THE PAN-ANGLES
{ii}
{iii}
THE PAN-ANGLES
A CONSIDERATION OF THE FEDERATION OF THE SEVEN ENGLISH-SPEAKING
NATIONS
BY
SINCLAIR KENNEDY
_WITH A MAP_
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY. CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
1915
_All Rights Reserved_
{iv}
{v}
TO
THE PAN-ANGLES
{vi}
PREFATORY NOTE
THE Author is indebted to the following publishers and authors
for kind permission to make quotations from copyright matter: to
Mr. Edward Arnold for _Colonial Nationalism_, by Richard Jebb;
to Mr. B. H. Blackwell for _Imperial Architects_, by A. L. Burt;
to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for _Federations and
Unions_, by H. E. Egerton; to Messrs. Constable & Co. for
_Alexander Hamilton_, by F. S. Oliver, and _The Nation and the
Empire_, edited by Lord Milner; to the publishers of the
_Encyclopedia Britannica_; to Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for
Seeley's _Expansion of England_, and G. L. Parkin's _Imperial
Federation_; to Admiral Mahan; to Mr. John Murray for _English
Colonization and Empire_, by A. Caldecott; to Sir Isaac Pitman &
Sons Ltd. for _The Union of South Africa_, by W. B. Worsfold; to
the Executors of the late W. T. Stead for the _Last Will and
Testament of C. J. Rhodes_; to Messrs. H. Stevens, Son, & Stiles
for _Thomas Pownall_, by C. A. W. Pownall; to Messrs. Houghton,
Mifflin Company for Thayer's _John Marshall_ and Woodrow
Wilson's _Mere Literature_; to Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co. for
Woodrow Wilson's _The State_; to Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons for
_The Works of Benjamin Franklin_, edited by John Bigelow; to the
Yale University Press for _Popular Government_, by W. H. Taft;
and also to _The Times_; _The Round Table_; _The Outlook_; and
_The Springfield Weekly Republican_.
{vii}
FOREWORD
THE English-speaking, self-governing white people of the world
in 1914 number upwards of one hundred and forty-one millions.
Since December 24, 1814, there has been unbroken peace between
the two independent groups of this race--a fact that contravenes
the usual historical experiences of peoples between whom there
has been uninterrupted communication during so long an epoch.
The last few decades have seen increasingly close understandings
between both the governments and the peoples of this
civilization.
In 1900 the British navy controlled the seas--all seas. From
1910 to 1914 the British navy has controlled the North Sea
only.[vii-1] Some doubt whether this control can long be
maintained. If it is lost, the British Empire is
finished.[vii-2] The adhesion of the dependencies to their
various governments and also the voluntary cohesion of the
self-governing units would be at an end. "The disorders which
followed the fall of Rome would be insignificant compared with
those which would {viii} ensue were the British Empire to break
in pieces."[viii-1] Such a splitting up would place each
English-speaking nation in an exposed position, and would
strengthen its rivals, Germany, Japan, Russia, and China. It
would compel America to protect with arms, or to abandon to its
enemies, not only the countries to which the Monroe Doctrine has
been considered as applicable, but those lands still more
important to the future of our race, New Zealand and Australia.
If this catastrophe is to be averted, the English-speaking
peoples must regain control of the seas.
These pages are concerned with the English-speaking people of
1914. Here will be found no jingoism, if this be defined as a
desire to flaunt power for its own sake; no altruism, if this
means placing the welfare of others before one's own; and no
sentiment except that which leads to self-preservation. No
technical discussion of military or naval power is here
attempted. The purpose of these pages is to indicate some of the
common heritages of these English-speaking peoples, their need
of land and their desire for the sole privilege of taxing
themselves for their own purposes and in their own way.
Federation is here recognized as the method by which
English-speaking people ensure the freedom of the individual. It
utilizes ideals and methods common to them all. Where it has
been applied, it fulfils its dual purpose of protecting the
group and leaving the individual unhampered.
This consideration may appear to the political {ix} economist to
be merely a few comments on one instance of the relationship of
the food supply to the excess of births over deaths; to the
international politician, as notes on the struggles of the
English-speaking race; and to the business man, as hints on
present and future markets and the maintenance of routes
thereto. Books could be written on each of these and kindred
topics. This is not any one of such treatises, but a statement
of only a few aspects of a huge question.
To Benjamin Franklin may be given the credit of initiating the
thesis of these pages, for he foresaw in 1754 the need of a
single government based on the representation of both the
American and British groups of self-governing English-speaking
people. Possibly there were others before him. Certainly there
have been many since. Some have been obscured by time. Others,
like Cecil John Rhodes, stand out brilliantly. These men
visioned the whole race without losing sight of their own local
fragment. They saw the need of blocking intra-race frictions in
order to maintain our inter-race supremacy. They spoke the
English language, and held by the ideals of English-speaking
men--proud of their race.
