THE ANGLO-SAXON CENTURY
AND
THE UNIFICATION OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
BY
JOHN R. DOS PASSOS
OF THE NEW YORK BAR
Author of "Stock Brokers and Stock Exchanges," "The Interstate
Commerce Act," "Commercial Trusts," etc.
SECOND EDITION
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Knickerbocker Press
1903
{ii}
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
JOHN R. DOS PASSOS
Published, June, 1903
Reprinted, August, 1903
Knickerbocker Press, New York
{iii}
ANALYSIS
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction ..............................................vii
I. Two events which mark the close of the nineteenth century.1
I. By the Spanish War, the relations of the United States to
Europe and the East were suddenly transformed..............3
II. The effect of the war in Africa upon the relations and
power of England...........................................5
III. The present diplomatic and political map of the world.8
IV. Russia, China, France--their relations to each other and
to the world..............................................10
V. The Spanish and Portuguese people......................31
II. The origin and form of the suggested alliance between
England and the United States...48
I. How the suggestion arose...............................48
II. The indefiniteness of the form of the proposed
Alliance..................................................55
Definition of co-operation, alliance, union, or compact...61
III. The historical facts traced which have been gradually
leading to interfusion between the English-speaking
people....................................................69
{iv}
I. The different epochs which led to the development and
expansion of the English-speaking race..................71
_a_. The introduction of Christianity into England......71
_b_. The consolidation of the different kingdoms of
England into one......................................74
_c_. The influence of the Roman Law upon England's
Progress..............................................77
_d_. The Great Charters--the Petition of Right--the
Habeas Corpus Act, passed under Charles--the Bill of
Rights in 1688--and the Act of Settlement.............79
_e_. The union with Scotland............................80
_f_. Discovery of America...............................81
_g_. The independence of the colonies...................83
II. Résumé of the foregoing...............................96
IV. The inherent natural reasons or sympathetic causes
which sustain a union, and which support the historical
growth and tendency to the same end examined..............99
I. Union natural as to time and people.................100
II. Of the same national family.........................101
III. The same language...................................108
IV. The same literature.................................116
V. The same political institutions.....................124
VI. The same laws, legal customs, and general modes of
judicial procedure.....................................133
VII. The same tendency and methods of religious thought
and worship............................................137
VIII. Intermarriages.....................................138
{v}
IX. Other similarities between the two nations,
exhibiting the natural features of the alliance, such
as the drama, sports, pastimes, habits of living.......139
X. Resume..............................................140
V. The selfish causes which provoke and support an alliance
Examined.................................................142
I. The common interests of both countries demand
co-operation--identity of international action......142
Commercial relations.................................144
Financial relations..................................144
II. Self-preservation--protection--necessity............145
III. Duty................................................146
VI. The means by which a closer union may be created and
maintained...............................................152
Preliminary..............................................153
The three methods examined by which a union may be
established............................................154
By absorption of all into one nation.................154
By establishing a federation.........................154
By a treaty--regulating their conduct and intercourse
with each other....................................155
The reasons existing against the first two, and in
favor of the last method...........................156
VII. The subjects to be covered by a Treaty................159
I. The Dominion of Canada to become a part of the United
States of America....................................159
II. Common Citizenship...................................179
III. The establishment of freedom of commercial
intercourse and relations between the countries
involved, to the same extent as that which exists
between the different States constituting the United
States of America......................................202
{vi}
IV. Great Britain and the United States (I) to coin gold,
silver, nickel and copper money, not displaying the
same devices or mottoes, but possessing an equal money
value, and interchangeable everywhere within the limits
covered by the Treaty, and (2) to establish a uniform
standard of weights and measures.......................205
I. The same gold, silver, nickel and copper money...205
II. To establish a uniform standard of weights and
measures.......................................207
V. In case of any dispute hereafter occurring between
Great Britain, or any of her colonies, and the United
States, the same to be referred to a supreme court of
arbitration...........................................207
CONCLUSION. The state of public opinion upon the question
of Anglo-Saxon alliance..................................209
{vii}
INTRODUCTION
TO THE SECOND EDITION
I CANNOT but feel that the exhaustion of the first edition of
this book so quickly, indicates that the public is, at least,
interested in the questions it discusses.
I believe that the twentieth century is _par excellence_ "The
Anglo-Saxon Century," in which the English-speaking peoples may
lead and predominate the world. My mind recoils from any other
picture, because the failure of our people to assume the power
committed to their hands means the segregation of nations and
states, and the general disorganisation of society through
cruel, bloody, and fratricidal wars. The elimination of war and
the advancement of civilisation have been the motive of my book.
To effect this object I have seen no other way than to
concentrate power in the hands of the most worthy. If the
Anglo-Saxon peoples do not come within that denomination, what
other will?
The struggle for predominance, tacit or avowed, still goes on.
No one important nation, in our {viii} times, is more content to
remain in a second, or even an equal place, than at any former
period of history. Choice then, being necessary, what choice
shall be made? The answer of everyone who is likely to be within
the circle of my readers, and whose mind is not prepossessed by
some special and, as I must think, perverse influence, may be
confidently anticipated. It will be that which I have given.
I have opened up a plan which I consider feasible. I have set no
time for its adoption either in whole or in part. On the
contrary, I asserted (pp. 2 and 3) that "the question [of
unification], in the ordinary course of events, must pass
through the crucible of debate, tinctured and embittered by
prejudice, ignorance, and jealousy ... it may drag along through
years, the sport of every whirlwind of domestic and foreign
politics."
To compare small things with great, I recall that Lord Bacon
advocated, in his own powerful and masterly way, the union of
Scotland and England more than one hundred years before it was
actually accomplished.
In launching another edition of the book upon the great sea of
modern literature, I feel renewed confidence that it will
eventually attract a nucleus of readers sufficient in number and
influence to mould its suggestions into public issues, to be
argued and disposed of, in a manner commensurate with their
importance.
J. R. D. P.
August, 1903.
{ix}
INTRODUCTION
IN this book I advocate the union of all the English-speaking
peoples by steps natural and effective. Believing that the only
real obstacle to a complete and sympathetic _entente_ between
the Anglo-Saxon peoples may arise from the situation of Canada,
I urge her voluntary incorporation with the American Republic.
Upon broad principles, this incorporation ought not to be
difficult, seeing that the Federal idea, which has been so
happily developed in the existing Canadian institutions,
corresponds, in a large degree, with our own. As an offset, as
well as to soften, if not wholly eradicate, any sentiment
adverse to the surrender of a separate national existence, I
propose the establishment of a common, interchangeable,
citizenship between all English-speaking Nations and Colonies by
the abrogation of the naturalisation laws of the United States
and the British Empire, so that the citizens of each can, at
will, upon landing in the other's territory, become citizens of
any of the countries dominated by these Governments.
The proposition of the free admission of English {x} and
Americans to citizenship in the respective Governments of the
United States and the British Empire, without a previous
quarantine, is neither visionary nor impracticable; on the
contrary, as I show in Chapter VII, it is in entire harmony with
the spirit and purpose of the naturalisation laws, and it is,
moreover, sanctioned by the authority of history and of several
distinguished modern names.
To make the union permanent and indissoluble, I would introduce
free trade between the United States and the British Empire, the
same as exists between the several States of our Republic; and
to this I would add the adoption of the same standard of money
and of weights and measures. To render armed conflict impossible
in the event of any differences arising between us, I would
establish an Arbitration Court, with full jurisdiction to
determine finally all disputes which may hereafter arise.
By these means a real and permanent consolidation of the
Anglo-Saxon peoples will be accomplished, without the
destruction or impairment in the least degree of the political
autonomy of the individual governments of the United States or
of the British Empire, and without departing from any maxims of
the international policy of either.
I do not advocate, but deprecate, in common with those who have
given the subject serious study, a defensive and offensive
alliance, as this term is now used.
The events revealed in the history of the Anglo-Saxon peoples,
and the conclusions logically deducible {xi} therefrom, amply
justify the unification of the whole English-speaking family as
a wise and necessary step in their destiny and progress.
I hereafter endeavour to show that such an alliance is natural;
that, growing out of our mutual interests, it is necessary; and
that a true analysis of our duty to ourselves and our relations
to the outside world impresses it upon us as a sacred mission.
Upon these foundations I have built the structure of an enduring
Anglo-Saxon league. If I am wrong in the premises, the
international mansion which I have endeavoured to construct must
fall to the ground. If, on the other hand, I am correct, then
the two powerful motives which underlie all individual and
national action are present, for _sentiment_ and _selfishness_
alike demand its consummation.
The general subject of an alliance of some kind has already been
largely discussed in both countries, but it has taken no
tangible shape beyond the formation of a few societies whose end
has been to develop closer relations between the two peoples,
and whose success has been, alas! most indifferent.
