Such is the condition of the English nation in the twentieth century
and in the reign of King George V. Looking back to the time when
Caesar landed in Britain, we see that since that period an island
which then had a population of a few thousand "barbarians" (SS4, 18)
has gradually become the center of a great and powerful empire (SS14,
15).
The true history of the country began, however, not with Caesar's
landing, but with the Saxon invasion in 449, about five centuries
later. Then the fierce blue-eyed German and Scandinavian races living
on the shores of the Baltic and North Seas took possession of Britain.
They, with the help of the primitive British, or Celtic, stock, laid
the foundation of a new nation. Their speech in a modified form,
their laws, and their customs became in large degree permanent.
Later, missionaries from Rome converted this mixed population to the
Christian faith. They baptized Britain with the name England, which
it has ever since retained (S50).
In the eleventh century the Normans, who sprang originally from the
same stock as the Northmen and Saxons, conquered the island. They
grafted onto the civilization which they found there certain elements
of Continental civilization (S126). Eventually the Saxon yeoman and
the Norman knight joined hands and fortunes, and became one people
(S192).
This union was first unmistakable recognized in the provisions of
Magna Carta (S199). When in 1215 the barons forced King John to grant
that memorable document they found it expedient to protect the rights
of every class of the population. Then nobles, clergy, farmers,
townsmen, and laborers whether bond or free, stood, as it were,
shoulder to shoulder.
The rise of free towns marked another long step forward (S183). That
movement secured to their inhabitants many precious privileges of
self-government. Then the Wat Tyler insurrection of a subsequent
period (S251) led gradually to the emancipation of that numerous class
which had long been in partial bondage (S252).
Meanwhile the real unity of the people clearly showed itself at the
time when the Crown began to tax the poor as well as the rich. The
moment the King laid hands on the tradesman's and the laborer's
pockets they demanded to have their share in making the laws. Out of
that demand, made in 1265, rose the House of Commons (SS213, 217). It
was a body, as its name implies, composed of representatives chosen
mainly from the people and by the people.
Next, after generations of arduous struggle, followed by the King's
grant of the Petition of Right (S432) and then by the great Civil War
(SS441, 450), it was finally settled that the House of Commons, and
the House of Commons alone, had complete power over the nation's
purse. From that time the King knew, once for all, that he could not
take the people's money unless it was granted by the people's vote
(S588).
After the flight of James II Parliament passed the Bill of Rights in
1689 and in 1701 the Act of Settlement (S497). These two
revolutionary measures wrought a radical change in the government of
England. They deliberately set aside the old order of hereditary
royal succession and established a new order which made the King
directly dependent on the people for his title and his power to rule
(S497). About the same time, Parliament passed the Toleration Act,
which granted a larger degree of religious liberty (S496), and in 1695
the House of Commons took action which secured the freedom of the
press (S498).
Less than thirty years afterwards another radical change took place.
Hitherto the King had appointed his own private Council, or Cabinet
(S476), but when George I came to the htrone from Germany he could
speak no English. One of the members of the Cabinet became Prime
Minister in 1721, and the King left the management of the government
to him and his assoaciates (S534).
Two generations later another great change occurred. Watt's invention
of a really practical steam engine in 1785, together with the rapid
growth of manufacturing towns in the Midlands and the North of
England, brought on an "Industrial Revolution" (S563). A factory
population grew up, which found itself without any representation in
Parliament. The people of that section demanded that this serious
inequality be righted. Their persistent efforts compelled the passage
of the great Reform Bill of 1832. That measure (S582) broke up the
political monopoly hitherto enjoyed in large degree by the
landholders, and distributed much of the power among the middle
classes.
The next important change took place at the accession of Victoria
(1837). The principle was then finally established that the ruling
power of the government does not center in the Crown but in the
Cabinet (S534). Furthermore, it was settled that the Prime Minister
and his Cabinet are responsible solely to the House of Commons, which
in its turn is responsible only to the expressed will of the majority
of the nation (S587).
In the course of the next half century the Reform Bills of 1867 and
1884 extended the suffrage to the great majority of the population
(S600). A little more than twenty years later, in 1906, the combined
Liberal and Labor parties gained an overwhelming victory at the
polls. This secured the workingmen fifty-four seats in Parliament
(S628), whereas, up to that time, they had never had more than three
or four. It then became evident that a new power had entered the
House of Commons. From that date the nation has fully realized that
although England is a monarchy in name, yet it is a republic in fact.
The slow progress of time has at length given to the British people--
English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish--the great gift of practical
liberty; but along with it, it has imposed that political
responsibility which is always the price which must be paid for the
maintenance of liberty.
633. Characteristics of English History; the Unity of the
English-Speaking Race; Conclusion.
This rapid and imperfect sketch shows what has been accomplished by
the people of Britain. Other European peoples may have developed
earlier, and made, perhaps, more rapid advances in certain forms of
civilization, but none have surpassed, nay, none have equaled, the
English-speaking race in the practical characer and permanence of its
progress.
Guizot says[1] that the true order of national development in free
government is, first, to convert the natural liberties of man into
clearly defined political rights; and, next, to guarantee the security
of those rights by the establishment of forces capable of maintaining
them.
[1] Guizot's "History of Representative Government," lect. vi.
Nowhere do we find better illustrations of this truth than in the
history of England, and of the colonies which England has planted.
For the fact cannot be too strongly emphasized that *in European
history England stands as the leader in the development of
constitutional Government* (SS199, 497). Trial by jury (S176), the
legal right to resist oppression (S261), legislative representation
(SS213, 217), religious freedom (S496), the freedom of the press
(S498), and, finally, the principle that all political power is a
trust held for the public good,[1]--these are the assured results of
Anglo-Saxon growth, and the legitimate heritage of every nation of
Anglo-Saxon descent.
