private matter--not a public matter. In short, it is a concern
in which the majority are not to interfere with the minority and
in which the minority are not asked to acquiesce in the feelings
of the majority. This is a condition not easily achieved.
Migration from the British Isles by no means ended all
contention. "Everywhere, indeed, that British settlers went this
strife of sects went with them."[74-1] Six out of the seven
nations were founded after our British predecessors had begun
the battle for religious freedom. All six have known state
churches in one form or {75} another, sometimes with attendant
persecutions. To-day five thrive without state churches. Even in
Quebec and England taxation for the benefit of one's neighbour's
church is the only penalty against free worshipping. Elsewhere,
throughout the Pan-Angle world, one may hold any creed he will,
and the state does not ask him to contribute to any church, nor
does the state assist, or recognize one creed above another.
In certain places, notably portions of the United States,
individualism in religion goes to extremes. In 1906 there were
estimated to be in that country one hundred and eighty-six
different kinds of Protestant churches,[75-1] some of them
approaching the bizarre in character, others so like one another
that the differences which divided them were scarcely
discernible. Certain denominations were known only in very
circumscribed areas.[75-2] There may be a certain extravagance
in maintaining the large amount of equipment necessary for so
many establishments. Apart from that, however, there seems to be
no objection to the multitudinousness of American faiths that is
not more than balanced by the benefits to the individual from
free self-expression.
"After God had carried us safe to _New England_, and wee had
builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood,
rear'd convenient places for {76} Gods worship, and setled the
Civill Government: One of the next things we longed for, and
looked after was to advance _Learning_ and perpetuate it to
Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministery to the
Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the
Dust."[76-1] So runs an account of the founding of one of the
Pan-Angle universities as it was written in 1643. In a near-by
city a public library was later established. On the building
that shelters it to-day are inscribed these sentences: "The
Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the
safeguard of order and liberty," and "Built by the people and
dedicated to the advancement of learning." Over the door are the
words: "Free to all."
Here is evidenced the attitude of one early colony toward
education, and it is typical of all. Education, education free
to all, education compulsory on all, is the ideal in each of the
six new nations. Free instruction is in some places offered to a
child from the age of three, when he enters kindergarten, to any
age at which he wishes to attend the university. For certain
years, very generally six to fourteen, attendance at school is
compulsory. There is no discrimination in regard to sex, and the
classes are frequently co-educational. Parents are in the main
allowed to send children to private and church schools when
these are of satisfactory excellence; though in many places no
such exist, and no stigma is in any way attached to the
acceptance of free education. In many places no other sort has
ever been dreamed of.
The British Isles meanwhile have not been {77} insensible to the
same impulses. If popular education there has seemed to lag
behind that of the younger nations, it is because the British
Isles had not so free a field for change. There, a more complex
social structure, and a tradition that envelops every department
of life, interfere with the movement that would cast aside the
old and adopt the new. Reforms must go slowly under such
conditions, but the opportunity for education for all is there
now an accomplished fact. In 1832 began the history of state
education in the British Isles.[77-1] To-day elementary
education is compulsory between the ages of five and
fourteen,[77-2] and free, if one desires to take it so. Since
1902 public grants to secondary schools have opened their doors
to certain numbers of non-paying pupils. The differences between
the educational systems of the British Isles and those of the
other English-speaking nations can now be said to be differences
of method or degree only, but not of spirit.
Throughout our civilization, education opens the way to
achievement, "the only real patent of nobility in the modern
world."[77-3] The success or failure of the group is known to
depend on the individual. He holds the ballot, makes the laws,
enforces them; his religion is part of the faith of the land and
determines the character of its composite; his ideals of
marriage are expressed in the practice of the race. Organization
and a few picked men do not control our destinies. To {78}
ensure the future of the group we educate our citizens. We
"advance _Learning_ and perpetuate it to Posterity" so that
wisdom may be heard in our councils, and that ballots may
register considered judgments.
As individualists the Pan-Angles have come to their present
state. As individualists they must continue to work out their
destiny. The right they prize most is the right to develop
further in individualism. That right will be secured to
Pan-Angles only when they have cause to fear no human power.