To such as these, wherever they are found, owing affection to
the British and American flags which they protect, and which
protect them from others, this discussion is addressed. It is a
family appeal in terms familiar to the family here called--the
Pan-Angles.
SINCLAIR KENNEDY.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
_January_ 17, 1914.
[vii-1] Cf. _Round Table_, London, May 1911, p. 247.
[vii-2] _Round Table_, London, November 1910, p. 27: "Directly
the British Empire is doubtful of its supremacy by sea its full
liberty will disappear, even if there has been no war."
[viii-1] _United Empire_, London, January 1914, J. G. Lockhart,
"The Meaning of British Imperialism," p. 53.
{x}
{xi}
CONTENTS
FOREWORD vii
I. THE CIVILIZATION 1
II. THE PEOPLE 21
III. INDIVIDUALISM 47
IV. THE SEVEN NATIONS 79
V. GOVERNMENTAL PRACTICES 94
VI. DANGERS 120
VII. TENDENCIES 160
VIII. A COMMON GOVERNMENT 184
IX. WORKING FOR FEDERATION 206
X. CONCLUSION 227
INDEX 237
MAP _At the end of the volume_
{x}
{1}
THE PAN-ANGLES
I
THE CIVILIZATION
A GREAT civilization has spread over the earth. Many millions of
people believe it the best that has yet appeared. In it the
faiths and strivings of a strong race are expressed. History
teaches that it will be assailed by rival civilizations. Must it
fall and its people be led into the bondage of alien ways?
The date at which a civilization begins must always be unknown,
so slowly and steadily do the contributing forces operate. The
birth of even so definite an organization as a nation is a
matter of opinion. The United States of America, for example,
may be regarded as having come into being on July 4, 1776, or at
the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, or at the end of the
French War in 1763, or on anyone of various other dates,
according to the historical bias of the chronicler. But before
records now legible to us were made, the Pan-Angles were long
past their beginning stages.
Thousands of years ago Europe emerged from the {2} glacial ice.
Off its western coast lay islands. The largest was close to the
continent, and whatever peoples made their way into Europe had
no great difficulty in crossing the narrow water. Migration must
have followed migration, as continental tribes, more progressive
than the islanders, came with superior weapons and skill
to conquer and colonize. Bronze drove out flint and iron
overcame bronze. Settlements of invaders assimilated with the
subject natives and themselves became natives to the next
foreign exploiter. The resulting people became known to the
Romans as Britons. Rome's traders saw that the land was worth
possessing.
In the middle of the first century A.D., Imperial Rome was in a
mood for further expansion. It became necessary to intervene in
the affairs of the northern island, touched already by Roman
influence, but as yet independent of that power. In the island
there were many princes and many governments adequate to the
local demands, but no organization for concerted action against
a powerful intruder. Within fifty years the task of pacification
was largely accomplished. The southern two-thirds of the land
then enjoyed the beneficent rule of Roman administrators. They
governed Britain for its own good--as they saw it. They made it
as much as possible like Rome. Baths and temples, roads and
bridges, and a firm law brought Roman enlightenment to
uncultured Britain. The Latin tongue was the official language.
Many Romans of the military and civil services married native
women. For more than two centuries Britain was thus a dependency
of Rome, and many Britons were proud to belong to the {3} great
empire. The rest of the island, to which this boon was never
extended, was inhabited by barbarous hill tribes, who, even when
Rome was strong, could protect themselves, and who at favourable
opportunities made raids against the loyal Britons. The Romans
had come to Britain to rule it, but had remained Romans, had
taken their orders from colonial secretaries in Rome, had left
their Roman wives and children at home--presumably because of
the severity of Britain's climate,--and after an honourable term
of service had retired on half-pay, or something as good. Just
how Rome profited by holding Britain is immaterial now, whether
by tribute levied and collected directly, whether through
extended opportunities for trade, or whether in the employment
("outdoor relief," a Canadian might put it [3-11]) of a large
military and civil force, paid, if Britain were self-supporting,
by Britain's taxes. Perhaps the knowledge of having discharged a
duty, shirking not the burden of the strong, was the reward Rome
really prized.
A change of rulers was, however, in store for them all--Briton
and Roman alike. By 350 A.D. a huge amorphous rival had begun to
overflow its Northern forest, a race of strong, eager men
seeking more land. That their first attacks were toward Rome
itself showed the empire's weakness. Rome's intentions toward
outlying dependencies may have been of the best, but it was
powerless to fulfil them. The navy, such as it was, was forced
to concentrate in home waters; and the army, called to protect
the heart of the empire, left empty the barracks of Britain.
{4}
Then, on the disorganized Britain, borne by the north-east wind,
fell the invaders. With them came many of our most cherished
virtues and a new epoch of governmental theory. The Jutes,
Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Norsemen came, not to superimpose
themselves as rulers, but to colonize. They brought their
families along. The climate suited them nicely. They wanted to
live there and make the country their country. The fact that it
was already inhabited formed only a temporary obstacle. As has
happened repeatedly in history, those who came were strong;
those they found were weak. The right of prior occupation was
matched against the right to take by force. In time the natives
had disappeared and the newcomers were settling and improving
the land. There was no looking back to a mother country for
orders or protection. Their fathers across the North Sea had
evolved certain governmental ideas. These the migrating
generations had carried with them and planted in the new soil.
