in the friendship stage. Later developed a co-operation that can
be fairly called {178} alliance. In the French-Pan-Angle
struggle for North America, the colonies contributed men and
money, as did Great Britain. Together they won much of the
territory now the United States and all that is now Canada.
Together they did more than this. "The Seven Years War made
England what she is. It crippled the commerce of her rival,
ruined France in two continents, and blighted her as a colonial
power. It gave England the control of the seas and the mastery
of North America and India, made her the first of commercial
nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that has planted
new Englands in every part of the globe."[178-1] Pownall, during
his term as governor, saw Massachusetts raise at the requisition
of the Crown not the 2300 men asked for, but 7000.[178-2]
"Owners of property were paying in taxes two-thirds of their
incomes."[178-3] Yet their legislature in 1759 voted funds for a
monument to Lord Howe, who had fallen the previous summer at
Ticonderoga. It stands in Westminster Abbey[178-4] to-day, a
memorial as well of the men whose "affection to the mother
country . . . zeal for the service," Pownall knew from
experience.[178-5] Speaking in the British House of Commons, of
which he was a member 1768-1780, {179} he describes their
attitude during the Seven Years War. In case of a French
invasion of England at that time, he testifies: "Those New
England men would have been ready to come over at their own
expense to the assistance of their native country--as they
always hold England to be."[179-1]
After the pressure of war was removed, the alliance, instead of
being carried to the stage of common government, was neglected.
Friendship and co-operation became things of the past, and
separation took place. Many then thought that this might have
been avoided. Governor Pownall, for one, knew that there was "a
certain good temper and right spirit which, if observed on both
sides, might bring these matters of dispute to such a settlement
as political truth and liberty are best established
upon."[179-2] The "certain good temper" did not then prevail.
To-day, in 1914, we see the advantage of acting in the "right
spirit" which may bring all our affairs to such a settlement as
is conducive to the welfare of all Pan-Angles.
The United States in itself shows, perhaps most completely, the
detailed history of the political growth of groups of Pan-Angles
through the three stages. The defensive alliance of the American
colonies fell apart after the successful outcome of the French
War. The friendship between the thirteen nations survived, and
common necessity with a common cause[179-3] produced the
alliance {180} which made successful the American Revolution.
Thereafter came the critical period of American history.[180-1]
The first attempt at common government in 1781 took the form of
a strengthened alliance and failed, because alliance was at this
juncture inadequate. Undaunted, the Americans framed another
constitution for the potential nation. Here at last was a common
government.
It has survived so long that to-day the United States is the
oldest republic in the world. It has endured the strain of both
foreign and civil wars. It has permitted the assimilation of
vast hordes of white people, who now cherish this government as
their own. This government expresses the will of eighty-one
millions of whites--a majority of the English-speaking people of
the world.[180-2]
Of the six Britannic nations, Canada, Australia, and South
Africa have travelled through friendship and alliance to common
government. Canada, apparently divided by two languages, was the
first thus to establish its nationhood. Australia was the
second. More recently still, South Africa, in spite of a
diversity of tongues, achieved the same result.[180-3]
{181}
There are those who maintain that the six Britannic nations have
not yet arrived at the alliance stage. "Everything hangs on
sentiment, influence, and management."[181-1] Some recommend
that an alliance should be definitely entered into.[181-2] Yet
while it is true that the five younger Britannic entities are
"nations, with a life, a pride, a consciousness of their own,
with separate, divergent, and in some cases indeed conflicting
interests,"[181-3] it seems also true that a friendly alliance
does exist among them and between them and the British Isles.