The opening of the twentieth century reveals two great
conditions which must deeply and powerfully affect the acts of
individuals and nations, and compress events, which ordinarily
would take ages to mature, into a few years. First, there are no
more worlds to discover, and territorial absorption by purchase
or force of arms is the sole means by which the most powerful
nations can add to their {xii} possessions. Diplomatic eyes now
look inward and not outward. Second, all nations have become
near neighbours to each other; and the achievements of science,
conquering space and time, enable the newspapers, among other
things, to present each morning a full picture of the doings of
the whole world on the preceding day. The important acts of a
nation's life are laid bare daily, and the profoundest secret of
state can no longer be withheld from the lynx-eyed newsgatherer.
The motives, ambitions, and actions, of the nations are thus
constantly revealed to all who wish to read them in the
journals, for the price of a few pennies. Marvellous! Most
marvellous!
"High placed are we, the times are dangerous,
Grave things and fateful hang upon the least
In nice conjunctures."[1]
Obeying the course of general progress, political and diplomatic
events in this age must "therefore, take root and ripen quickly.
Each nation is armed to the teeth, or is ready so to arm, and
the expenditure of money for soldiers and sailors and the
equipment for war will not stop on this side of national
solvency and extermination. A complete justification of
Anglo-Saxon aggregation grows out of the fact that it can arrest
and destroy this dreadful modern tendency. But even if angels
advocated it, a step of such profound importance would
necessarily be preceded by much private and public argument, in
which the outside world would largely {xiii} participate, and
from whom, perhaps, much opposition might arise; yet it may
mature, forsooth, over night.
The suggestion of an Anglo-Saxon union will be looked upon with
disfavour by foreign nations, and the narrow view will be urged,
that by means of it, disproportioned power will be lodged in our
hands to their detriment. There is no weight, however, in the
objection: power lodged in the proper hands hurts no one.
Mistakes there may be here and there, but the course of this
great race cannot be retarded. It must go on. It must move
forward in the mission to spread Christianity and civilisation
everywhere, and to open up the undeveloped part of the world to
the expanding demands of commerce, and of all that commerce,
liberally conducted, implies.
Let us take up together the work so magnificently performed by
the United States and by England down to the commencement of
this century. Once for all let prejudices be cast aside. Let us
unite in a great English-speaking family. Let us be content to
learn from each other. And when the curtain of the twenty-first
century is raised, may the successful anglicisation of the world
be revealed; may the real spirit of our institutions and laws
prevail everywhere, and the English language have become the
universal dialect of mankind.
In the view I have given of English history, manners, and
institutions, and their relation to our own, I am aware that I
do not go beyond the merest sketch. I should, perhaps, have
paused {xiv} longer on that part of the subject,--it would have
been pleasant to do so,--but as it is practically inexhaustible,
it would have changed the character of the work and have swelled
it to undue proportions. I have said enough, I think, to point
out the path to every intelligent reader likely to be interested
in this question, and who has not heretofore made it a study.
Once accepted as a subject of interest, every kind of reading,
even to the most light and desultory which our copious
literature affords, may be made to cast an illumination upon it.
Thus, while mentioning the great leading facts of English
Constitutional development--those more obvious stepping-stones
upon which the race ascended in that difficult path--I have
found it impossible to detail all the influences, whether of
ancient or recent growth, which accompanied or produced the
respective movements. The least obtrusive causes are not
infrequently the most potent as well as the most interesting. I
firmly believe that the ultimate ascertainable causes in all
such cases will be found in the character of the people, however
that character may have been generated.
I wish to acknowledge publicly, and return my thanks for, the
substantial aid which I have received in the preparation of this
book from my dear and life-long friend, Theodore McFadden, Esq.,
of the Philadelphia Bar, the author of a most exquisite and
classic drama, _Madalena; or The Maids' Mischief_, and many
effective essays and articles. I have discussed every part of
this work {xv} with him, and in the course of its preparation,
he has made many valuable suggestions, some of which I have
incorporated herein in his exact language. While we are in
earnest agreement as to the main purpose of the book, namely,
the removal of prejudices and the approximation of the two
peoples for all great and beneficial objects, including their
mutual defence, our views are not always in accord as to the
methods of giving effect to that purpose. To differ with one of
the ripest scholars, one of the most profound and liberal
thinkers and eloquent writers of the day, even upon a trivial
point, is a matter of sincere regret, but convictions upon the
subjects discussed herein, at first light and eradicable, have,
by reflection and study, become strengthened and deepened, and I
shrink not from the responsibility and duty of giving them full
light.
May they bear ripe and wholesome fruit!
J. R. D. P.
NEW YORK, April, 1903.
[1] _Madalena; or The Maids' Mischief_, by Theodore McFadden.
{xvi}
{1}
THE ANGLO-SAXON CENTURY
CHAPTER I
TWO EVENTS WHICH MARK THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
WHEN the sun disappeared on the last day of the Nineteenth
Century, it left in the horizon vivid pictures of two unexpected
and incomplete events, whose influences will penetrate far into
the realm of future history and throw light upon the great
records which will be made in this new century. In one picture,
the United States of America was seen fighting in the
Philippines for the possession of a land which she claimed by
the double title of conquest and purchase. In the other, the
British Empire was battling with the Boers; sending her armies
over the seas into Africa, to answer the defiant and goading
challenge of that people.
Strange and unexpected history! The two powers the least
prepared for or anticipating war were forced into battle; while
Germany, France, {2} Austria, and Italy, armed to the teeth,
momentarily expecting strife, became spectators instead of
actors. We must prepare always for the unexpected.
Neither the acquisition by the United States of new territories,
conquered or purchased, from a weaker power, nor the subjugation
of the Boers by England and the enforcement of absolute
sovereignty upon their republics, are, _per se_, events of
supreme importance to the outside world.
The continental powers view with comparative complacency the
relinquishment of the sovereignty of Spain over the Philippines,
Cuba, and Puerto Rico; and while the subjugation of the Boers,
and the metamorphosis of their republics into colonies of the
British Empire, awakens keener interest and criticism, these
acts will, nevertheless, pass unchallenged, and eventually be
acquiesced in.
But the deep significance of these two historical incidents is,
that they have brought the English-American peoples into such
striking prominence that their present and future relations to
each other, and the aim and scope of their ambition, separately
or combined, must become an absorbing topic of international
thought and discussion.
A union of all the English-speaking peoples has become a
probability; and while the question, in the ordinary course of
events, must pass through the crucible of debate, tinctured and
embittered by prejudice, ignorance, and jealousy, a sudden
upheaval or unexpected revolution in international affairs might
cause its solution in a day. On the other hand, it may drag
along through years, the {3} sport of every whirlwind of
domestic and foreign politics.
The Anglo-Saxon people should only be concerned with the right
and wrong of the subject--absolutely fearless of the results to
which an inquiry based upon sound premises may lead. It is now
manifest that to this great race is entrusted the civilisation
and christianisation of the world.
Whether they will perform the duties of this sacred trust is the
problem of the Twentieth Century.
I shall proceed to state the grounds for this opinion, and to
unfold the reasons which should influence this great people to
act as one.
I.--BY THE SPANISH WAR, THE RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TO
EUROPE AND THE EAST WERE SUDDENLY TRANSFORMED
This war reveals the United States in many aspects as _the_
leading power of the world. While her wonderful development,
progress, and marvellous wealth were freely talked about and
ungrudgingly acknowledged, she has, by this last war, leaped,
_per saltum_, into a position among nations which will force
her, _nolens volens_, to assume all the burdens and
responsibilities which her new rank demands. If we look the
actual situation in the face, it is impossible to escape the
consequences of this dénouement. The United States has suddenly
become a natural and necessary party to all great international
questions; and this fact, with her increasing commercial and
financial power, demands {4} that she should be ready to second
the interests of her people, who are now spreading out in all
directions in search of greater wealth and wider business
relations. The oceans which separate the United States from
Europe and the East were once supposed to be perpetual barriers
to her active participation in international questions. It was
assumed that she had quite enough to do, then and for all time
to come, to attend to the development of her own vast and
continuous country.
The victory of Dewey at Manila, however, combined with the
mighty change which has been wrought in human affairs by
science, electricity, and steam, struck the scales from the eyes
of the world, and, presto! she has leaped into the arena of
history as the most important factor of the new century. Can
this situation be made other than it is by the shibboleth of
party platforms, or individual opinion? Can her progress be
stayed? With as much reason we may command the flowers and the
trees not to grow--bid nature stand still, and her laws not
operate!
She did not seek the rank of an international power; it was
evolved out of a confluence of natural conditions. She can no
more cast it off than can our bodies the food of which we have
partaken after it has entered into our organisms. If history
teaches any lesson, it is that nations, like individuals, follow
the law of their being; that in their growth and in their
decline they are creatures of conditions, in which even their
own volition plays but a part, and that often the smallest part.