They proved adequate; and if any tie bound the lusty offspring
to the ancestral home it could have been sentiment
only--unencouraged by written and electric communication. The
sentiment was short-lived.
Of these separate colonies there were as many as there were
tribes, and as many tribes as there were shiploads. They all
came from the great Teutonic stock that covered so much of
north-western Europe. Five hundred years they spent trying
conclusions among themselves, deciding what should be the
language, the law, the name, they were to hand down to us. The
people long remained without any name common to all; but in time
{5} their country became known as England. Here were established
the characteristics that have marked us ever since. The
framework of the language was set; the greed for land was
indulged; and the instinct for self-government, unable to evolve
for its own security any system of central control, proved
finally the undoing of all the jealous little autonomies. When a
single-minded force threatened their cherished liberties, they
were capable of no single-minded resistance. A neighbour across
the channel thought he could make good use of England, proved
his point one day when the wind blew favourably towards
Hastings, and became England's master.
Then began a new governmental era, one having no parallel in our
history since. The Saxon had been in most recent supremacy.
Wealth and power passed from Saxon to Norman hands. Had the
Duchy of Normandy been large enough to form the centre of its
ruler's activities, England, like the Britain of the past, would
have become a dependency of a foreign power. Two factors
prevented: England, because of its size and of its separation
from the continent was the more valued possession of the two;
and William and his followers, although considering themselves
greatly superior in culture and breeding, were really of the
same race as the men they conquered, and hence easily
assimilated with them. Had this been an invasion of people, that
is, of men with their wives and children--it must have meant
extermination of the Angles, Saxons, and Danes, either in war or
in economic strife. But no such colonizing force was at work.
The lords of England were reduced {6} to peasantry, and the
peasants of whatever origin kept on about their affairs. In time
the new nobility was no longer foreign. Neither a dependency,
nor a colony, England gradually absorbed the Normans and all the
importance of Normandy.
From this assimilation England rose independent and a unit. The
Normans, it has been said, crushed the Angles, Danes, and Saxons
into one people.[6-1] Just as inexorably were the Normans
themselves fused into the common mass--
"Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,
That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman: . . .
The silent nations undistinguish'd fall,
An Englishman's the common name for all.
Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now."[6-2]
Out of the vigour and strength that resulted have risen the
Pan-Angles; and no foreign power since then has conquered or
ruled them in England or elsewhere. With several governmental
units co-ordinated to no central authority, England had been
devastated and had been unable to repel invasions. These local
powers were now combined under a strong unitary government. So
efficient did it prove for many generations, that Pan-Angles as
a whole are only now realising its limitations. For five
centuries no change in circumstances warranted the consideration
of any other.
Suddenly, in a few years, everything changed except the minds of
men. The world began to {7} grow, and Europe was staggered by
the knowledge of areas immeasurable as compared to the lands
previously known. England then began to take its place as a
great nation. In 1497 a ship, financed by Bristol merchants,
discovered Newfoundland,[7-1] and the sea-divided control of the
Pan-Angles was foreshadowed. From this date, perhaps, Pan-Angle
history may most conveniently be reckoned. If so, four hundred
and seventeen years lie behind us. Of these the first hundred
are negligible. That was an age of fable, when the children of
Europe went out on lonely quests and staked their lives in
adventure for prizes whose value they could never know. Men left
England and circled the globe; they fished in distant
waters;[7-2] they bartered with strange peoples; but in the main
they returned again to England. No colonial policy was required
to meet their needs.
After 1600, however, they less often returned. They settled the
new lands, and grew great in wealth and population. They
organized governments and huge instruments of trade. Slowly the
fabric grew that was to dwarf England in size and resources, and
England, failing to understand that it was no loser thereby, but
richer as a part of a {8} strengthening Pan-Angle civilization,
found little light on the problems arising. In 1607 Virginia and
in 1620 Massachusetts were permanently settled.[8-1] During the
same years Englishmen were acquiring titles and trading rights
in India. Here, at the outset, we have all the elements that
long made for obscurity and discord.
In Virginia and Massachusetts the land was suitable for the
occupations and for the breeding of white men. These settlements
were typical of many in North America, South Africa, and
Australasia. The settler changed his latitude and longitude, but
little else. He pushed back the natives, from the land he
desired to use, gave the place an English name, and proceeded
about his affairs with his fundamental ideals, habits, and
institutions unaltered. He brought from England, besides
furniture and bricks for his house, his language, his religion,
and his notions of government. These he preserved and handed
down to his children, who in turn thought and behaved as though
Englanders, and in two localities, a hemisphere apart, named
their land New England. Self-government was one of their
inherited ideas; they believed that he who supports the
government with taxes should be represented therein. Settlements
such as these are here distinguished as colonies. The first
sprang from England, and in some cases have themselves been the
prolific parents of new colonies. But of whatever origin, all
are a product of the individualism of the Pan-Angle
civilization. In them self-government {9} has been a question of
time only. "Assemblies were not formally instituted, but grew of
themselves because it was the nature of Englishmen to assemble.