It is an alliance _de facto_ if not _de jure_, its terms being
unwritten, unstated, and unknown. In the Colonial Conference of
1902, "To Sir Wilfrid Laurier's famous challenge, 'If you want
our aid, call us to your councils,' the Colonial Secretary
[Chamberlain] made an emphatic response. 'Gentlemen, we do want
your aid. We do want your assistance in the administration of
the vast Empire which is yours as well as ours. The weary Titan
staggers under the too vast orb of his fate. We have borne the
burden for many years. We think it time that our children should
assist us to support it, and whenever you make the request to
us, be very sure that we shall hasten gladly to call you to our
councils.'"[181-4] In the South African {182} War, and more
recently in their efforts in behalf of greater naval strength,
the six nations behaved as allies affording inspiring examples
of what they can and may again do. Certainly the political good
feeling between the Britannic nations cannot be said to have
progressed further than to the alliance stage, since "any
political arrangement in which powers are withheld, or granted
upon terms, or are subject to revision at the will of any member
of the confederacy, is not a real union, but only an
alliance."[182-1]
Between the United States and the British Isles are treaties
that bind them into an extraordinarily close alliance--treaties
which are the strongest written expressions of international
goodwill.[182-2] On the even closer "understanding" between the
two nations, so that they are found acting in concert in every
part of the globe, it is unnecessary to dwell.
But between the United States and the younger Britannic nations,
what is the relation? They are undoubtedly friendly, but where
is the formal evidence of such friendliness? The five younger
nations can hardly be considered partners to the alliance
between the United States and the British Isles, as in making
this alliance these five had no share. To form an alliance
between the United States and the Britannic power, inclusive of
the six Britannic nations, is now impossible, because such {183}
a Britannic political entity able to ratify treaties is
non-existent. Postulating an alliance among all the Britannic
nations, the United States through its alliance with the British
Isles may perhaps be considered as allied to the allies of its
ally. As we are now organized, this is as far as we have been
able to progress. It is just beyond the friendship stage.
The seven Pan-Angle nations are to-day bound together by
friendship and, in some cases, alliance. They are united by
sentiment only, whether it be unwritten or written. At this
stage many of our groups have found themselves in the past. It
has held for them two possibilities. Sentiment was the bond
between Pan-Angles after the French War which ended in 1763. The
bond failed to hold and separation followed. Sentiment in
alliance form was tried in the Articles of Confederation in
1781. It failed; and on its ruins was built a common government.
It is of no moment that sentiment in the first case was
unwritten, and in the second case, written. Sentiment is not
government. Need other cases of failure be mentioned? It is for
us to determine whether, when our present relationships change,
they give way to separation and weakness, or develop by
convergence into the strength of a common government. The motto
of our youngest nation points out the hope of our future, "Ex
unitate vires."
[160-1] J.R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883,
pp.174-175.
[161-1] Cf. _ante_, p. 16.
[162-1] Jones, _History of New York_, ii. pp. 259,268,500,509,
quoted by G. F. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892,
note, p. 124.
[162-2] _Cf._ G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892,
pp. 127, 153.
[162-3] J. R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883,
p. 48.
[162-4] Alfred Caldecott, _English Colonization and Empire_,
London, 1891, pp. 131-133.
[163-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908,
Supplement, pp. 9, 10.
[164-1] G.R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p. 8.
[164-2] _Ibid._, p. 163.
[164-3] J.R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883,
p. 22.
[164-4] For a general account of Ireland in this connection, see
Price Collier, _England and the English_, London, 1911, pp.
230-262; and for a constitutional discussion, Cf. _Round Table_,
London, December 1913, pp. 1-67.
[164-5] H.S. Perris, _Pax Britannica_, London, 1913, p. 139.
[165-1] As Home Rule, like other political terms, has been used
to denote many theorems, its meaning in any statement depends
somewhat on the particular instance.
[166-1] W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven, Connecticut,
1913, p. 137.
[166-2] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxiii. p. 178, Letter of Abraham
Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 1862.
[167-1] _Cf._ W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven,
Connecticut, 1913, p.151: "It is essential . . . in the life of
our dual government that the power and functions of the State
governments be maintained in all the fulness that they were
intended to have by the framers of the Constitution."
[168-1] Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston, 1900, pp.
208-210.
[168-2] _United Empire_ is also the title of the magazine
published monthly by the Royal Colonial Institute, London.