{5}
II.--THE EFFECT OF THE WAR IN AFRICA UPON THE RELATIONS AND
POWER OF ENGLAND
It has been boastingly said by her enemies, and reluctantly
acknowledged by some of her friends, that England has entered
upon her decline, and that a decay has set in which will destroy
her power and prestige. There is nothing more absurd than this
assertion. The same statements were circulated in reference to
her at various periods of her past history--notably at the close
of the Revolutionary War. Look into her history at that time;
consult the contemporaneous writers, and we shall find them
replete with gloomy and direful predictions. And yet how she
gathered herself together; and in a few years how resplendent
she was in military and civic glory! Her political edifice
cannot be destroyed so long as reason holds its sway, because it
is built upon the solid foundations of true civil liberty, which
it is the aim of all people to establish and conserve. Show me
anyone, not actuated by pure bigotry, who would deliberately and
maliciously wish to demolish such a government!
When men band themselves together in a revolutionary purpose, it
is to destroy tyranny and oppression. They do not begin
revolutions with edicts against liberty and free government.
England will decline, if ever she declines, when men assail
order and law, and seek to erect in their stead, as a basis of
government, chaos and confusion. Her literature can never be
destroyed; it will enlighten the world long after her government
{6} ceases to be. It will be the basis of a new civilisation
long, long after her people cease to act together. I will not
weary the reader with statistics of her material growth. They
show no real, permanent decline; but they do reveal that she has
fierce commercial competitors in the United States and Germany.
They show that she must arouse herself to a real struggle to
support her people. But no matter how this war for commercial
supremacy may end, we must remember that the real greatness of a
nation, or people, does not wholly consist in mere material
wealth. We of North America are overlooking this important fact
in our sudden and marvellous development. We are to-day, and not
without some truth, called a purely "dollar nation." Our people
are struggling for money, as if that were the only desideratum
of life. We forget that religion, in its broad sense, liberty,
justice, equality, and virtue are more important than money;
they are the chains of steel which bind a free people together;
mere wealth without these qualities has no preserving power: and
if we lose our institutions, in their form or in their spirit,
of what use will money be to us, or how will it be protected?
The acquisition of wealth is legitimate, but it must not be the
sole aim of the people, else they will forget their duties as
citizens; and should that time come, and chaos and revolution
ensue, of what use will material advantages be, even if they
should survive the loss of freedom?
Remember that a government based upon gold, {7} wealth,
sordidness, must end unhappily. We must have other and higher
ideals for our people.
Do not misunderstand me; I do not decry individual, and, in
certain degrees, aggregate wealth. Let our citizens accumulate
money "beyond the dreams of avarice." Through the natural
channels open for its circulation, it will gradually flow back
to the community. And overlook not the difference between real
and fictitious values. Men often create paper values, which
disappear like snow before the summer sun when the operations of
true economic principles attack them. So long as individual or
combined wealth adheres to its legitimate functions, a State is
safe. When, however, it is used to corrupt or influence the
judiciary; when it seeks to interfere with, or affect
legislation; when it subsidises or controls the press; when it
severs instead of combines society; in fine, when it is used as
a _substitute for character_, the people must beware; they must
quickly intervene and crush it; for the pillars of all free
government will then be attacked, and they will experience an
oligarchy of wealth--the worst of all oligarchies and the most
destructive of individual liberty.
One word more on the subject of England's alleged material
decline. In less than one year she transported in her own ships
two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers to South Africa, without
the loss of a single life.
No other two existing nations could have accomplished the same
task; and, allowing for all drawbacks {8} and mishaps, when the
history of that war comes to be written, it will be found that,
under all the circumstances, it will not be the least of ancient
or modern achievements. And yet with what characteristic absence
of self-glorification it has been done!
In the last century, and under the glorious reign just closed,
she has been perfecting more and more her constitutional system;
the various classes composing her society have been thoroughly
interfused; political power has been extended to the masses,
education has been disseminated, benevolent enterprise has gone
hand in hand with the acquisition of wealth to an unparalleled
degree. These are to be set off against any possible decline in
her trade. It is hard to see how even that decline can be
permanent or anything more than accidental while she retains her
other possessions, and along with them the virile qualities
which called them into existence.
She commences the twentieth century with undiminished glory and
the prospect of increasing influence.
III.-THE PRESENT DIPLOMATIC AND POLITICAL MAP OF THE WORLD
In a little less than four years, the entire relations of the
nations of the world to each other have changed. Old maps have
become obsolete and valueless. The plans of diplomacy have been
upset. All international combinations have been {9} frustrated,
and the nice calculations and adjustments of European statesmen
are, by the unexpected results of the two, in some of their
aspects, insignificant wars, thrown into confusion and
perplexity, if not for ever destroyed. The diplomatic slate has
been sponged clean, and new alliances and international
copartnerships must be written on it.
Does it not seem plain, therefore, in the shifting of places and
combinations, that the British Empire and the United States are
to be the chief factors in the new historical scenes of the
twentieth century?
The world is now, in a practical sense, owned or controlled by
five nations: the British Empire, the United States of America,
Russia, Germany, and France. China, preliminary to an eventual
division of her territories, has become a ward of the preceding
powers, and unless, perchance by some miracle, she steals the
thunder of modern Jove, and arms her hordes with fashionable
artillery and ammunition,--a most unlikely prospect, except in
accord with and under the tutelage of Russia,--she can no longer
be numbered as a factor in international affairs. Japan,
Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland,
Belgium, Holland, Norway and Sweden, and the other small
sovereignties of the world are mere satellites, revolving around
these great political planets, and in due course of time
destined to be attached to one or the other of them, or at least
so close in sympathy with their principles {10} as to render
concert of action between them inevitable.
IV.--RUSSIA, CHINA, FRANCE--THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER AND TO
THE WORLD
The Russian and Spanish races will furnish two absorbing
problems of this century to Europe and the United States.
Let us take up the Russian question first.
There are to-day three great rivals in the commercial
world,--the United States, England and Germany. We might add
France in some branches of trade, and Japan in others. The
commercial ambition of the United States will be, and that of
England and Germany is, world-wide. What the natural rivalry
between these powers will result in I need not undertake to
predict. The laws of trade, however, are unerring, and the
cheapest and best seller will eventually secure the customer. As
the manufactories of England, Germany, and France close their
doors before the keen business genius and competition of the
Yankees, immigration to the United States will increase: a
hegira of foreign labourers and mechanics will set in, which
will greatly thin out, if not depopulate, the old countries of
Europe of their best manufacturing ability. This result is
inevitable under any conditions; but it must be regarded as
separate and apart from the considerations to which allusion is
hereafter made. The relations of Russia to this commercial
question and to the general status of European affairs, are
unique and of the deepest importance. Russia to-day is {11} in
the process of governmental and national development. She is not
yet, in any complete sense, an integral, sympathetic, national
whole, as are the United States, England, and Germany. Her
government is still experimental. She is not yet a firm, stable,
political unity, but is working with tremendous activity to
build up and operate a plan of internal policy. At the same time
she is developing a broad, well defined, ambitious, but not
unnatural external career. She is now, as ever, grasping for
contiguous territories. The _one_ policy is largely dependent
for success upon the _other_. If she overcomes the fires of
revolution that burn within her people; if she can, in spite of
the diffusion of education and the principles of liberty,
maintain the particular species of arbitrary government which
now exists; if she succeeds in continuing a despotism, and can
present an unbroken front to the civilised powers of the world,
maintaining peace and order _within_, while she asserts and
sustains her policy without,--in that event the external policy
of Russia may become the second, if not the first, great and
absorbing question of the century. If Russia does not succeed
with her people; if discontent and revolution ensue; if the
present dynasty is overthrown; if a new and different,
government is installed in that country, or it is split up into
different governments, her power as an international factor will
naturally be so weakened and reduced that she may be compelled
to agree to any territorial partition or adjustment which may be
eventually fixed upon by the other powers, {12} if they act
together. In shaping their commercial policies, however, it will
not be prudent for the United States, England, Germany, and
France to rely upon the weakness of Russia's internal
government, although its overthrow is an event by no means
unlikely, engaged as she is in building and sustaining a
political fabric contrary to modern tendencies and modern
thought, and inimical to those nations which possess them. But
the powers mentioned above must assume that her internal policy
will succeed, and the probabilities of such success, at least
for some years to come, make it important for them to act
conjointly and promptly in matters pertaining to China,
South-eastern Europe and Asia. No matter how they may diverge in
other questions, upon the subject of China their true interests
demand joint action. Under no circumstances, at least for many
years, will Russia be a general commercial rival to these four
powers. She has no ambition, for instance, in the direction of
Africa, now covered by England, Germany, and France; nor has she
any present intention of exploiting the fields of South America
or Mexico. The sphere of her external policy embraces
South-eastern Europe, Asia, and China, and in these fields she
has always met and been checked by Great Britain. It is an
absolute, indisputable fact of history, that but for the
predominating influence and power of England, Russia would
to-day be the complete master of China, Turkey, Persia, and
other parts of Asia--in fact, of all Asia. England, alone, might
still continue to check Russia's {13} designs on these
countries, but in so doing she would be acting not only for
Germany, but for the United States, hence the Eastern policy of
England must be radically changed, or she must act
co-operatively with the United States, France, and Germany, or
with one or two of these powers. She cannot for ever continue in
the unavowed invidious role of defender of Europe against this
gigantic, ever-advancing, all-absorbing antagonist. But eternal
gratitude is due to her from the United States and the other
powers of Europe for what she has already done in this
direction.