Thus the old historian of the colonies Hutchinson, writes under
the year 1619, 'This year a House of Burgesses broke out in
Virginia.'"[9-1] However strongly such colonies may be attached
by sentimental and political ties to some other governmental
group, they belong to themselves alone. On terms of equality
they are part of the Pan-Angle power that controls the world.
In India, and in the many other instances of the same sort, the
land was not suited for the occupations and for the breeding of
white men. It was filled with native inhabitants who neither
gave way before the European, nor assimilated with him. The
English language, law, and governmental forms might be
superimposed to some degree, but the great bulk of the people
continued to think, talk, and act in ways that were not our
ways. Their civilization, however high, was not our
civilization. Such lands, and only such lands, may be called
"possessions" of any Pan-Angle nation. Ceylon belongs to the
British Isles; the Cook Islands belong to New Zealand; Papua
belongs to Australia; and the Philippines belong to the United
States. Because they "belong to" another than themselves, these
lands are called dependencies.
The men who ruled England in 1600 could not anticipate this
distinction so as to make their phraseology, their thoughts and
their efforts at {10} government correspond. Nor, as years
passed, did they come to understand it. Often they knew little
about these settlements, except that all were distant very many
days sailing. In general, the tendency was to act as though all
were possessions belonging to England and subject to its will.
To the statesman in London it might seem at most a theoretical
difference; not so to the man on the spot. If he were a colonist
he felt his land a part of the Mother Country, or its equal in a
larger group of which both were parts. His land did not and
could not belong to England in any sense that gave him less
liberty than Englanders enjoyed.
Here, on the one side, was a stubborn fact; on the other, an
inability to recognize that fact. Friction resulted. In 1707
England united with Scotland to form Great Britain. But Great
Britain, like England, thought colonies possessions. It so
regarded the American colonies. Friction increased.
The colonists understood what it was to desire to be "part of"
and to find they were considered as "belonging to." In Taunton,
Massachusetts, they raised a liberty pole, October 21, 1774.
From it flew the flag of Great Britain bearing the words
"Liberty and Union." To the pole was affixed the following
lines:
CRESCIT AMOR PATRIAE LIBERTATIS
QUE CUPIDO
"Be it known to the present,
And to all future generations,
That the Sons of Liberty in Taunton
Fired with a zeal for the preservation of {11}
Their rights as men, and as
American Englishmen,
And prompted by a just resentment of
The wrongs and injuries offered to the
English colonies in general, and to
This Province in particular, . . ."[11-1]
Not enough of the Pan-Angle statesmen of those days had the
insight to read rightly that inscription. It was only by
severing the Pan-Angles that the American colonies demonstrated
that their citizens were the peers of the citizens of Great
Britain.
Yet there were men on both sides of the Atlantic who even in
those days appreciated that one group of English-speaking white
men cannot be controlled by another. They understood the
equality of citizenship in all Pan-Angles. Of these men it is
enough to mention five: Burke of Ireland, whose words "ring out
the authentic voice of the best political thought of the English
race,"[11-2] and who gave us the "Conciliation with America";
Otis of Massachusetts, whose speech against the Writs of
Assistance was only the beginning of his work; Galloway of
Pennsylvania, the Loyalist who refused re-election to the 1775
Continental Congress when he had to choose {12} between America
and Great Britain; Pownall of England, Governor of Massachusetts
1757-1760, and later Member of the British Parliament 1768-1780;
and Franklin of Pennsylvania, who with Pownall worked for
Pan-Angle unity on both sides of the Atlantic till he, like
Galloway, had to decide, and ended by choosing not Great Britain
but his own nation. The first was never in America; the second
was never in England; the third saw England in his exile only
after American nationhood was established; and the fourth and
fifth knew both England and America.
These men did not discover to Pan-Angles the doctrine of no
taxation without representation. That, like many other alleged
Americanisms, was a Pan-Angle tenet already old. "The
Principality of Wales, said Galloway, the Bishopric of Durham,
and the Palatinate of Chester, laboured, just as America, under
the grievance of being bound by the authority of Parliament
without sharing the direction of that authority. They petitioned
for a share, and their claim was recognized. When Henry VIII.,
he continued, conquered Calais, and settled it with English
merchants, it was so incompatible with English liberty to be
otherwise, that Calais representatives were incorporated in the
English Parliament."[12-1] But these five men may {13} be said
to be among those who rediscovered this tenet. As such they
shared in the formation of the nationhood not only of America,
but also of the five new nations of the Britannic world.