[48-1] Modern England, 50,916 square miles, and all Pan Angle
nations and their dependencies, 16,897,126. See _post_, p. 81,
note 1.
[48-2] _Round Table_, London, February 1911, p. 207: "1817,
1823, 1825, 1828, 1832, 1835, 1836."
[48-3] A. W. Jose, _History of Australasia_, Sydney, 1911, p.
187.
[49-1] Cf. _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvi. pp. 692-693, on the story
of Texas.
[49-2] For an account of which, see Beckles Willson, _The Great
Company_ (1667-1871), London, 1900.
[50-1] _The Cleveland Plain Dealer_, Cleveland, Ohio, September
2, 1913; but cf. _United Empire_, London, December 1913, p. 934
concerning a statue to his memory at Berbera.
[50-2] _Ency. Brit._, vol. ix. p. 556.
[50-3] _Ibid._, vol. iv. p. 660.
[51-1] Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu, _Les Etats-Unis au Vingtième
Siècle_, Paris, 1904, pp. 37, 38, claims that the country to the
south of the long Canadian frontier was opened up by successive
waves of people of the same blood, the pioneers being almost
entirely sons of pioneers.
[51-2] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvii. p. 691: "The new life bore
most hardly upon women; and, if the record of woman's share in
the work of American colonization could be fully made up, the
price paid for the final success would seem enormous."
[51-3] W. M. West, _Modern History_, Boston, rev. ed., 1907, p.
300.
[52-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, pp.
400-401. _Cf._ Edmund Burke in _Conciliation with America_, par.
37.
[52-2] _Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia_, Melbourne,
No. 4, 1911, p.122.
[53-1] J. E. Le Rossignol and W. D. Stewart, _State Socialism in
New Zealand_, London [1911], p. 17: "The people of New Zealand
are not doctrinaires, and the academic question as to the proper
spheres of governmental and individual activity is seldom
discussed. The State has taken up one thing after another as the
result of concrete discussion of concrete cases. Usually, if not
invariably, abuses have been thought to exist, which the State
has been called upon to remedy: the great landowners have stood
in the way of closer settlement: wages have been low and
conditions of labour bad: rates of interest, insurance premiums,
prices of coal, and rents of dwellings have been thought to be
high: the oyster beds have been depleted by private
exploitation: taxation has fallen too heavily upon the poor: for
one cause or another there has been complaint, complaint has
grown into agitation, and agitation into legislation."
[55-1] Arthur Murphy, _The Works of Cornelius Tacitus_, London,
1793, vol. iv. p. 16.
[56-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxiii. p. 110.
[56-2] _Ibid._, vol. xx. p. 837: "The Angles, Saxons and other
Teutonic races who conquered Britain brought to their new homes
their own laws and customs, . . . and a certain rude
representation in local affairs:' _Cf._ also Woodrow Wilson,
_The State_, 1898, Boston, rev. ed., 1911, pp. 560, 561.
[56-3] _Ency. Brit._, vol. ix. p. 491.
[57-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxiii. p. 109.
[57-2] _Ibid._, vol. xxiii. pp. 109-110.
[57-3] _Ibid._, vol. xxiii. p. 110.
[57-4] _Ibid._, vol. xxiii. p. 109: "In 1651 Isaac Penington the
younger published a pamphlet entitled 'The fundamental right,
safety and liberty of the People; which is radically in
themselves, derivatively in the Parliament, their substitutes or
representatives.'" Cf. _New English Dictionary_, Oxford, 1891,
"Representative," where 1658 is mentioned as its first use.
[57-5] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xx. p. 835, and vol. ix. p. 491.
[57-6] The House of Lords contains a certain representative
element in the Irish and Scottish members. These are some only
of the peers of their respective countries, and are elected by
their fellow peers to seats in the House of Lords--those from
Ireland for life, and from Scotland for a session.
[58-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xii. p. 295.
[58-2] _Ibid._, p. 295.
[58-3] _Ibid._, vol. xxiii. p. 112.
[58-4] _Ibid._, vol. xxiii. p. 112.