Unless some general check, such as is suggested in these pages,
be applied, the dream of Peter the Great would seem to be in a
fair way of fulfilment. That dream was, first, the acquisition
of all Asia; second, the conquest of all Europe--the latter by
the instrumentality of its own dissensions, and the playing off
of the rival interests, as Austria against France, afterwards
France against Germany--a state of things which has an approach
to realisation at the present moment. The royal dreamer did not
embrace America within the scope of his vision,--a very
important and ever-growing factor in the general problem,
whether for good or evil.[1]
{14}
In the new diplomatic advent, the United States, Germany,
England, and Russia, and, perhaps, France, must be the principal
factors. What shall their policy be? Undoubtedly England, the
United States, and Germany would never consent to allow Russia
to carry out her present ambition to become the owner of China
and the other Eastern possessions, which every one knows she
covets, and covets quite naturally, because her contiguity to
these territories makes it of vital importance for her to obtain
a predominating control there, when they pass from the weak
hands in which they now rest. Moreover, the strong, despotic
government {15} of Russia is suited to Chinese education and
intelligence, perhaps much more so than that which any European
power could establish there. But behold the proportions and
strength of the Russian Empire with China and the Chinese under
her control! Does any European power look with equanimity upon
such a picture? Naturally, Russia will hesitate long before she
will consent to relinquish her cherished dream of eventually
controlling these possessions.
It has been manifest for years that China could not take care of
herself, and what little diplomacy {16} exists in modern times
has been exercised in guarding the present and future integrity
of that country from the grasp of rival foreign powers. Until
the late war (if the anomalous events which recently transpired
in China can be correctly called a war) these diplomatic
questions had really involved only England and Russia. At
present, the situation is as follows: China and the East must be
opened to meet the increasing commercial growth of the United
States, England, Germany, and France. There are not enough
customers to go round; the domain of commercial activity is too
narrow; competition is becoming so close and hot, especially
{17} when the United States invades those grounds heretofore
exclusively occupied by England, Germany, and France, that new
territories must be found, and fresh fields of trade exposed.
The doors of China must be thrown wide open to the manufacturers
of all these countries, on terms of equality. The policy of
Russia is to delay the consummation of this event. She may at
some future time be in a situation where she can occupy the
disputed field against all comers. She is near the ground, and
is becoming more powerful every day, in proportion as her
internal policy is fixed, and her laws, religion, and government
are made satisfactory to her subjects.
If all these things turn out favourably for Russia, and she can
secure the co-operation of China, it is not unlikely or
improbable that she will one day say to the other powers, "Hands
off!" and be prepared to enforce her words.
Under these circumstances, it is the unquestionable policy of
England, the United States, Germany, and France, at least so far
as China is concerned, to have their relations with Russia
settled at once. If Russia can maintain the _status quo_ until
events are ripe for her to act aggressively, it is her plain
policy to do so. On the other hand, England, the United States,
France, and Germany can gain nothing by the delay, but
everything by quick, present, concerted action. The division of
China once made, Russian ambition and diplomacy are for ever
checked. Of course there is the Franco-Russian alliance. I pay
no attention to it. It is a {18} farce--a diplomatic paradox; so
suicidal to France's real interest that it is liable to drop to
pieces at any change in the French Ministry.
Another phase of the subject, _i.e_., the internal condition of
China.
In the aspect in which I am considering the subject, I do not
think I am wrong in saying that China bears the same relation to
the civilised world as the continent of America did to Europe in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There are, of course,
great differences--China has more people--she has a more
developed internal trade, her citizens have more intelligence
and certain inventive and business qualities, and there are
other very material features too obvious to mention, which
distinguish the Chinese from the American aborigines, but in the
sense in which I am speaking, the comparison is correct. China
has made no distinct advance for centuries, in a civilising
direction, in the sciences and arts, in commercial and
manufacturing pursuits, to say nothing of political, religious,
and moral improvements, schools and eleemosynary establishments.
She has stood dead-still, if she has not actually taken a step
backward. As a nation, China is oblivious to anything
progressive. In fact, so low is she in the scale of modern
civilisation, that the United States, whose commendable policy
has been to invite immigrants to her shores, has deliberately
shut her doors to China, and has unceremoniously refused to
receive the latter's subjects either as citizens or as
travellers. In ordinary circumstances, the estimation {19} of
independent thinkers, this policy of exclusion would be
intolerable, but its justification has been sustained upon the
ground that the Chinese are not regarded as fit associates for
American citizens, and no persons are wanted in this country who
do not meet this requirement. In a word, China is out of harmony
in her relations to the civilised powers. With but few
exceptions her policy has been to close her doors to the outside
world, to shut herself up in a shell upon the approach of
strangers. China, in respect to modern development, must be
opened by the corkscrew of progress. She does not respond with
effervescence to the approaches of civilisation. The massacre of
an ambassador of a great power, the altogether unjustifiable
slaughter of helpless missionaries, invited and induced to
reside there by treaty, and the turbulent confusion which reigns
inside of her borders, form complete evidence of the utter
incapacity of the nation for respectable, stable government. She
is old, childish, helpless, and if her territories are to be
opened and developed, if her people are to be educated,
enlightened and made prosperous, it must be by the strong hands
of the civilised powers. Of course, touching and effective
arguments may be made against the right of nations forcibly and
bodily to take possession of Chinese soil, and intelligent and
cultivated Chinese statesmen and gifted scholars like Wu
Ting-Fang, the late Chinese Ambassador to the United States, may
make pathetic appeals against such a movement, based upon the
superior moral and legal right of the {20} Chinese to their own
soil and government. But we must look the question fairly in the
face, undisturbed and unaffected by arguments which, ordinarily,
would have preponderating weight. The Indians who occupied the
soil of North America, the Britons who occupied the soil of
England, had the same arguments. Nothing is finer than the
pictured eloquence of the Indian chiefs as they spiritedly
protested against the invasion of their soil and the dispersion
and extinguishment of their tribal governments. But before the
march of progress and the underlying necessities of
civilisation, these cries of sentiment and sympathy will not
long be heard. The invincible spirit of progress must go on.
Like quicksilver, it will noiselessly run into every portion of
the globe where voids created by political weakness and
barbarism exist. Sympathy cannot be allowed for ever to block
human advancement. In the contest between the higher and the
lower order of things, it is impossible to adjust the details to
our liking. There is always an intermediate period of partial
injustice and confusion before the solution is reached. China
can prove no exception to this view. Railroads will eventually
appear in the highways of China in place of the ancient and
worn-out methods of transportation which now prevail;
manufacturing and mining pursuits will be established, her
fields will be opened, cultivated, and enriched by modern
methods and implements of agriculture. It will be in vain for
the Chinese to undertake to support their religion and methods
of thought and life by appeals {21} to Confucius and other
teachers. These must give way under the influence of modern
progress. Why? Because they have produced no fruit. A tree that
bears nothing is valueless. China's ethics, laws, religion, and
philosophy are barren. Primitively and simply beautiful they may
be, but they are without practical value except as historical
monuments marking the advance of nations. Her present condition
attests the value of her institutions: "By their fruits ye shall
know them."
In face of all these facts, it is hard to realise that the
allied powers should precipitately have left China. Yet the
reason is plain. England and the United States each had a war
upon its hands. The Chinese difficulty happened at a most
inopportune time, and when the United States inaugurated and
persisted in a movement of abandonment of China, England was
reluctantly forced to give up her convictions and to join in the
retrograde march. Had England been entirely free to act, no
doubt she would have forced a different settlement. The McKinley
administration exhibited a natural weakness in its policy. It
had to fight shy of the imperialistic cry, which had been dinned
in its ears _ad nauseam_ with respect to the Philippine
possessions; it feared another broadside from opposition
newspapers, which was imminent if it pursued a strong policy in
China, and hence one was hit upon of apparent magnanimity
towards the Chinese, but which was at once superficial, weak,
and misleading, and withal the worst measure for China which
could be imagined. The allied powers {22} entered China without
a studied or concerted plan, and they left it without a clear
solution or settlement of the questions involved. Their going in
was as their coming out--hasty, ill-conceived, and impolitic.