In 1801 Great Britain and Ireland were formed into one political
unit under the official title of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, in these pages referred to as the British
Isles. And still the distinctions between "part of" and
"belonging to" were not understood in the British Isles.
Colonies and dependencies grew in importance and size, many of
the former having colonies and dependencies of their own; and
still their radical differences were not clearly recognized.
Repeatedly such colonies as Canada, New Zealand, or South Africa
have reasserted the Pan-Angle principle that one group of
self-governing white men cannot be the possession of another. So
strong has been the effect of this reiteration that now there is
some tendency in the British Isles to err on the other side, and
to consider India, the Malay States, and other dependencies as
though they hold, or should hold, the same status as colonies.
Failure to distinguish between areas that are self-governing and
those that are not leads to a loose application of terms which
contributes to further obscurity of thought. One recent instance
is striking in its subtle suggestiveness. Most of the Malay
Peninsula has been taken under the surveillance of the British
Isles. Gradually one native ruler after another has been induced
to desire the friendship of the men who came from the British
Isles.
Some of the areas so acquired are dubbed {14} "States."[14-1]
The collective government of this group of "States" has been
given the grandiloquent title "Federated Malay States," The
Pan-Angle student, familiar with federation in the
English-speaking nations which have already succeeded in their
autonomous efforts, cannot but be confused by hearing the word
"federated" applied to regions where self-government is not even
spoken of, and where the inhabitants take their political orders
from such officials as are appointed by their white conquerors.
The confusion is increased when a battleship guaranteed with
funds of the Federated Malay States is presented to the
government of the British Isles, and is made the occasion of
fulsome speeches about the "loyalty" of the "King's subjects" in
the Federated Malay States. The uninformed persons of the
British Isles and elsewhere may not realize that this gift of
the battleship _Malaya_ means simply the imposition of
additional taxes on the conquered subjects that "belong to" the
conquering race. This is equally true whether or not has been
obtained the approval of the figureheads that are known to the
outside world as the "native rulers."[14-2] Such an instance
{15} fogs our perception of the problems pressing for solution
by the Britannic self-governing peoples.
This confused thinking and failure to appreciate the difference
between "part of" and "belonging to" has delayed Pan-Angle
progress. It led to the disrupting American Revolution, to the
Canadian Rebellion of 1837, and to frictions less in importance
only because they were more promptly remedied. It has been an
unnecessary difficulty in the way of all schemes proposed for
closer Britannic union. Are the self-governing colonies to be
united to each other and to the Mother Country?--or to these and
to the dependencies besides? The word empire is variously used,
and the thought underlying it sometimes vague. To some Britannic
writers it refers inclusively to every spot over which the
British flag flies, classing all colours and conditions of men
in one category.[15-1] Others restrict its use to self-governing
areas and peoples.[15-2] To still other minds it connotes lack
of self-government, and is applicable only to the
dependencies.[15-3] The "imperial parliaments" conjured {16} up
by these three definitions are vastly dissimilar. And the New
Zealander, for instance, would like to know, before he becomes a
party to one, whether he is going to help rule India, or to sit
in joint deliberation with its representatives.[16-1]
The British Isles and the countries that have developed from
British colonies form numerous and interrelated political
groups. The largest, and now most important areas from a racial
point of view, are New Zealand, Australia, South Africa,
Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States
of America. In this discussion these seven nations are
considered as representing their race. Their peoples are known
respectively as New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans,
Newfoundlanders, Canadians, Britishers, and Americans. These
seven nations hold in actual or allied control lands amounting
to sixteen million square miles, with a population of five
hundred and thirty-five million people,[16-2] or thirty and
thirty-three per cent. respectively of the entire surface, and
the entire {17} population of the world. Rome at her greatest
dominated a population of one hundred and twenty millions.[17-1]
In these seven nations more than one hundred and forty-one
millions are white people,[17-2] nearly all speaking the same
language, and all enjoying individual liberty of substantial
equality. They govern themselves and they govern other peoples
of other languages, colours, and ideals, to a total of nearly
four times the entire Roman Empire. To the English-speaking
whites these subject-peoples owe their privileges, such as they
are. Success or failure in governing themselves and others
depends for these whites on their ability so to control
themselves that no foreign powers can interfere with this
world-wide domination.
The words "the English-speaking, self-governing white people of
New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the
British Isles, and the United States of America," make a long
expression. No suitable abbreviation seems to have been devised.
The word Pan-Angle as a noun and as an adjective is here
offered.
{18}
There are various reasons why other words are unsatisfactory.
None in existence exactly denotes the meaning which is here
desired. Anglo-Saxon may refer to the fusion of two stocks of
conquering immigrants who contributed men and vitality of ideas
to the present Pan-Angles. Sometimes, however, it has referred
to only one of these tribes, the Saxons, and designated them as
the Saxons colonizing Angle-land, as opposed to the parent
stock, the Saxons of the continent.[18-1] Some writers have
employed the word loosely as a collective name for all persons
and ideas whose ancestry can be traced to the British Isles.