[59-1] Alfred Caldecott, _English Colonization and Empire_,
London, 1891, p. 129.
[59-2] Cf. _ante_, p. 56.
[60-1] Cf. _post_, p. 109, note 1.
[60-2] The variety of uses of the word "constitution" is
referred to, _post_, pp. 95-108.
[60-3] _Cf._ W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven,
Connecticut, 1913, pp. 42-95, for a discussion of these three
terms.
[61-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, pp.
207-208.
[62-1] Recourse to the grave process of impeachment lies outside
normal procedure and is here disregarded.
[62-2] Cf. _post_, p. 113 _et seq._
[63-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xvii. pp. 315, 317; but also cf.
_ibid._, vol. ix. p. 488: "It was the first of the many
occasions in English history when the demand for reform took the
shape of a reference back to old precedents, and now (as on all
subsequent occasions) the party which opposed the crown read
back into the ancient grants which they quoted a good deal more
than had been actually conceded in them."
[65-1] W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven, Connecticut,
1913, p. 155.
[65-2] The exception to this statement is apparent in the
British Isles, where suffrage is a national affair, and no
federal framework affords a basis for local option on this
privilege.
[66-1] _Springfield_ (Massachusetts) _Weekly Republican_,
November 20, 1913.
[67-1] W. B. Worsfold, _The Union of South Africa_, London,
1912, p. 126.
[67-2] _Ibid._, pp. 139-140.
[67-3] _An Analysis of the System of Government throughout the
British Empire_, London, 1912, p. 44.
[68-1] _An Analysis of the System of Government throughout the
British Empire_, London, 1912, pp. 44-45.
[68-2] Edward Jenks, _The Future of British Law: An Inaugural
Lecture delivered before the University of Melbourne_,
Melbourne, 1889, pp. 6-7.
[69-1] W.B. Worsfold, _The Union of South Africa_, London, 1912,
p.438.
[70-1] A. V. Dicey, "A Common Citizenship for the English Race,"
in _Contemporary Review_, vol. lxxi., April 1897, p. 469.
[70-2] Edward Jenks, _The Future of British Law: An Inaugural
Lecture delivered before the University of Melbourne_,
Melbourne, 1889, p. 11.
[72-1] Eversley and Craies, _Marriage Laws of the British
Empire_, London, 1910, pp. 61, 173, 192, 70, 239-392.
[73-1] John Stuart Mill, _The Subjection of Women_, London,
1906, p. 123.
[74-1] _United Empire_, London, January 1914, A. W. Tilby,
"Christianity and the Empire," p. 57.
[75-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvii. p. 638.
[75-2] U.S. Bureau of the Census, _Special Reports of the
Census: Religious Bodies: 1906_, Washington, D.C., 1910, pt.
ii., pp. 225, 508, 626, 635, 659.
[76-1] _New England's First Fruits_, London, 1643, p.12.
[77-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. viii. p. 971.
[77-2] _Whitaker's Almanack_, London, 1913, p. 489.
[77-3] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1898, Boston, rev. ed.,
1911, p.18.
{79}
IV
THE SEVEN NATIONS
"THE representatives of the great nations across the seas."
A British Colonial Secretary used these words[79-1] in a speech
welcoming to the Imperial Conference of 1902 the Prime Ministers
of the other Britannic governments. This should be enough to
permit the terminology to any Pan-Angle, when he refers to New
Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland or Canada, and
the men who govern them. These "great nations across the seas"
are themselves conscious of nationhood on a parity with that of
the British Isles. A representative of one of them in the same
year thus spoke of his country and its fellow nations: "The
British Empire . . . a galaxy of independent nations . . . There
is not in Canada at the present moment a single British soldier
to maintain British supremacy--moreover it is Canadian soldiers
who are today garrisoning Halifax . . . The whole Australian
continent {80} has now been moulded into another nation under
the flag . . . and I can see dawning in South Africa the day
when there will be another Confederation . . . "[80-1] Eleven
years later in that South Africa another national Prime Minister
spoke of _his_ country and _his_ countrymen. "Their country was
part of the British Empire. They could not get away from it; it
was their Constitution; and yet they were as free as if they
were their own State, and they took up the position--he had said
so in England--that they were not a subject State, but part of
the British Empire, and were on an equality. They were a sister
State of England."[80-2]
When throughout these lands writers similarly use the word
"nation," the student of Pan-Angle affairs need proceed to no
further investigation, though he may be unable to justify the
word by current dictionary definition. Enough if he notes its
political significance. In the same class are such words as
"independent," "self-governing," and "autonomous": subject to
the same theoretical queries but established by the same
practical usage. Anyone who would question such usage is
silenced by the recognition that it only conforms to facts. On
such facts is based the thesis of these pages.