The commencement and the conclusion were both befogged. No
sooner were the allied troops removed than internal dissensions
appeared, and the weakness, wretchedness, and incompetence of
the Chinese government was soon more plainly revealed than ever.
By abandoning China, the United States played directly into the
hands of Russia. England and Germany must have seen this, but
they could not combat a plan of action which seemed on its face
so magnanimous to a fallen people, especially with France
co-operating with Russia.
The whole business must be gone over again. The weakness of
China will soon be revealed in plots and revolutions all over
the Empire; indignities will be again perpetrated upon
foreigners, and armed intervention will follow.
I cannot leave this question without a separate word about
France. The _real_ position of France should be
isolation--waiting, watching, improving. The figure which she
presents to-day as an ally of Russia is false and unnatural. Let
me speak of France with candour and without reserve. Her
national progress is stopped, and an internal decay has set in,
which will sooner or later seriously affect her influence as a
first-class power. The reasons which impel me to reach this
painful conclusion are the following: The effort to establish
{23} a republican government in France, while not a failure, is
far from being a success. No student who has conscientiously
studied the history of the past one hundred years can truthfully
say that she has made real progress in government. The attempt
to sustain a republic in France has been almost grotesque. The
great, central, pivotal point of any serious government is
stability, which she has never even approached. Ministries are
blown over like card houses, by the mere ebullition of political
passion, and not as the result of a principle. The people are
genuinely surprised if a ministry lasts six months. In the
effort to establish a republic, two great fundamental
mistakes--among others--are made. First, the French congress and
government are held and administered in Paris, the very centre
of boiling passions and the hotbed and school of every
conflicting "ism" that arises to confound the good sense and
prudence of mankind. The seat of government in a republic must
be located away from the cosmopolitan influences of large
cities. It must be held in a place where calmness--and quiet
prevail, and where the officials of the government, and the
legislators, are removed from the intimidating noises and the
unhealthy influences of metropolitan journalism.
In the second place, the Cabinet should not participate in the
proceedings of the legislative bodies.
A cabinet is chosen to aid the president. As the cabinet members
are his family council they ought {24} to be in sympathy with
his political views, and with his plans, as executive, and their
tenure should be consistent with his pleasure. To place them in
a position similar to the Ministry of England, in which nation
the House of Commons represents the immediate sentiments of the
English people; to take one important feature of a
constitutional monarchy as it exists in England, and place it in
the body of a republic like that created in France, is anomalous
and incongruous; utterly out of sympathy and in discord with the
real purposes of a republic.
In a republic, a cabinet represents the president, not the
_people_. The noise, froth, and confusion which characterise
every overthrow of a French ministry in the Chamber of Deputies
is not the _vox populi_; the change is the result of coalitions,
sentiment, or passion; it is a momentary variation in the temper
of the legislators, often brought about by events so trivial
that one is almost ashamed of legislative bodies. These
topsy-turvy movements are not aimed at the executive, but are
demonstrations against the cabinet, whose constant overthrow
shows the instability of the administration and brings it into
contempt. The frequent downfall of a cabinet weakens the
confidence of the people in their government, although in fact
it may be purely superficial.
I cannot pursue the subject in detail. I leave much unsaid that
is important, but there are one or two more thoughts which press
upon me with force, and which still further illustrate the above
{25} views. France seems to be lacking the few great men who
could turn her course into better roads of national policy and
prosperity. She has no real leaders. Nor is the nation united in
its sympathies with a republican government. That form has no
great, genuine lovers in France. They love their country, but
not the political mantle which envelops it. Her leading men
doubt whether it is the best form for the government of her
people, or whether she should not be a monarchy. Democracies
thrive upon the love and enthusiasm of the people. If these
feelings are not present among the masses, the government is not
likely to be healthy. A fair proportion of Frenchmen are
socialists. What this means in France, no one has intelligently
defined or explained. So far as we can judge from a study of the
mass of stuff presented, called argument, it means a general
breaking up of society. Another class of Frenchmen favour a
monarchy; but perhaps the largest class is composed of true
republicans. These differences are vital and fundamental. They
go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy,
as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative,
is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is
the _sine qua non_ to all political conclusions. How can a
nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent
to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with
certain organic political principles?
Nothing illustrates the vacillation of France and her utter want
of stability more than her {26} alliance with Russia. The extent
and nature of this alliance is now known to be of a
comprehensive character--offensive and defensive. After France
was released from the last obligation of the Prussian war by the
payment of the money indemnity, it became the fixed, resolute,
and unswerving purpose of her people to regain Alsace and
Lorraine from the Germans. Her recuperative power was wonderful.
In a few years she was in the full vigour of a new national
life. The defeat which the nation had suffered rankled in the
bosoms of her people, and for years they thought of nothing but
revenge against Germany. The truth is that the result of the
Franco-Prussian war casts no reflection upon the moral or
physical courage of the French. The fault was that of Napoleon
III: the nation was taken unawares, and before she was ready,
Germany had her brave people by the throat. The victorious
Germans took good care to strengthen their hold on territories
wrested from France, by forming the Triple Alliance. In the
meantime, the former provinces of France have become in a great
measure Germanised. The longings of the people of Alsace and
Lorraine to again become part of France grow weaker every day,
as do the feelings of the French people to possess them.
Separation and time are both acting to diminish the chances of
their recovery. On the one side the inhabitants of the
territories are becoming acclimated to their new national life;
and on the other, the French people have become less intense in
their original determination to recover {27} them. A new
generation of people has grown up which did not participate in
the original struggle, and which lack the enthusiasm of the
original actors. Whether French diplomacy could have avoided or
thwarted this result, or whether the situation has come from
natural or uncontrollable conditions; upon either assumption,
the cold, disagreeable fact stares the French people in the
face, and they should look at the situation boldly and
philosophically--the recovery of these provinces is now a remote
possibility.
For years after the Prussian war, France was without an external
policy. She knew not where to turn--to the right or left. She
glanced with longing, scanning eyes over Europe, and could not
select a friend, associate, or ally. She would make no overtures
to her historic and falsely assumed national enemy--England; and
Germany, Austria, and Italy were tightly closed against her.
Russia presented the only open door to her, and after a long
courtship she entered into a political matrimony with that great
power. A union more unnatural, more lacking in harmony, more
ill-advised, could not be imagined. It was a great step for
Russia. She could use France admirably in the event of European
trouble. French money, and a French army and navy, would make a
powerful addition to her own military and naval resources. But
what can France possibly gain from such an alliance? Has anyone
sufficient ingenuity to plan a campaign by Russia against any
power of Europe which would produce an eventual benefit to
France? {28} Make up any combination you please and the result
would be sure loss to France. Her true policy was to rest where
she was--isolated and independent,--quietly abiding the time
when the Triple Alliance would be dissolved, or other European
complications might enable her to resume control over her lost
territories, if ever that were possible. If not, her policy was
peace--peace with the world. The alliance with Russia, in
advance of conditions which actually demanded or justified it,
in form at least, arraigns all Europe against her, and it does
her no possible good. The alliance with Russia is meaningless
and fruitless. If it has any effect, it is hurtful. The two
nations are as far apart as the poles. Point out the incident
and page of history where a similar union has been beneficial.
It shows a decline in France's external policy, in her prudence
and good judgment. It reflects the influences of a weak and
declining internal condition. France has forgotten Bonaparte's
solemn, almost pathetic appeal to his nation--"Make friends with
England." The cultivation of an enmity for England is France's
curse. There should be a complete revulsion of national feeling
in favour of England--the centre and the source of civilisation.
A true friendship with her could not fail to benefit France.
The overwhelming pride of the French, however, hides from them
her real internal and external condition. Her only national
policy should be peace with all the powers of the world. She
should strive to become a purely commercial nation, {29}
augmenting the attractions of French life to draw into her bosom
the travellers and wealth of the world, and seek, by energy and
skill, to retain undiminished her commercial strength against
the powerful advances of the Americans.