Again, a literature, a law, an architecture, and a language is
each called Anglo-Saxon. Moreover, there is a people called
Saxons, and a land of Saxony, forming no part of the Pan-Angle
group. Anglican is one of our race names, with its roots deep in
the past, but it has already a restricted meaning as a name for
one of our religious creeds. English is equally unsatisfactory.
It is properly applied to our common language and to the people
inhabiting a part of the British Isles. Even this seemingly
simple meaning has not been faithfully preserved. Writers,
otherwise careful, speak of the English flag and the English
Parliament, when they mean the flag and Parliament of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Robert Louis Stevenson, by
a recent student and author, was called an Englishman![18-2]
This inexactness is equally distasteful to those to whom the
appellation rightfully belongs, and to those who have names of
their own of which they are proud.
{19}
To avoid confusion, the word English in this discussion is
restricted as far as possible to the language alone, or is used
in the sense of belonging to or originating in England. The term
England refers only to the geographic area bearing that
name.[19-1] The inhabitants of England are herein referred to as
Englanders.[19-2] It would be well to have a name for these
self-governing, English-speaking white people that would direct
the mind back to the European stocks, whose bloods have mingled
in the British Isles and in these six other nations, and that
would suggest the origin of the ideals and of the men that have
made possible the present world domination of these people.
Failing such an extensively composite and suggestive word,
resort is had to the name of one of these many tribes. They are
but one of many peoples that went to our making. The Angles
to-day exist nowhere as Angles. But they gave their name to our
tongue and to the country through which we have inherited much.
Every English-speaking schoolboy knows Gregory's exclamation at
the sight of the fair-skinned children brought from
Britain.[19-3] "Angels," they may have looked to the fervent
{20} priest, on their block in the Roman slave market; but, as
"inheritors of the earth, successors to Rome about to fall," he
might prophetically have saluted them. Their political
descendants have abolished slavery throughout a large part of
the world. They are the white people who speak English, citizens
of the autonomous nations: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa,
Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States
of America. Pan-Angles they are here called, and their nations,
Pan-Angle nations.
[3-1] _Round Table,_ London, September 1913, p. 639.
[6-1] C. H. Pearson, _History of England during the Early and
Middle Ages_, London, 1867, vol. i, p. 136.
[6-2] Daniel Defoe, "The True-born Englishman: A Satire," in
_Novels and Miscellaneous Works,_ London, 1855, vol. v. pp. 441,
442.
[7-1] Richard Hakluyt, _The Principal Navigations Voyages
Traffiques_ and _Discoveries of the English Nation,_ Hakluyt
Society reprint, Glasgow, 1904, vol. vii. p. 146: "IN the yere
of our Lord 1497 John Cabot a Venetian, and his sonne Sebastian
(with an English fleet set out from Bristoll) discovered that
land which no man before that time had attempted, on the 24 of
June, about five of the clocke early in the morning," _Cf._
Alfred Caldecott, _English Colonization and Empire,_ London,
1891, p. 28.
[7-2] D. W. Prowse, _History of Newfoundland,_ London, 1895, pp.
28, 58, 83.
[8-1] John Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her Neighbours,_ London,
1897, vol. i. pp. 93, 94; John Fiske, _The Beginnings of New
England,_ Boston, 1889, pp. 81-83.
[9-1] J.R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England,_ London, 1883,
p.69.
[11-1] P. D. Harrison, _The Stars and Stripes,_ Boston, 1906, p.
24; _ibid.,_ p. 23: "The Taunton flag was the regular English
[Great Britain's] flag, adopted by the union of the aforesaid
crosses upon a red field. Its significance lay in its motto,
signifying that there was at that time no thought of severance
from the mother country, their only thought being liberty of
action; and it has historic value because it was the first to
wave with that motto."
[11-2] Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature,_ Boston, 1900, p. 105.
[12-1] A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects,_ Oxford, 1913, p. 60.
Henry VIII. above should read Edward III. After the battle of
Crecy he besieged Calais in 1346. _Cf._ C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas
Pownall,_ London, 1908, p. 204, who refers to the same ideas as
above, quoted from the 4th edition (1768) of Thomas Pownall's
_The Administration of the Colonies._ For maps of these four
historical areas, see W. R. Shepherd, _Historical Atlas,_
Boston, 1911, pp. 74 and 84.
[14-1] For a definition of grades of government of dependencies
of Britannic nations, see _An Analysis of the System of
Government throughout the British Empire,_ London, 1912, pp.
59-61.
[14-2] _Round Table,_ London, September 1913, p. 697: "It is not
true that she [_Malaya_] was offered as the result of pressure
by the British Government. She owes her existence partly to the
imagination of the Colonial Secretary in the Malay States, who
would by general agreement have been well advised to keep his
visions to himself instead of communicating them even to
sympathetic chiefs, but the Government in the 'Malay States
certainly received no suggestion on the subject from the
Colonial Office.'"