The seven units of the Pan-Angle world differ {81} both in size
and density of population,[81-1] Hence it might be objected that
to classify according to these divisions is to neglect the
relative strength and importance of the various political
groups, Newfoundland is not as important in population or wealth
as the British Isles; while near Canada, it cannot be considered
a part of Canada, New Zealand is two-thirds as far from
Australia as Newfoundland is from Scotland, and emphatically is
no part of its huge neighbour,[81-2] One of its citizens writes:
"Although one thousand miles distant from Australia at the
nearest point, although situated in a different climate and
inevitably destined to display a different national temperament,
although already possessed of a national {82} character,
national aspirations and national peculiarities, although
already served by Imperial affiliation much better than it could
be served by any mere local federation, the Australian Prime
Minister has no deeper insight than to predict the sinking of
New Zealand into the _status_ of a petty and subordinate
Australian State. . . . before New Zealand denies its
independence under the Empire, and seeks shelter under the
mantle of the [Australian] Federal Parliament, there will be a
new political heaven and a new political earth. At the present
time the proposal is simply absurd." [82-1]
Some might prefer to treat the Pan-Angle world as made up of two
groups, those under the British and American flags respectively.
This, however, fails to give the true character of the five
younger Britannic nations, and might suggest erroneously that
they bear a position to the British Parliament similar to the
position of the American states to the Congress of the United
States. Some American may resent the implied insignificance of
the forty-eight states, some of which are larger in size or
population, or both, than certain of the Britannic nations.
Texas is over twice as large as either the British Isles or New
Zealand, and has a population about four times that of New
Zealand, or somewhat less than that of Australia. Similarly, it
may occur to an Australian, or a Canadian, or a South African,
that the states of the first, or the provinces of the two latter
nations should receive more prominence. Others again might
consider that the yet undivided areas of the British Isles,
which may some time be {83} organized under a federal system, or
else the ancient historical parts as they were before the days
of union, should be among the basic units of this discussion.
To all these questionings the same answer applies. It is not
easy to generalize in a system which, like ours, is the result
of growth and adaptation. There are many local peculiarities of
governments and grades of autonomy which, significant in
themselves, are immaterial to the question of Pan-Angle
federation, and which for simplicity's sake are here ignored.
The classification here used does not forbid others. Each reader
may consider these people according to any scheme of which he
approves. The seven nations here designated are entities. Their
pride of personality is in most cases very great. This is reason
enough, in spite of huge discrepancies in size and population,
for utilizing a classification based on existing national
feelings.
The British Isles[83-1] and the United States[83-2] are {84}
entirely independent of each other and of all other powers.
Neither recognizes the right of anyone to dictate to it in any
matter, except by war or its threat. The other five of the
Pan-Angle nations do not yet perhaps go so far.
In the past certainly the British government legislated for them
as it saw fit. The abolition of slavery under the British flag
early in the nineteenth century serves as an example. This
outside interference while humane was even then considered
arbitrary.
In South Africa "what mainly angered the Cape colonists was the
inadequacy of the compensation which was awarded in their case.
The value of the slaves on Dec. 1, 1834, when the Emancipation
Act came into effect, was estimated by the commissioners
specially appointed for the purpose at three million sterling.