[168-3] C. W. Dilke, _Greater Britain_, London, 1868; J. R.
Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883.
[169-1] G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p.
25.
[169-2] According to H.C. Lodge--_One Hundred Years of Peace_,
New York, 1913, p.108--September 3, 1863, was the crucial day.
[169-3] _Ibid._, pp. 118-119.
[171-1] Cf. _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvii. p. 651.
[171-2] _The Outlook_, New York, December 21, 1912, p. 843: "The
first Governors' Conference was called by President Roosevelt in
1908. It met at the White House to consider the subject of
Conservation. So immediately evident was the desirability of
co-operation that Governor Willson, of Kentucky, sprang to his
feet at the close of one of the sessions and said, 'Gentlemen,
let me detain you a moment.' He went to the platform and there
unfolded a plan for a Conference of the Governors, to be called
by themselves. This was held at Washington in 1909. The third
meeting of the Governors occurred at Frankfort, Kentucky,
Governor Willson's own capital, in 1911, . . . The Governors'
Conference is apparently becoming something of a fixture in our
political life."
[172-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxv. pp. 480-481: Peace signed at
Pretoria, May 31, 1902; self-government decreed, December 12,
1906; elections held in Transvaal, February 1907.
[172-2] _Cf._ Alfred Caldecott, _English Colonization and
Empire_, London, 1891, p. 130: "Canada was a conquered
possession, not a settlement, it is true; but the attempt to
treat it as a conquest nearly ended in another catastrophe."
[172-3] W.T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John
Rhodes_, London, 1902, p. 113.
[173-1] G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p.
253.
[173-2] _Ibid._, p. 254.
[174-1] _Round Table_, London, December 1913, p. 112. As to
Chatham's plans for both Irish and American co-operation in
Pan-Angle government, see A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_,
Oxford, 1913, pp. 28-32.
[175-1] Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne, _Memorials: Part II.,
Personal and Political_, London, 1898, vol. i. p. 202.
[175-2] _Round Table_, London, December 1913, pp. 106-122. This
article should amuse all Pan-Angles by its fraternal frankness
in describing the diplomacy of both British and American actors
in these dramas. It also throws light on the usages of so-called
"international arbitration."
[176-1] Mr. Chamberlain at Toronto, December 30, 1897, quoted by
M. Victor Bérard, _British Imperialism and Commercial
Supremacy_, trans. H. W. Foskett, London, 1906, p. 200.
[176-2] _Round Table_, London, September 1912, p. 722.
[176-3] At a farewell dinner given to Mr. Bryce in New York
City, former American Ambassador to the British Isles Joseph H.
Choate turned to the guest of honour and stated: "England has
sent, will send, many Ambassadors, but there's only one Bryce in
the whole list. The American people from the Atlantic to the
Pacific love and honour you, sir." See _The Outlook_, New York,
May 10, 1913, p. 80.
[177-1] Mr. Bryce before the Pilgrims Club in London, November
6, 1913, quoted by _Springfield_ (Massachusetts) _Weekly
Republican_, November 7, 1913.
[178-1] Francis Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, London, 1884,
vol. i. p.3.
[178-2] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 157.
[178-3] _Ibid._, p. 95. This is as of 1758.
[178-4] Cf. _ibid._, p. 125. The monument is in the Belfry
Tower, the north aisle of nave. _Cf._ Baedeker's _London_, 1911,
p. 217. It was Lord Howe's brother, Sir William Howe, who on
March 17, 1776, evacuated Boston to abandon the city to these
same American Englishmen--now rebels.
[178-5] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 157.
[179-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 232.
[179-2] _Ibid._, p. 202.
[179-3] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1897, rev. ed., Boston,
1911, p. 453: "Despite very considerable outward differences of
social condition and many apparent divergencies of interest as
between colony and colony, they one and all _wanted the same
revolution_. . . . They did not so much _make_ a common cause as
_have_ a common cause from the first."
[180-1] See John Fiske, _The Critical Period of American
History_, 1788-1789, Boston, 1898.