France refuses to see or admit that since she has lost Alsace
and Lorraine much of her national prestige has gone, and while
still powerful in many ways, she is destined to second and
support, not to lead. Doubtless her people dearly love their
country, but they are indifferent to her institutions. They love
La belle France, but have no sympathy with her political
government. As their great writer, De Tocqueville, says in
another connection, they worship the statue, but forget what it
signifies. The French are brave and adventurous,--under the
inspiration of a great military or naval hero, they will go to
the extreme bounds of the earth in search of glory,--but they
will not immigrate or travel to found new colonies or foreign
homes. If a band of adventurous Frenchmen were to start
to-morrow on such a voyage, would it be earnestly coupled with
the desire to propagate the gospel of French republicanism? Half
of the army and the navy do not believe in republicanism: They
would be a sorry set of teachers to propagate the principles of
democracy among the natives of a new country. Expansion and
imperialism died with the great Napoleon. To-day France is
substantially sustained and held together by a species of
militarism. The great army moves like a machine to the wishes of
each temporary administration. {30} It eats up the vitals of the
people and compels them, at the same time, to enthusiastically
support it. The moment France gives birth to a great soldier or
sailor, he will capture the army and navy and change the form of
government into a monarchy or despotism. Deep love or respect
for existing administrations does not prevail. Instead of the
civil authority of sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, and
policemen, the military power is looked to as the real channel
for enforcing the decrees of government. The entire conception
and development of the army is contrary to true republican
principles.
In conclusion, France linked with Russia means nothing for her.
She might, with such an alliance, inflict serious damage on
England or Germany separately; but it would avail her naught.
She should speedily retire from the coalition. Remaining
isolated and independent, she can uphold her present prestige,
and through the mistakes of other nations she may add to her
territorial area, providing she maintains a stable government.
The thoughts, wishes, and energies of her statesmen should be
turned to the serious problem of making her people free,
prosperous, and happy; as a beginning towards which, let them
turn their attention to the eradication of the crying sin of
France, the seed that is ripening for her destruction--that evil
which Matthew Arnold calls "the worship of the goddess Aselgeia"
otherwise "Lubricity."
A final word. Remember, ye Anglo-Saxons, {31} that despite her
present condition, France is still, by reason of her large
internal resources and enormous wealth, her trained army and
modernly equipped navy, a great power in the world, and casting
her sword into the scale of events with one or more nations, she
can become an instrument of great good or evil. Friendship with
her should be cultivated, and her people should be made to see
that co-operation with you in your honourable efforts to help
mankind is the true line of her policy.
V.--THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PEOPLE
The Spanish-speaking peoples, including the Portuguese, to-day
occupy or control 7,918,821 square miles of the territory of the
world, exclusive of 1,197,672 square miles in Spanish-African
islands, Portuguese Africa and Asia and the Philippines, which
would make a total of 9,116,493 square miles.
Their language is spoken in Europe, North, South, and Central
America, and in Cuba and Puerto Rico, by more than 80,000,000 of
people, which, added to the number of occupants of Spanish
African-islands, Portuguese Africa, Asia and the Philippines,
would bring the total who speak the Spanish and Portuguese
languages in excess of 97,000,000. The statistics are as
follows:
{32}
Population Square Miles
Spain 17,550,216 196,173
Portugal 5,428,659 36,038
22,978.875 232,211
Mexico 13,570,545 767,316
Guatemala 1,574,340 46,774
Salvador 915,512 7,228
Honduras 420,000 42,658
Nicaragua 420,000 51,660
Costa Rica 309,683 19,985
17,210,080 935,621
Cuba 1,600,000 41,655
Puerto Rico 953,243 3,600
19,763,323 980,876
Colombia 4,600,000 331,420
Venezuela 2,444,816 566,159
Brazil 18,000,000 3,218,130
Paruguay 600,000 145,000
Uruguay 840,725 72,112
Argentine Republic 4,800,000 1,095,013
Chili 3,110,085 256,860
Bolivia 2,500,000 472,000
Peru 3,000,000 405,040
Equador 1,300,000 144,000
41,195,626 6,705,734
Spanish Africa 437,000 203,767
Spanish Islands 127,172 1,957
Portuguese Africa 5,416,000 841,025
Portuguese Asia 847,503 7,923
Philippines 6,961,339 143,000
13,789,014 1,197,672
{33}
RÉSUMÉ.
Population Square Miles
In Europe 22,978,875 232,211
In North America and
Central America 17,210,080 935,621
In Cuba and Puerto
Rico 2,553,243 45,255
In South America 41,195,626 6,705,734
83,937,824 7,918,821
In Spanish Africa and
Islands. Portuguese
Africa and Asia and
Philippines 13,789,014 1,197,672
97,726,838 9,116,493[2]
What is the destiny of this numerous race? What relation do its
people hold to present and future international problems? What
influence will it have in the solution of these questions? As
long as the Spanish-speaking peoples remain scattered and
without a common purpose in view, its numbers will avail little
in the solution of the problems of this century. To be
effective, the Spanish and Portuguese people must act together--
as a whole.
Now, the striking feature of this race, to-day, is an absolute
want of political unity. It has no common and ultimate aim; in
fact, all its purposes seem to be discordant and inharmonious.
In numbers, the Spanish and Portuguese people exceed the
population of Germany and France combined, but their moral
influence, in an international sense, is imperceptible. Anything
like a real, determined {34} attempt to unite them has never
been made. In a word, they are disintegrated, without unity of
thought, action, or association.
I find it difficult, in discussing this subject, to separate my
feelings from my judgment. Sentiment, and some national pride
(for I am half Portuguese), struggle hard to impel me to paint a
glowing and radiant picture of the future of this race; but the
cold, hard facts of history confront me at every step, and it is
idle to attempt to distort or juggle with them. If we are to
judge the future by the present, the chances of the Spanish and
Portuguese people participating in the control of the world are
not the brightest. It seems but yesterday that Spain and
Portugal owned the greater part of the earth, and were its
dominating powers. By huge areas, their territory has vanished
from their possession and control until to-day Portugal hardly
attracts international attention, while Spain finds her dominion
almost shrunken to the proportions of her European peninsular
territory and plays a subordinate role in continental politics.
I know of no sadder picture in modern history. Let any one turn
for a moment to European literature of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, for the evidence of their preponderance.
In all international affairs Spain in particular is everywhere
seen as the first of powers. Her greatness, and the fear it
created, seem to start from every page. I cannot pause to go
into the causes of this or of the circumstances that favoured
it; they are well known. What have we since seen? Her
possessions, rights, {35} and powers have been wantonly
squandered--simply thrown away, as a result of policies and acts
which are utterly irreconcilable with rational principles of
true government.[3]
It is impossible not to admire and sympathise with the
individuals who comprise the Spanish and Portuguese people. They
are noble, warm, generous, brave, and honourable. Like the
Anglo-Saxons, they have been hardy rovers and adventurous
colonists. The discovery and exploration of new and unknown
fields have always been positive and prominent features of
Spanish and Portuguese ambition; and yet, when they have
acquired territories, they seem to have been utterly deficient
in the capacity of holding and uniting them into a great and
permanent empire. Individually, they possess all the qualities
which excite admiration and respect; aggregately, they seem to
lack those elements which so strongly typify the Anglo-Saxon
people, whose glory and solidarity now completely overshadow
them.
God forbid that I should make this statement in a spirit of
vainglory or boasting: I am merely recalling what is patent to
all who read history, even blindly. A comparison of the two
peoples shows that the dismemberment and decline of the Spanish
has been in an inverse ratio to the progress of the
Anglo-Saxons. As the one sank in the scale of national
prosperity, the other correspondingly rose in strength and
glory; and in candour it {36} must be added, the latter largely
at the expense of the former.[4]
Although physically disunited and scattered, and with no
definite, combined purpose of action, in numbers and individual
character the Spaniards and Portuguese are still a great people.
If they can be brought together they will be factors of the
highest importance. Can they, at this stage of their history,
cultivate a quality which they have hitherto
lacked--cohesiveness?
The age of territorial discoveries seems almost finished. New
fields, or new countries, are few. Everything that is to be
found has been laid bare to the eyes of the world, and the
telegraph gives us hourly pictures of the detailed life of the
remotest nations of the earth. With the exception of the poles
and the celestial bodies, the occupation of the explorer is
almost gone, and the diplomatists and publicists now turn their
eyes inward to a study of the possibilities of a division, or
separation, of present territorial ownership. The method of
acquiring title by occupancy can no longer be exercised, for
want of new territory; and the other methods of
acquisition--_i.e._, cession and conquest--now remain the sole
means of geographical aggrandisement. With no new fields to
explore, the scenes and events of history must be laid in old
places, and the diplomatic or political issues will be directed
to reapportioning, or redistributing, the old territories.
{37}
What part of this great international drama will be assigned to
the Spanish and Portuguese people? Can they dominate; or will
they be subordinate to one or more powers, and become absorbed
in the national life of the latter? Can there be a unification
of the Spanish and Portuguese people? Can they cure their
present political imperfections? Can they make a thorough
introspection of their condition, and follow the proper remedies
which it suggests? Can they turn their faces towards the common
goal of a free government? Is there a Moses among them, who can
lead this great people from the wilderness of political, moral,
and financial confusion into the broad plain of a free,
enlightened, and modern government?
