those colonies in their
new character as independent states, has for a long time past drawn
men’s minds to the relations between mother-country and colony. The
relation once so common in the modern world, the relation of mere
dependence, sometimes almost of bondage, is no longer maintained on
any hand. In the chief colonies of Great Britain at all events, every
care has been taken, while keeping the relation of dependence, to make
dependence as little irksome as may be. The fullest local freedom has
been given; dependence has in appearance sunk to little more than the
retention of a common allegiance to a common sovereign. Of late keener
eyes have seen somewhat more clearly what has lurked beneath this,
at first sight, very pleasing relation. In its internal affairs the
colony is, in all seeming, as free as the mother-country; I say in
all seeming, because even in the freest colonial constitutions there
is still a certain hidden power which may ever and anon step forth in
a way in which it never can step forth again in the mother-country.
And the fullest independence in local affairs cannot wholly put out
of sight the fact that in all strictly national affairs the freest
of colonies is as dependent as ever. The greatest and freest of
colonies may at any moment find itself plunged into a war which may
suit the interests or the fancies of the people of Great Britain, but
which may in no way suit the interests or the fancies of the people
of the colony. It is to meet this difficulty that schemes have been
of late largely proposed for bringing about a nearer union between
the mother-country and the colonies, and that in some shape other
than that of dependence. Mother-country and colonies are to form one
political whole, but a political whole in which no member is to claim
superiority, or at any rate authority, over any other. I am not now
arguing for or against such a scheme; this is not the place to do
so. I wish simply, as a matter of accuracy of thought, to put some
questions as to what is really meant, so that we may fully understand
what it is that we are talking about. And I wish further, by way of
historical inference, to point out some facts which may perchance be
helpful in making up our minds on the subject which we are talking
about.
I would therefore ask again, Do “Greater Britain,” “Imperial
Federation,” “Federation of the English-speaking People,” mean one
thing or two or three? The difficulty is that a great part of what
it is fashionable to call “the British Empire” does not consist of
English-speaking people, and that a large part of the English-speaking
people do not form part of the “British Empire.” The existence
of India, the existence of the United States, surround us with
difficulties at every step. Then again, What is Imperial Federation?
If it is Imperial, how is it Federal? If it is Federal, how is it
Imperial? Is the present German Empire to be the type? That is in a
certain sense an Imperial Federation, because its chief bears the
title of Emperor. But then some may think that it is too Imperial to
be exactly Federal; some may think that the position of some of its
smaller members does not practically differ very much from a position
of dependence. One cannot help thinking that the colony of Victoria,
though it is still a dependency, enjoys more of practical independence
than the duchy of Oldenburg, which is a sovereign state. Does the
Imperial Federation take in India or not? Let us be careful how we
answer. If the Empire of India is left out of the Federation, how is
the Federation Imperial? I am not sure that I always know the exact
meaning of the words “Empire” and “Imperial;” but there is one part of
the Queen’s dominions, and one only, in which she bears the title of
Empress, and it would be strange if, in forming the Queen’s dominions
into an Imperial Federation, her one Imperial possession should be
the only part of her dominions which is left out. But if, on the other
hand, the Empire of India is taken into the Federation, if all its
inhabitants receive, as surely they must receive, the same federal
rights as the inhabitants of other parts of the Federation, then we
may be allowed to ask, how the Federation of which the Empire of India
is a part will be a Federation of the English-speaking people or a
Federation at all. The area and population of the Empire of India are
so great that, in its federal aspect, as the state or canton of India,
it will hold a place in the Imperial Federation of Greater Britain at
least as overwhelming as Prussia now holds in the Imperial Federation
of Germany. Where would Great Britain be, where would Australia
or Canada or South Africa be, alongside of such a yoke-fellow? It
will be a serious question in such a case what is to become of the
white-skinned, European, Christian, minority, outvoted, as it must
always be, by millions on millions of dark-skinned Mussulmans and
Hindoos who can hardly be reckoned among the English-speaking people.