[180-2] Cf. _ante_, p. 81, note 1.
[180-3] P. A. Molteno's _A Federal South Africa_, London, 1896,
written more than three years before the Boer War, compares the
then condition of South Africa with the condition of the
American thirteen nations in the days covered by Fiske's _The
Critical Period of American History_, contains a prophecy now
fulfilled, and is a valuable comment on many of the needs of the
Pan-Angle world of to-day.
[181-1] F. S. Oliver, _Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American
Union_, London, 1906, p. 447.
[181-2] Richard Jebb, _The Britannic Question_, London, 1913.
[181-3] Lord Milner, December 14, 1906, at Conservative Club,
Manchester, England, in Lord Milner, _The Nation and the
Empire_, London, 1913, p. 142.
[181-4] Richard Jebb, _Studies in Colonial Nationalism_, London,
1905, p.138.
[182-1] F. S. Oliver, _Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American
Union_, London, 1906, p. 452.
[182-2] For a history of the General Arbitration Treaty of 1911
between America and the British Isles and its full text as
proposed and as ratified, see H.S. Perris, _Pax Britannica_,
London, 1913, pp. 285-298, 801-807.
{184}
VIII
A COMMON GOVERNMENT
WHO, first of all, dreamed of closer union between England (or
Great Britain) and its colonies we do not know. As early as 1652
there came from Barbados a suggestion. It was in no way followed
up. Colonel Thomas Modyford "desires, although it may seem
immodest, that two representatives should be chosen by the
island to sit and vote in the English parliament."[184-1]
In the following century Benjamin Franklin devised a scheme of
union and laboured to commend it to the makers of Pan-Angle
history. In June 1754 he attended a conference of eleven of the
colonies met at Albany to consider defence against the Indians.
That matter disposed of, Franklin submitted a plan for the union
of the {185} colonies.[185-1] Later in the year he wrote as
follows to Shirley, Royal Governor of Massachusetts: "Since the
conversation your Excellency was pleased to honor me with, on
the subject of _uniting the colonies_ more intimately with Great
Britain, by allowing them _representatives_ in Parliament, I
have something further considered that matter, and am of opinion
that such a union would be very acceptable to the colonies,
provided they had a reasonable number of representatives allowed
them; . . .
"I should hope, too, that by such a union the people of Great
Britain and the people of the colonies would learn to consider
themselves as not belonging to different communities with
different interests, but to one community with one interest;
which I imagine would contribute to strengthen the whole, and
greatly lessen the danger of future separations. . . .
"Now, I look on the colonies as so many countries gained to
Great Britain, and more advantageous to it than if they had been
gained out of the seas around its coasts and joined to its
lands; . . . and since they are all included in the British
empire, which has only extended itself by their means, and the
strength and wealth of the parts are the strength and wealth of
the whole, what imports it to the general state whether a
merchant, a smith, or a hatter grows rich in Old or New England?
. . . And if there be any difference, those who have most
contributed to enlarge Britain's empire and commerce, increase
her strength, her wealth, and {186} the numbers of her people,
at the risk of their own lives and private fortunes in new and
strange countries, methinks ought rather to expect some
preference."[186-1]
The Albany scheme failed of adoption. The race was not ripe for
Franklin's foresight.[186-2] Years afterwards he wrote: "The
different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan make me
suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still of
opinion that it would have been happy for both sides if it had
been adopted. The Colonies so united would have been
sufficiently strong to have defended themselves. There would
then have been no need of troops from England. Of course, the
consequent pretext for taxing America and the bloody contest it
occasioned would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not
new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. Those
who govern, having much business on their hands, do not
generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying
into execution new projects. The best public measures are
therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom but forced by the
occasion."[186-3]
{187}
But Franklin's idea did not die. Thomas Pownall, just out from
England, a man later appointed Downing Street's Governor of
Massachusetts, attended the Albany Colonial Conference. He heard
the deliberations and talked with the commissioners and, as he
himself wrote later, then "first conceived the idea and saw the
necessity of a general British union."[187-1] The acquaintance
he made there with Franklin grew into closest friendship. Both
men wrote in favour of colonial representation;[187-2] and
present in many ways an adequate epitome of the best thought of
each branch of their civilization.