I shall not undertake categorically to answer any of these
questions, but I shall briefly try to lay bare the general
existing conditions of the Spanish countries, from which proper
and fair deduction may be made. This study may enable us
correctly to determine--first, whether the Spaniards can unite;
and second, if united, whether they have the capacity to form a
permanent, federation, in time to anticipate the march and
progress of other nations, whose policy must be to absorb the
weaker races in their own political bodies.
I begin with Spain proper. In almost all the essentials of a
prosperous government, Spain is, at the present time, deficient.
Her treasury is depleted, and financial aid from the outside
world practically cut off, or obtainable only upon terms
humiliating or prohibitive.
{38}
Her army and navy are disorganised. The sources of wealth and
employment of the people are shrunken, and in some instances
absolutely gone.
Worse than all the above grave difficulties, her people are
disaffected with the government, thus giving countenance, on the
one hand, to open revolt against it by the advocates of
republicanism, and encouragement to the efforts and diplomacy of
the Carlists, on the other. Apart from this view, a determined
opposition to clericalism prevails, the success of which means
actual separation of State and Church, so long and unhealthfully
entwined in the operations and administration of the Spanish
government.
It will require a clear judgment and a skilful hand to extricate
the nation from all these entanglements. But I believe it can be
done, and that a wise and firm ruler can guide Spain into a
state of prosperity and internal peace, by the introduction of
radical reforms in her administration--reforms which will
demonstrate to her people that they are abreast with and enjoy
the blessings of the freest form of modern government. Whether
the boy-monarch who now governs Spain will be such a guide, I
cannot predict. But I believe that that country can thrive
better as a monarchy, conservatively administered, than as a
republic. That the people have felt the impulse existing in all
modern societies towards a government of laws combined with
freedom, we are assured by recent observers. As is natural, much
blindness and {39} indirection has hitherto attended their
efforts, but the spirit of the people, though overlaid,
survives, and along with it, a strong principle of fidelity and
sense of duty, making the best material out of which to build
institutions. These, with their noble and hitherto almost
impregnable territory, securing them in large measure from
foreign interference, constitute what may be called the capital
of their natural resources, moral and national. Drawn within
herself, self-depending, a new period of substantial greatness
may yet arise. Her patriotic fervour has other aliment than the
mere recollections of a never well-ascertained or well-founded
empire. She can recall that her race has never been subjugated;
that it defied for ages the power of the Romans and the
Saracens, and that Napoleon at the height of his power failed
utterly in the attempt.
If, however, owing to the weakness or inability of the present
King to sustain a monarchy, a republic must be tried by the
people; if one political experiment after another is to be added
to those of the past before a stable and satisfactory
government, of some kind, is inaugurated and established, the
influence of Spain, during such formative periods, as a party to
any consolidation or solidification of the Spanish people, will
be dissipated and become merely formal. She can and will
contribute nothing substantial to such a movement.
Moreover, if a monarchy is permanently continued in Spain and in
Portugal, the hereditary tendency and disposition will be
against a federation {40} of all the Spanish people, because
federation eventually means republicanism; and it is not natural
to believe that the families, in whose hands the monarchical
titles are now lodged, can be convinced that the good of the
whole Spanish and Portuguese people demands the relinquishment
and abandonment of their kingly titles and possessions. Monarchs
are sometimes forced to yield up their thrones, or are driven
therefrom, by the people; but the spectacle of a king
voluntarily surrendering his title for the benefit of his
subjects is a rare one. Besides, the indications are that the
Spanish people are at heart monarchical. France and her
unsatisfactory example may, as a determining cause, have much to
do with this tendency.
And in this instance the monarchs of Spain and Portugal can
point with considerable force to South and Central America to
show that the effort to establish republics among their branch
of the Latin race has not been thus far satisfactory, or at
least, successful.
But another party whose assent is essential to establish a
federation of the whole Spanish people is the United States of
America. What are her interests in the premises? What will she
say to the formation of a government of this kind, in which two
of the leading spirits would be European monarchies, _i.e._,
Spain and Portugal? What application would be made of the
"Monroe Doctrine" to such a condition? I conclude, therefore,
that neither Spain nor Portugal would or could be an {41}
influential factor in the consolidation of the people speaking
their languages.
Can such a federation be established between the republics of
South and Central America and Mexico? This would be a government
which could start with a population of about 58,500,000 and
7,600,000 square miles of territory.
A common cause and a common necessity drove the thirteen
original American States together. But no such force is
operating upon the republics of Central, and South America; and
they failed to utilise the opportunities presented to them in
the past. They are all, more or less, suffering from internal
dissensions, and the precariousness of their republican
governments is not calculated to impress independent observers
with their efficacy, strength, or permanency; yet these
republics have no common enemy in Europe or in this country. In
fact, from the former, if one existed, they would be protected
by the well-settled policy of the United States. Is the United
States likely, in any just sense, to become their enemy--an
enemy, not of the people, but of the form and method of
administering their government? Will not such a condition soon
exist in some, or all, of these republics, as will justify and
make intervention necessary, on the part of the United States,
as was made in Cuba? Could such a possibility drive these
republics into a federation, to anticipate what their leaders
might term "a coming danger"?
Common jealousies and internal disorders will {42} for some time
keep the South American republics from consolidation; but the
people of the United States are coming closer and closer, each
year, to all of these Spanish republics, and will sooner or
later, unless avoided by delicate diplomacy, become actively
interested in the affairs of their governments. At that time
either one of two things will ensue: the formation of a Latin
American federation; or gradual annexation to the United States.
As a preliminary to either, or to any, event, would it not be
wisdom in this country to tender these republics absolute
freedom of commercial intercourse?
And how does Mexico stand? At present she occupies a peculiar
and wholly anomalous position. Although in form a republic,
Mexico is in fact a despotism. She is ruled by one man, whose
authority is unlimited. President Diaz is the absolute and only
power in the Mexican government. In theory he holds his title
from the people, but his will is omnipotent. And withal, the
thirteen millions of Mexicans who make up the population of the
different states of the so-called Mexican republic are well
governed: thus lending confirmation to the statement, often
made, that a despotism, when the despot is a patriot and a wise
and pure man, is the best form of government that can be
established. As long as President Diaz lives, Mexico will
probably continue to be well governed, because her ruler is
competent in every sense--honest, capable, strong; and ambitious
only to behold his country {43} develop and prosper. But when he
dies, what will ensue? Not the regime of another patriotic
despot. They do not come in succession, and they do not have
political heirs. "God makes not two Rienzis." Diaz's death will
reveal to the Mexican people--what they seem, notwithstanding
their theories, never clearly to have appreciated--that they
live under a republic which gives them the control of all
political power. When this period arrives, how many Mexicans
will be found capable of exercising the functions of citizenship
intelligently and patriotically? Will not a majority of them be
dupes or tools in the hands of designing political leaders? Who
can assume to rule as Diaz? Whom do they know but Diaz? Is not
the population of Mexico inferior, in general intelligence and
in the duties of citizenship, to that of any other South
American republic? What of the Mexican Indians? How far have
they been instructed in the duties of government? What kind of a
candidate would they favour? And what will be the outlook for
the people under an administration elected by popular vote? I
shall attempt to answer all these questions together. The mass
of the Mexican people have had no preliminary training for true
republican citizenship and government. Diaz's death will produce
revolution,--peaceable or armed,--and it will occasion such
trouble and turbulence, along the border lines of their
territories, that it will become the duty of the United States
to preserve order thereon. The interior of Mexico will be thrown
{44} into confusion, and the conservative people of the Mexican
republic will, in due course of time, appeal to and demand aid
from the American republic, as the Cubans did; they will ask for
protection, or perhaps annexation. This will not transpire
over-night, but it will be the inevitable outcome of history.
The difficulties in the way of consolidation of the Spanish and
Portuguese people, therefore, seem to me to be insurmountable. A
necessary party to any such federation of a part or all of them
is the United States of America; and her consent probably could
never be obtained. She is the great, dominating, absorbing
power, of the North and South American continents. Her policy
must be freedom, equality, and protection to all. She will
invade no territories, nor deprive any people, against their
will, of the government under which they live. What comes into
her family from Mexico will fall into her possession as a ripe
apple drops into the lap of earth, naturally, and because the
period of complete fruition has arrived.
I have endeavoured to sketch frankly, though briefly, the
conditions of the Spanish people and the relation which the
United States bears to them, especially to those of this
continent. I may be in advance of political thought and
judgment--I may have attempted to reveal too much of the future
horizon to suit the tardy progress of political calculations.
But in considering great international questions, frankness and
broad views are necessary. The future is generally of more
importance than the present. A policy of patching {45} up or
mending existing conditions is always misleading and dangerous.