[1] Macaulay's "Essay on Sir Robert Walpole."
It is no exaggeration to say that the best men and the best minds in
England, without distinction of rank or class, are now laboring for
the advancement of the people. They see, what has never been so
clearly seen before, that the nation is a unit, that the welfare of
each depends ultimately on the welfare of all, and that the higher a
man stands and the greater his wealth and privileges, so much the more
is he bound to extend a helping hand to those less favored than
himself.
The Socialists, it is true, demand the abolition of private property
in land and the nationalizing not only of the soil but of all mines,
railways, waterworks, and docks in the kingdom. Thus far, however,
they have shown no disposition to attain their objects by violent
action. England, by nature conservative, is slow to break the bond of
historic continuity which connects her present with her past.
"Do you think we shall ever have a second revolution?" the Duke of
Wellington was once asked. "We may," answered the great general, "but
if we do, it will come by act of Parliament." That reply probably
expresses the general temper of the people, who believe that they can
gain by the ballot more than they can by an appeal to force, knowing
that theirs is
"A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where freedom broadens slowly down,
From precedent to precedent."[2]
[2] Tennyson's "You Ask Me Why."
It is impossible for the great majority of Americans not to take a
deep interest in this movement, for we can never forget that English
history is in a very large degree our history, and that England is, as
Hawthorne likes to call it, "our old home."
In fact, if we go back less than three centuries, the record of
America becomes one with that of the mother country, which first
discovered (SS335, 421) and first permanently settled this, and which
gave us for leaders and educators Washington, Franklin, the Adamses,
and John Harvard. In descent by far the greater part of us are of
English blood or of blood akin to it.[1] We owe to England--that is,
to the British Isles and to the different races which have met and
mingled there--much of our language, literature, law, legislative
forms of government, and the essential features of our civilization.
In fact, without a knowledge of her history, we cannot rightly
understand our own.
[1] In 1840 the population of the United States, in round numbers, was
17,000,000, of whom the greater part were probably of English
descent. Since then there has been an enormous immigration, 40 per
cent of which were from the British Isles; but it is perhaps safe to
say that three quarters of our present population are those were were
living here in 1840, with their descendents. Of the immigrants (up to
1890) coming from non-English-speaking races, the Germans and
Scandinavians predominated, and it is to them, as we have seen, that
the English, in large measure, owe their origin (SS37-39, 126). It
should be noted here that the word "English" is used so as to include
the people of the United Kingdom and their descendants on both sides
of the Atlantic.
Standing on her soil, we possess practically the same personal rights
that we do in America; we speak the same tongue, we meet with the same
familiar names. We feel that whatever is glorious in her past is ours
also; that Westminster Abbey belongs as much to us as to her, for our
ancestors helped to build its walls and their dust is gathered in its
tombs; that Shakespeare and Milton belong to us in like manner, for
they wrote in the language we speak, for the instruction and delight
of our fathers' fathers, who beat back the Spanish Armada and gave
their lives for liberty on the fields of Marston Moor and Naseby.
Let it be granted that grave issues have arisen in the past to
separate us; yet, after all, our interests and our sympathies, like
our national histories, have more in common than they have apart. The
progress of each country now reacts for good on the other.[2]
[2] In this connection the testimony of Captain Alfred T. Mahan, in
his recent work, "The Problem of Asia," is worth quoting here. He
says (p. 187), speaking of our late war with Spain: "The writer has
been assured, by an authority in which he entirely trusts, that to a
proposition made to Great Britain to enter into a combination to
constrain the use of our [United States] power,--as Japan was five
years ago constrained by the joint action of Russia, France, and
Germany,--the reply [of Great Britain] was not only a positive refusal
to enter into such a combination [against the United States], but an
assurance of active resistance to it if attempted...Call such an
attitude [on the part of England toward the United States] friendship,
or policy, as you will--the name is immaterial; the fact is the
essential thing and will endure, because it rests upon solid
interest."
If we consider the total combined population of the United States and
of the British Empire, we find that to-day upwards of 150,000,000
people speak the English tongue and are governed by the fundamental
principles of that Common Law which has its root in English soil.
This population holds possession of more than 15,000,000 square miles
of the earth's surface,--an area much larger than that of the united
continents of North America and Europe. By far the greater part of
the wealth and power of the globe is theirs.
They have expanded by their territorial and colonial growth as no
other people have. They have absorbed and assimilated the multitudes
of emigrants from every quarter of the globe that have poured into
their dominions.
The result is that the inhabitants of the British Isles, of Australia,
of New Zealand, of a part of South Africa, of the United States, and
of Canada practically form one great Anglo-Saxon race,[1] diverse in
origin, separated by distance, but everywhere exhibiting the same
spirit of intelligent enterprise and of steady, resistless growth.
Thus considered, America and England are necessary one to the other.
Their interests now and in the future are essentially the same. Bothe
contries are virtually pledged to make every effort to maintain
liberty and self-government, and also to maintain mutual peace by
arbitration.
[1] Such apparent exceptions as the Dutch in South Africa, the French
in Canada, and the Negroes in the United States do not essentially
affect the truth of this statement, since in practice the people of
these races uphold the great fundamental principles on which all
Anglo-Saxon government rests.
In view of these facts let us say, with an eminent thinker[2] whose
intellectual home was on both sides of the Atlantic: "Whatever there
be between the two nations to forget and forgive, is forgotten and
forgiven. If the two peoples, which are one, be true to their duty,
who can doubt that the destinies of the world must be in large measure
committed to their hands?"
[2] Dean Farrar, Address on General Grant, Westminster Abbey, 1885.