I am not arguing for or against all this; it may be the right thing
for so small an island as ours to be taught its fitting place in the
world. I only ask whether those who talk about “Imperial Federation”
have always stopped to think exactly what they mean by the words. And
I would ask whether the only scheme which would seem to be correctly
described by the name of Imperial Federation could be sung or said,
with any degree of harmony, to the tune of “Rule Britannia.”
Of course it may be that the tune of “Rule Britannia” may have come
to mean the rule, not of the Great, but of the Greater Britain. Only
we are again followed by the difficulty of settling what the Greater
Britain is. India and its Empire are, to say the least, a puzzle. But
passing by that difficulty for a moment, there is to be in any case
a Federation of some kind, a Federation of very scattered members,
members which have hitherto looked up to a common parent as their
abiding head, in truth their abiding ruler. And now that head, that
ruler, is asked to do what no ruling state in the world has ever been
asked to do. I feel certain that not a few of those who talk about an
Imperial Federation of the English-speaking people use those words as
having, perhaps a high-sounding, perhaps a patriotic ring, but without
ever stopping to think what the words which they use, if they imply
anything, really do imply. Yet the word “Federation” has a meaning.
Different federations may take, and have taken, very different shapes,
but, if they are to be federations at all, one thing is of the very
essence. The states that unite to make the federation, while they keep
certain powers in their own hands, give up certain other powers to a
central body, a body which speaks and acts in the name, not of this
or that state, but of the whole body of states. And the powers that
they give up to this central body are those powers which are strictly
national, those in the exercise of which the nation, as such, comes
across the other nations and powers of the world. This nation, any
other nation, cannot have any dealings with the State of New York; all
its dealings must be with the United States of America. Now we, this
kingdom of Great Britain, have been for a good while accustomed to
hold the same position in the world as the United States of America,
and we have been withal accustomed to hold it for a much longer time
than the United States of America have. Are we willing to give up this
position, and to sink to the position of the State of New York or the
State of Delaware? For this is what Federation really means. Some other
conceivable form of union may conceivably mean something else; but it
is Federation that is talked of, and this is what Federation means.
Hitherto the Parliament of Great Britain, that is the King, Lords, and
Commons of Great Britain, has been a sovereign assembly, an assembly
which knows no superior on earth and which knows no limit to the range
of its powers. If Great Britain becomes one member of a Federation
alongside of the British colonies in Australia and Canada, the
Parliament of Great Britain will cease to be all this; it will become
a subordinate legislature, like the legislature of the State of Rhode
Island or of the Canton of Schwyz, a legislature which can deal only
with its own subordinate range of subjects, and may not meddle with
that higher range of subjects which it has given over to the Federal
power. The question indeed may further arise whether any Great Britain,
any Parliament of Great Britain, should be allowed to remain at all.
It may be thought fairer, nay, it may even be in the interest of Great
Britain itself as getting it more votes in the Federal body, that Great
Britain should no more be heard of, and that England, Scotland, and
Wales, nay, for ought I know, Wessex and Mercia, Lothian and Gwynedd,
should all enter the Union as separate States. I am not arguing for
or against all this. I only again ask whether those who talk about
Imperial Federation have always weighed all these chances, and also how
far any of them is consistent with the tune of “Rule Britannia.”