This was seen in our treatment of the Chinese question. We are
already experiencing it in relation to Cuba. We started out with
a high-sounding proclamation of our intentions, which
overlooked, or ignored, the true and permanent interests of the
people of that island. "Fourth. That the United States hereby
disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty,
jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the
pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that
is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the
island to its people."[5] Our hands ought to be free to act as
circumstances should disclose or dictate. We are now, or soon
shall be, confronted with conditions in Cuba which will require
us to retreat from our lofty premises and to violate our own
declaration. It is a crying evil that in the treatment of great
public questions our statesmen will not act with openness and
frankness, but constantly seek refuge behind false or
hypocritical explanations, or use subterfuges to conceal their
real thoughts and purposes. It was perfectly manifest that
without a preliminary or probative period, the Cubans would not
be in any condition to govern themselves, and that an experiment
of the present kind must end in misfortune to these people. To
put the tools or implements of a free government in their hands
and turn them loose to experiment among themselves was an act of
folly on our part, {46} and dissipated the advantages gained by
independence.
But one word more, apropos of the whole question of the
relations of the Anglo-Saxon race to the Russians, Chinese,
Spaniards, and Portuguese. Considered either separately or as a
whole, they furnish a subject of supreme interest and importance
to our people. To me they alone are sufficient and a full cause
for a prompt understanding between us. United and acting
sympathetically, we can more or less shape the events of the
future by a wise and truly beneficent policy. If the English and
American statesmen do not agree with me, but leave this question
to fate, as it were, there may come storms, cross-currents,
deflections, and all manner of unforeseen opposing forces, which
will render the unification of our people impossible or futile.
Perhaps this is our destiny--but I think not.[6]
And be it clearly understood that in all I have said, I merely
indicate what I believe to be the inevitable drift of
things--the handwriting upon the wall. With the public morality
and the intermediate questions of international law depending on
{47} that morality, I am not at present concerned. It is
impossible to regulate these questions in advance, and it is
assuredly true that such considerations, however well grounded,
have never long delayed a general tendency. History, in all its
stages, conjectural, traditional, and authentic, discloses with
almost painful clearness that there are underlying forces
governing the progress of the human race, which are made
manifest in successive ages only by their results, and with
which conscious volition seems to have but little to do. We in
this country only exemplify a general truth (a truth easily
ascertainable by a glance at our circumstances), which operates
none the less strongly because with our cultivated sentiments we
sometimes rebel against its necessary sequences. The only
question for me is, how can this truth be best applied--how best
utilised. If I am right in what I have said of the Anglo-Saxon
race in its two great branches, the inference becomes clear. To
that race primarily belongs in a preponderating degree the
future of mankind, because it has proved its title to its
guardianship. But it is in the firm union of that race, in its
steady co-operation, and in its undeviating adherence to its
common ideals, that the whole success of the experiment, or of
what remains of the experiment, now depends.
[1] I select in this connection an extract from an article in
the _North American Review_, June, 1898, by Hon. David Mills,
Canadian Minister of Justice, entitled "Which shall dominate,
Saxon or Slav?"
"Let us consider the aims of Russia, as shown by what she has
attempted and accomplished in modern times. The Russian
statesman loves conquest. With him it is a habit of mind. Russia
is a great Asiatic power, employing the resources of western
civilisation to further her ambitious designs. Her conquests are
not the outcome of industrial enterprise. They have not sprung
from the necessities of commerce. Her acquisitions have not
arisen from a desire to find a profitable investment for her
capital. They are due entirely to a love of dominion. In the
last century, she acquired all the territory lying between her
western border, and the Gulf of Bothnia, and the Baltic Sea. She
acquired the greater part of Poland and the whole of
Crim-Tartary. In this century she has obtained Finland from
Sweden, Bessarabia and a part of Armenia from Turkey. She has
acquired the Caucasus, Georgia, several provinces of Persia, and
the whole country from the Caspian Sea, on the west, to the
borders of China, on the east, including Samarcand, Bakhara,
Khiva, and Merv, besides a large section of North-eastern China.
Russia is the one great state of the world that pays no regard
to her treaty obligations longer than it is convenient for her
to do so. Her territories cover an area nearly three times as
large as the United States, and are being constantly extended.
If she finds resistance at any point upon her borders, she rests
there, and pushes forward her boundaries where those upon whom
she encroaches are not prepared to stay her march. What she
acquires is hers absolutely, the trade of the people no less
than her dominion over them. Not the slightest reliance can be
put upon her promises. She regards falsehood as a legitimate
weapon in diplomacy, as deceit is in war. In Afghanistan, which
she declared to be outside of the sphere of Russian diplomacy,
and within the sphere of diplomacy of England, she carried on
constant intrigues against English authority. Her
representatives sought to stir up rebellion. She endeavoured to
obtain the consent of its rulers for the construction of a road
that would lead to India, and for the purchase of supplies that
would support an army of invasion on their march. She never
gives up any purpose which she has once formed. More than eight
centuries ago she marched an army of 80,000 men to conquer the
Byzantine Empire, and to seize Constantinople. What she then
undertook, and failed to accomplish, she has never abandoned. It
has been from time to time postponed for a more fitting
opportunity. She lost six great armies in the march from the
Caspian to Samarcand, and two centuries elapsed from the time
when she contemplated this conquest before it was consummated.
If the Russian Empire holds together, she counts on the conquest
of Turkey, of Persia, of India, and of China.
"If Russia succeeds in the task to which she has set herself she
will hold seventeen millions of square miles of territory, and
she will have under her dominion nine hundred millions of
people. The fall of the British Empire is regarded by Russian
statesmen as essential to the realisation of her hopes. Let me
ask: What would be the position of the world, with so much
territory and so many people under one ruler, wielding the power
necessary to the realisation of his wishes? It is only necessary
to study the commercial and industrial policy of Russia to
discover that she would trample into the earth every people that
might aspire to better their position or to become in any way
her rivals. In every department of commerce, and in every field
in which greatness might be achieved, her rulers would regard
any attempt at success as an attack upon her supremacy.
"In the discussion of this question I embrace the United States
as a part of the Anglo-Saxon community. I do so because, in the
present position of the race, and of the work which obviously
lies before it, the loss of British supremacy in the world would
be scarcely less disastrous to the United States than it would
be to the British Empire. It is true that the United States,
under the present order of things, has room for further
expansion. But the present order of things rests upon
Anglo-Saxon supremacy. Even within her existing limits, she may
grow for many years to come; and if Turkey, Persia, India, and
China were added to the empire of Russia, the whole position of
the world would be completely changed; the condition of things
on this continent would be revolutionised. With the power thus
centred under Russian control and directed from St. Petersburg,
with the valley of the Euphrates occupied by Russians devoted to
agriculture, with the frontiers of that mighty Empire resting
upon the Indian Ocean; and with the whole commerce of Asia in
her possession, Russia would, as a natural consequence of these
tremendous additions, become the dominant sea power. The Pacific
Ocean would be a Russian lake, and her eastern frontiers would
rest upon the western shore of North America. The British
Islands would rapidly diminish in population, until the number
of inhabitants would be such as the product of the soil would
naturally support. The United Kingdom could no longer be a
market for the breadstuffs of this continent, and European
immigration to America would cease. Russia would rapidly grow in
wealth and in population, but no country in the Western
Hemisphere would do either; for the great markets of the world
would be in the possession of a power that would use them to
cripple the commerce of any state which would, in any degree,
aspire to become her rival.
"In the highest sense the United States has not, and cannot
have, an independent existence. Her fortune is inseparably
associated with the race to which she belongs, in which her
future is wrapt up, and in which she lives and moves and has her
being. The unity between the United States and the British
Empire is a matter both of race and growth. They touch each
other, and as peoples unite and great states arise, they must
be, for all great international purposes, one people."
[2] The World Almanac and Encyclopedia, 1903. p. 353.
[3] See in this connection an interesting article by Henry
Charles Lea, entitled "The Decadence of Spain," _Atlantic
Monthly_, July, 1898.
[4] In 1801, 20.9 per cent. of the people who spoke the European
languages were Spanish, and only 12.7 per cent. were English;
but in 1890 the ratio was changed to 13.9 per cent. Spanish and
27 per cent. English.
[5] Act of Congress, April 20, 1898.
[6] In this connection I call attention again to the article of
Hon. David Mills, Canadian Minister of Justice (heretofore
quoted from, ante, p. 13), _North American Review_, June, 1898:
"The interests of the world call for Anglo-Saxon alliance. Let
not the British Empire and the United States revive, after the
lapse of centuries, the old contest of Judah and Ephraim; but,
remembering that their interests are one, as the race is one,
let them stand together, to maintain the ascendency which they
will hold as long as Providence fits them to lead; which will be
as long as, in their dealings with those beneath them, they are
actuated by principles of justice and truth."
{48}