[15-1] _Ency. Brit_., vol. iv. p. 606. "_Ency. Brit._" in this
and subsequent notes refers to _Encyclopedia Britannica_,
Eleventh Edition, Cambridge, England, 1910. Also _Empire
Movement (Non-Party, Non-Sectarian, Non-Aggressive, and
Non-Racial_), London, 1913; Leaflet 19, _Shorter Catechism_:
"The British Empire is that portion of the Earth's land surface
which is subject to the authority of King George."
[15-2] J. R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England,_ London, 1883,
p. 46: "The English Empire is on the whole free from that
weakness which has brought down most empires, the weakness of
being a mere mechanical forced union of alien nationalities. . .
. the English Empire in the main and broadly may be said to be
English throughout."
[15-3] _Cf._ G.R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892,
p. 248: "Unquestionably confusion of thought is caused by the
careless use of the term Empire into which English people have
fallen. Applied to India and the crown colonies it is
admissible, . . . As a name for the 'slowly grown and crowned
Republic' of which the mother-land is the type and the great
self-governing colonies copies, the term Empire is a misnomer,
. . ."
[16-1] Richard Jebb, _Studies in Colonial Nationalism,_ London,
1905, p. 276: "Indeed, the inclusion of India involves the
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the imperial-federation theory which
forms the logical complement of the expansion-of-England
theory."
[16-2] _Whitaker's Almanack_, London, 1913, pp.479, 646:
16,897,126 square miles and 535,753,952 persons.
[17-1] _An Analysis of the System of Government throughout the
British Empire_, London, 1912, p. v, gives the Roman Empire
population as eighty-five millions and the British Empire as
four hundred and ten millions. But see Edward Gibbon, _Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire_, London, 1782, vol. i. pp. 51, 52:
"We are informed, that when the emperor Claudius exercised the
office of censor, he took an account of six millions nine
hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens, . . . it seems
probable, that there existed, in the time of Claudius, about
twice as many provincials as there were citizens, . . . and that
the slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants
of the Roman world. The total amount of this imperfect
calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions
of persons."
[17-2] _Cf_. _post_, p. 81, note 1.
[18-1] Cf. _Ency. Brit._, vol. ix. p. 588.
[18-2] Price Collier, _England and the English,_ London, 1911,
p. 341.
[19-1] As to quoted passages, the reader is cautioned to
distinguish in each instance the meanings of the terms England,
Britain, Great Britain, British, Britannic, etc. The usage in
one quotation may differ from that in another and from that in
the non-quoted passages. The terminology in the latter has been
adopted to accord with the most accurate and consistent present
usage. The only innovation in terms here employed is the word
Pan-Angles.
[19-2] Sir Walter Scott, _The Abbot_, iv.: "I marvel what blood
thou art--neither Englander nor Scot," quoted in _New English
Dictionary_, Oxford, 1891--"Englander."
[19-3] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xii. p. 566.
{21}
II
THE PEOPLE
If an intelligent traveller from Mars were to tour the earth
to-day he would jot down in his note-book that New Zealand,
Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the British
Isles, and the United States were all inhabited by the same sort
of people. Their language, their forms of government, their ways
of thinking and of conducting the various departments of life
would lead him to think so. And he would be right. The
English-speaking traveller, denied the point of view of an
outsider, is prone to take the likenesses for granted and to
dwell on the differences, using his own local group as a
yard-stick to measure the rest. Beneath his criticism, however,
he is conscious that in these countries he is at home in the
same sense that he is an alien in all others. Whichever of the
seven he may be from, he finds in each of the other six, men he
can hardly tell from himself, and realizes that in his own
political unit, whose oneness he never questions, there are
communities with natures more dissimilar than are the natures of
these seven nations. No knowledge of history is needed for
either him or the Martian to conclude that while they use
different names to designate this part or that, {22} they are
speaking always of one people and one civilization.
Of what stuffs the English-speaking people were fashioned has
already been explained. England, when colonization began, held
the germ of the future Pan-Angles. Within two centuries Scotland
and Ireland were united with England and Wales under one
government, and the English language and English ideals
penetrated further and further into those once Celtic
strongholds. Welsh, Scots, and Irish brought their contributions
to our development. They wrote English poems and English books.
They officered the army and built battleships. They made and
administered laws, and furnished prime ministers for the British
Isles. Like the Englanders they too migrated to the new
Pan-Angle lands, seeking religious or political liberty in some
cases, but oftenest seeking the means of a more satisfactory
life. These they have found. By this blending of all British
Isles stocks came new vitality to the Pan-Angles.