As a matter of fact, no real Federation was ever formed in this
fashion--for I cannot look on the modern German Empire as a Federation
in more than form. The chief Federations of the world have been formed
in quite another way. A number of small states, in face of some greater
power that threatened them, each needing the help of its fellows
against the common enemy, have agreed, while still keeping each one
its separate being, to become one state for all purposes that touch
their relations to other powers. This description suits all the main
federations of the world, old and new. In forming such federations,
it is plain that each member gives up somewhat of its formal rank
as an absolutely independent state. But this small self-lowering is
more than outweighed by the far greater security that it gains for
preserving independence in any shape. It is quite another case when a
great power, an ancient power, a ruling power, is asked to come down
from its place, to rank for the future simply as one member alongside
of its own dependencies, even though most of those dependencies are
its own children. For this, it must be remembered, and nothing else,
is what Federation really means. And it is what no ruling power on
earth has ever yet consented to, and what we may suspect that no ruling
power ever will consent to. This process must not be confounded with
another form of union, which is perfectly conceivable, but which is
wholly different, and which is not Federation. Though a ruling state
is not likely to stoop to the level of its dependencies, yet many a
ruling state has found it wise to incorporate its dependencies in its
own body. The growth of the Roman Empire, by gradually admitting one
class of dependencies after another to the full Roman franchise, is
the great example of all. By this process the ruling state gives up
nothing; it simply admits others, not so much to its own level as into
its own substance. The ruling state does not sink; the dependencies, as
separate communities, neither rise nor sink; as communities they cease
to exist; but their citizens or subjects are raised to the level of
citizens or subjects of the ruling power. If any one should propose,
not that Great Britain and her dependencies should enter into a
Federation, but that the United Kingdom should absorb its dependencies,
that their inhabitants should all be represented in the Parliament of
the United Kingdom, any objection to such a scheme as this would be
objections of quite another kind from the objections which beset the
scheme of Federation. The difficulty of carrying out such a scheme is
almost wholly a physical one. Can such distant and scattered elements
be thus joined together in a political body one and indivisible?
Have those scientific discoveries of which I spoke earlier in this
discourse advanced so far as to annihilate time and distance on such
a scale as this? I say nothing either way; I simply wish to point out
the difference between two utterly distinct proposals which are likely
to be confounded. I add only one warning. Vast territories have been
united, both on the Federal system, as in the United States, and on the
system of more thorough union into a single body, as in the Empire of
old Rome. But hitherto they have always been continuous territories.
Provinces and states, however distant, have been physically one; they
shade off gradually into one another; it is possible to walk from
the furthest point at one end to the furthest point at the other. It
seems another thing to unite in the same way a mass of territories,
not only at vast distances from one another, but utterly isolated.
Carthage, Venice, Genoa, have held a scattered dominion of this kind;
but it has been merely a dominion. With them there was no federal tie,
no political communion of any kind; there was simply the uncontrolled
authority of the ruling city. The question is whether federation or
any other form of political union is possible among members so widely
scattered. It may be true that it takes no longer time now to go
from New Zealand to Westminster than it took to go from Shetland to
Westminster at the time of the Union of Great Britain. But Shetland and
Westminster, though not parts of one continuous territory, are parts
of one geographical whole. There are no foreign waters to cross, no
foreign lands to pass by, on the road between them.
I am not, I must end by again saying, here either to recommend any
practical course or to dissuade from any practical course. My business
is a lowlier one. One part of it is the pedantic business of calling
attention to a process which is very needful before we begin to discuss
any practical course, the process of finding out exactly what it is
that we have to argue for and against. I am not arguing for or against
federation or any other scheme; I simply point out what federation is,
and what are the difficulties about it. I am trying to show what is
the real meaning of that or of any other word, and thereby to avoid
the confusion of thought and often of action which follows when a name
which has been long used to mean one thing is suddenly turned about to
mean something else. Another part of my business is to suggest real
analogies and to warn against false ones. I have referred largely to
the experience of political communities in ages very distant from our
own time and on a scale very different from the political communities
of our own time. I wish to point out the real, instructive, practical,
likeness which, with a little pains, may be seen through much real
and more seeming unlikeness. Above all, I wish to point out that some
of the great inventions of modern times, which might at first sight
seem to sever us more utterly than ever from those small and ancient
commonwealths, have really brought us nearer to them. The great lesson