The sum allotted by the Imperial Government was no more than one
and a quarter million, payable, not in South Africa, but in
London, and with a deduction of any expenses incurred in
carrying out the work of emancipation. The result was to
impoverish the former slave owners, and to awaken in them a
bitter feeling of resentment against the government which had
deprived them of their property, and against the philanthropists
by whom the policy of emancipation had been inspired."[84-1]
This step had been taken without the consent of the governed,
{85} the slave-holding communities having no representation in
the Parliament that enacted the law.
Theoretically the same right exists to-day.[85-1] "In granting
self-government to the British Dominions Britain did not change
her constitution. Conscious that the British Government could
not rule great communities in America, Australasia, and Africa,
. . . Britain has agreed that they shall manage their own
affairs. But she has never undertaken, and could not undertake,
a clear division of functions, nor could she in theory
explicitly divest herself of final responsibility in any sphere
of government. The British North America Act is a constitution
by which the relations of the Federal Government of Canada with
the Provincial Governments are fully regulated and defined; but
it is not a constitution by which the relations of that Federal
Government with the Imperial Government are fully regulated or
defined. . . . Any constitutional powers vested in the English
Government before the grant of self-government to the Dominions
are in theory still vested in that Government today."[85-2]
In practice this theoretical right has yielded to the stronger
claim of self-government. "My vindication of the preference
policy was given not at Ottawa or on Canadian soil, but in the
heart of the Empire at London, at the Colonial Conference, when
I declared to the Empire that {86} I and my colleagues of the
Government were ready to make a trade treaty. We said, 'we are
ready to discuss with you articles on which we can give you a
preference, and articles on which you can give us a preference.
We are ready to make with you a treaty of trade.' Mark those
words coming from a colony to the mother country without offence
being given or taken."[86-1] "What has never been questioned
since the War of Independence is that a democracy pretending to
a sovereignty over other democracies is either a phantom or the
most intolerable of all oppressions."[86-2] "Nobody dreams in
these days of the British Parliament making laws for Canada or
Australia. Such an idea is alien to all thinking men, . . .
[86-3]
In sum, the government of the British Isles no longer dictates
to the "great nations across the seas." All that is now apparent
of its former right of interference consists of appeals from the
courts of these younger nations to the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council of the British Isles, and the seldom used veto
power of the governors sent out from the British Isles to these
younger nations. The appeal power, though of great theoretical
importance, is of such limited practical use that a British
writer has overlooked its existence in the following
description: The {87} Governor is the only link between the Home
Government and the Colonial, and in all of them his powers are
limited to the exercise of the veto. Even this is circumscribed.
It is tacitly understood that the _veto_ will be resorted to
only when the _foreign relations_ of the empire are affected, or
when some Act is passed which the Secretary of State decides to
be incompatible with existent Imperial legislation."[87-1]
In place of the former parental-filial attitude between the
British Isles and the five younger nations there is growing up a
sympathetic and sentimental friendship. The younger nations as
yet have no representatives chosen by their voters to sit in a
common legislature with Britishers, but claim, nevertheless, to
act with the British Isles as equal partners in the Britannic
world. This claim is acknowledged by the British Isles
government. In the words of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain at Glasgow,
October 6, 1903: "And when I speak of _our_ colonies, it is an
expression; they are not ours--they are not ours in a possessory
sense. They are sister States, able to treat with us from an
equal position, able to hold to us, willing to hold to us, but
also able to break with us."[87-2]
In the light of the foregoing testimony, the exact political
status of New Zealand, Australia, Newfoundland, Canada, and
South Africa becomes increasingly difficult to define. It seems,
on the whole, more nearly accurate to regard them as {88}
independent and autonomous with certain limitations, than to
consider them as dependent with excessive liberties.
Accordingly, each of the seven Pan-Angle nations is here
considered to be the equal of each of the other six.
The collective Britannic nations have often been styled Greater
Britain, or the Britannic Empire. The word empire, though
constantly used for lack of a better term, is a misnomer. As
Seeley says: "Greater Britain is not in the ordinary sense an
Empire at all."[88-1] Another authority says: "The British
Empire is not an Empire in the ordinary meaning of the word. It
is a system of government."[88-2] "There is no Imperial
Government."[88-3]