Three centuries ago this diffusion of Britishers began, and it
continues to-day in far greater numbers than then.[22-1] Nor
have they come less to the United States since it became
independent of Great Britain.[22-2] {23} A French student
divides the American people into two groups: those whose
ancestors were in the United States previous to 1830, and hence
almost totally British, and those descended from persons
immigrating since that time. The former, according to his
computation, comprises more than one-half of the present
population of the United States. And of the latter, one-third at
least are likewise of British stock. A total of two-thirds, or
perhaps even of three-fourths, of the American people to-day
are, he concludes, the descendants of Britishers.[23-1] The
Irish he considers an important element. Of the result of the
mingled immigrations of the Irish and other Celts with the
Scandinavians and Germans, an American student says: "When we
remember that it was the crossing of the Germanic and the Celtic
stocks that produced the English race itself, we are obliged to
assume that the future American people will be substantially the
same human stuff that created the English common law, founded
parliamentary institutions, established American
self-government, and framed the Constitution of the United
States."[23-2] Of all Pan-Angles a tremendous majority are of
British descent. Of all Pan-Angles outside the British Isles a
majority are still of British descent; and theirs has been the
influence that has made six new nations vastly alike, and like,
also, to the Mother Country.
In some instances, notably in Canada and in South Africa, the
Pan-Angles found on their {24} arrival other peoples, sprung
from European stocks, firmly rooted to the land. Descendants of
these first settlers still form communities apart, in which one
hears English less often than French or Taal, as the case may
be; much as one finds communities in the British Isles where
only a form of Celtic is spoken. In other places, too, as in New
York and London, are little foreign nuclei engaged in some
particular trade, where a man can live and earn his wage and
know no English. These are, however, the remarked exceptions.
British blood, moreover, has not in the meantime been stagnant.
Through these centuries, as from earliest history, it has been
constantly enriched and invigorated by admixtures from the
continent of Europe. To the British Isles, South Africa,
Newfoundland, Canada, and the United States, non-British peoples
have come. Even New Zealand and Australia, almost purely British
as they are, have their French and German settlements
respectively. In the British Isles the reception and absorption
of foreign stocks has been unspectacular. Individuals, or from
time to time groups, seeking the larger tolerance of England,
have taken up an abode there. One has but to observe and listen
in the streets to be convinced that foreign invaders, though
with no hostile intent, still land on British soil. Outside the
British Isles, this replenishing of the British stock by
"foreign" immigrants often presents features that are
spectacular--especially where the bulk of the foreigners now
arrive--in the United States and Canada.[24-1]
{25}
The immigrant often comes with no ability to speak English or to
understand the habits of mind and forms of government of those
who do. He may never have been proudly conscious of any
nationality. But in an amazingly brief length of time, we find
him taking his place among his Pan-Angle fellows and conducting
himself as one of them. In one generation he is transformed into
a Pan-Angle.
This process of assimilation was formerly unconscious on the
part of the receiving nations. Now, as the task has grown more
stupendous, special machineries in the way of day and night
schools and settlement clubs and classes have been devised in
the larger centres, and are maintained at the expense of the
public. The immigrant, safely arrived, finds himself still
outside the unyielding wall of the English language. He cannot
ask for food or work. Even those from his former country talk
English together, and jeer at his ignorance. By hard experience
and whatever help is offered, he qualifies himself in this first
requisite. With his English he acquires much else. He learns
words which express ideas peculiar to Pan-Angle psychology. From
the words he progresses to the ideas themselves. Thus he learns
somewhat of the theory of law and government, and of the
aspirations and ideals, and of the expected privileges that have
evolved with this language. The pride of the Pan-Angle comes
over him, and a faith in those precepts of individual freedom of
which he {26} had never dreamed, it may be, until he learned to
read and talk of them in English. "An Englishman's house is his
castle." Here is a promise of privacy perhaps unknown in the
land he has quitted. "Government derives its just powers from
the consent of the governed." This is a long step from the
doctrine of the Divine Right of kings. Thus with the language
goes an atmosphere of many things that are not to be translated,
historical heritages which the immigrant must substitute for
those of his birth. As he practises the new tongue amid
increased material and spiritual comforts, his perception
quickens and he is already fairly started to become one of us.
"I am an American," he cries; or "I am a Canadian": more
noisily, perhaps, because his liberties are newer, but speaking
none the less from the same fountains of pride that inspire--"I
am an Englishman."
On the second generation the same force operates; the
stubbornness of the English-speaking people for their language
acts firmly as the Inquisition and gently as a blessing. They
attend free schools, read only books written in English from the
point of view of English-speaking people and on subjects
interesting to such people. Non-Pan-Angle theories of government
are non-existent; alien moral standards unheard of. The wall
that once hedged the father out, hedges the children in. More
often than not they cannot speak the tongue their parents were
born to. With _Ivanhoe_ and _King Lear_ they are familiar; they
quote Burns and Wordsworth and Longfellow; after local history
they study that of England. The history and poets of their
fathers' native lands are foreign {27} and unknown. If oratory
be demanded, it is Burke or Lincoln who furnish the words and
sentiments to young Hans and Pietro.[27-1]