of history is that the nature of man, at any rate of civilized European
man, is the same in all times and places, and that there is no time
or place whose experience may not supply us with some teaching. But
free states naturally supply the best lessons for free states. The
difference in scale between the free states of various ages is after
all only an accidental difference which does not go to the root of the
matter. The difference is largely part of that extension of the area of
history which follows on the advance of civilized man, that advance in
which the creation of Greater Greece in one age and of Greater Britain
in another were alike steps. The great thing to remember in these
matters is that the men of the earliest days of civilized Europe, the
elder brethren of the great historic family of which we ourselves are
members, were neither, as men seemed to think a few generations back,
beings of a race above us, nor yet, as some seem inclined to think
now, beings so far below us, or in a position so unlike our own, that
their experience can be of no use to us. Either of these mistakes is
alike fatal to a general grasp of that unbroken history of the world
of which the earliest days of Greece are one stage and the most modern
days of England are another. Above all, instead of despising those days
of small communities because of their ignorance of modern inventions
which they needed far less than we do, let us rather rejoice that those
inventions have brought us who do need them nearer to the political
level of those early times. To me at least it is some satisfaction
that the England in which I now live is palpably more like the Athens
of the days of Periklês than was the England in which I was born. And
it is beyond doubt the great scientific discoveries of modern times
which have largely helped to make it so.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] While I am revising my proofs, I read, in a law report in an
English newspaper, something about “an American subject.”
GEORGE WASHINGTON,
THE EXPANDER OF ENGLAND.
The day on which we are met is the day that is honoured by a mighty
commonwealth of our own blood and speech as the birthday of its
founder. It is a day of rejoicing in every home throughout the vastest
of English lands, the land where the tongue and laws of England have
won for themselves a wider dominion than the Empire of Justinian or
of Trajan. From the western brink of that giant stream of Ocean of
which the Greek of old heard with wonder to the eastern brink of that
further Ocean of which Ptolemy and Strabo never dreamed, the name of
a man of English blood, of English speech, bearing the simple name of
an English village, is uttered, as on this day, with the same feelings
with which the men of elder commonwealths uttered the names of Brutus
and Timoleôn. The Teutonic clan which, in some unrecorded settlement
of our folk, planted on a spot of Northern English soil the obscure
name of the Wascingas, dreamed not that the name of their little mark,
unrecorded in the annals of the elder England, should become the first
of names in a younger and a vaster England, the meeting-place of a
wider federation than that which met at Aigion or that which meets
at Bern. Still less could they have dreamed that the city which was
after twelve hundred years and more to take the name of their new-born
township was to take its name because that name had passed as the
name of an English house from the banks of the Wear to the banks of
the Potomac, to be borne in due succession by that one member of that
house who was to make it a name of glory for all ages. From Washington
in the bishopric of Durham to Washington in the district of Columbia,
the bound is greater, the contrast is more startling, than when we
pass from Boston in Holland to Boston in Massachusetts, or even when
we pass from Melbourne with her three towers in the old land of the
Five Boroughs to that Melbourne in the greatest of islands where even
the younger Washington may seem ancient. Happy indeed was the luck
that the man whose birth we celebrate this day bore by descent from
his fathers the good Teutonic name of an English _gens_ and an English
township. Under no system of nomenclature but that of our fathers
could the name of the township have so simply and naturally become the
name of the man, and the name of the man have so simply and naturally
become the name of the city. The result would have been less happy if
the city had been fated to bear the names of not a few of the comrades
and fellow-workers of its own _epônymos_. The name of the Bernician
village and of the man who bore it is at least more in place than the
names of some other spots in the same land, spots condemned to bear the
name of a Greek island or a Greek poet, of an Egyptian city or a Roman
oligarch. The federal capital of the younger England bears a name more
truly English than the kingly capital of the elder. London is a name
which has no meaning save in a tongue other than our own; it is the
badge of our conquest over another race. Washington is a name in our
own tongue, a badge, not of conquest but of fellowship. And the man
whose birth one hundred and fifty-four years back is this day kept as
a high day by no small part of the English folk, should be honoured,
and is honoured, by every branch of the English folk alike. It is in
no small measure his work and the work of them that wrought with him,
that the speech and law which one age of English settlement bore from
the European mainland to the European island, which another age of
English settlement bore from the European island to the vaster mainland
of America, are the speech and law of millions of men in either
hemisphere, of more millions of men than are numbered by any other
branch of the common European family.
There may be ears in which the title which I have chosen for my
panegyric speech of this day may perchance sound strange. I speak of
Washington as the Expander of England. The Expansion of England is a
form of words which of late we have often heard, and to some of those
on whose lips that form is most familiar it may indeed seem strange to
hear the first President of the United States claimed as the foremost
in the work of that expansion. Yet some, I trust, there may be who
will at once see that among the worthies of our people there is none
on whom that name can more truly be bestowed. The place of Washington
in the history of mankind, more truly the place of a band of men of
whom Washington was but the foremost, is one which is well-nigh without
a fellow. It is not the place of the founders, real or mythical, of
cities and realms in earlier or later days. It is not the place of the
men who fenced in the hill by the Ilissos to become the home of the
teachers of mankind or the hill by the Tiber to become the home of
their rulers. A city bears the name of Washington, but Washington was
not its founder; a mighty land calls him the Father of his Country,
but, like him who first bore that name, he was not the creator of its
freedom but the preserver. His place is not the place of the men who
won new homes for their folk in other lands, the men who carried the
life of Hellas to the Naxos of Sicily or the life of England to the
Ebbsfleet of Kent. Men like them had gone before him; his work needed
theirs as its forerunner; Virginia, Massachusetts, and their fellows,
needed to be called into being before he should come whose calling was
to weld them into one greater whole. Nor was his place wholly that of
the men who have won the freedom of their own or of some other land
from tyrants from within or from oppressors from without. Most like him
among the men of old in pure and unselfish virtue is he, great alike
in war and peace, who freed alike the mother and the daughter, the man
who freed both his own land and her greatest colony. Yet the work of
Washington is not the same as the work of Timoleôn either at Corinth or
at Syracuse. One stage of the work of Washington was done in arms; yet
he is not wholly like the men who in other days have won the freedom
of nations on the battle-field. His work was not wholly like the work
of the men who wrought the freedom of Jewry in defiance of the will
and mandate of Asia, or of the men who wrought the freedom of Greece
and Servia in defiance of the will and mandate of Europe. One stage
of his work was done in peace, but it was not wholly like the work of
the great reformers of other times, of Kleisthenês, of Licinius, or
of Simon. More like was it to the work of a man most unlike himself,
the man of wile and diplomacy who brought freedom like a thief in the
night into Sikyôn and Corinth. More like was it to the work of the
men of sturdy and enduring might who won victories for freedom on the
field of Morgarten or among the dykes of Holland and Zealand. And yet
the founder of the greatest of confederations holds a place not quite
the same as that of the founders of the lesser confederations of
other times. William of Orange called a free people into fuller being
by breaking the yoke of a stranger far away who called himself their
sovereign. So Washington called a free people into fuller being by
breaking the yoke of a sovereign far away; but then that sovereign was
not a stranger. Markos of Keryneia and Aratos of Sikyôn, and those whom
the stern truth of history bids us call the nameless men who wrought
the freedom of the Three Lands, had to deal with nearer enemies. They
had to deal with enemies who were in some sort strangers, but who were
still men of their own speech at their own doors. Washington and his
fellows had in one sense to form a nation, in another sense to free
a nation; they had to win the freedom of their own special land by
breaking the yoke of the common chief of their whole people. They had
to make the whole greater by rending away a part; they had to be the
expanders of England, to enlarge the bounds of the folk of England;
but they had to do it by breaking old ties asunder, by casting an old
allegiance to the winds; they had, in short, to work the Expansion of
England by working the dismemberment of the British Empire.