Pownall recognized that the race would outgrow its London
capital. In 1766 he wrote that representatives of the colonies,
if apportioned according to population, would in time outnumber
those of Great Britain, and "the centre of power instead of
remaining fixed as it is now in Great Britain will, as the
magnitude and interest of the colonies increases, be drawn out
from these islands by the same laws of nature, analogous in all
cases, by which the centre of gravity, now near the face of the
sun, would, by an increase of the quantity of {188} matter in
the planets, be drawn out beyond that surface."[188-1] This
result, he thought, might be guarded against by stipulating that
the colonial members were always to come to England.[188-2] A
present-day Englander makes no such stipulation. Lord Milner in
Johannesburg in 1904 stated: "I am an Imperialist
out-and-out--and by an Imperialist I don't mean that which is
commonly supposed to be indicated by the word. It is not the
domination of Great Britain over the other parts of the Empire
that is in my mind when I call myself an Imperialist
out-and-out. I am an Englishman, but I am an Imperialist more
than an Englishman, and I am prepared to see the Federal Council
of the Empire sitting in Ottawa, in Sydney, in South
Africa--sitting anywhere within the Empire--if in the great
future we can only all hold together."[188-3]
About another objection Pownall consulted Franklin. "He had been
told that if the colonists were to pay the same taxes as people
in England and, like them, to send members to Parliament, equal
powers of trade must be conceded. When that was done the
Atlantic commerce might afterwards centre in New York or Boston,
and power be transferred there from England. 'Which consequence,
however it may suit a citizen of the world, must be folly and
madness to a Briton.' {189} So exclaimed the Englishman who
wrote to his colonial friend for a solution of the difficulty.
The American-born Franklin took quite another view. He saw no
difficulty at all; he replied that the fallacy lay in supposing
that gain to a British Colony was loss to Britain. He maintained
that the whole Empire gained if any part of it developed a
particular trade, and he predicted that without a complete
union, by which full and equal rights were given, the existing
system of government could not long be retained. Assuming
Pownall's premises to be correct he inquired, 'which is best--to
have a total separation or a change of the seat of
government?'"[189-1]
Soon it was too late to answer Franklin's question. A separation
took place, and two supreme governments divided the
responsibility of safe-guarding the English-speaking whites. As
time passed, each portion of the Pan-Angles founded colonies.
The American colonies were held to the American "home" states by
means of a federal government The British Isles colonies have,
in some instances, federated among themselves, so that to-day
the Britannic power consists of six nations. And now all seven
nations are appreciating how superficial are these political
separations. To-day we have seven central seats of government,
and after a century of peace, a new question arises--whether we
should re-form our relations.
One hundred and twenty-three years after Franklin and Pownall so
discussed the migration of the seat of government of the
English-speaking {190} peoples, another Colonial and another
Englander corresponded on the same subject. Cecil John Rhodes
wrote to William T. Stead: "What an awful thought it is that if
we had not lost America, or if even now we could arrange with
the present members of the United States Assembly and our House
of Commons, the peace of the world is secured for all eternity!
We could hold your federal parliament five years at Washington
and five at London."[190-1] Stead has recorded a conversation of
the same year in which Rhodes "expressed his readiness to adopt
the course from which he had at first recoiled--viz. that of
securing the unity of the English-speaking race by consenting to
the absorption of the British Empire in the American Union if it
could not be secured in any other way. In his first dream he
clung passionately to the idea of British ascendancy--this was
in 1877--in the English-speaking union of which he then thought
John Bull was to be the predominant partner. But in 1891,
abandoning in no whit his devotion to his own country, he
expressed his deliberate conviction that English-speaking
reunion was so great an end in itself as to justify even the
sacrifice of the monarchical features and isolated existence of
the British Empire . . . and from that moment the ideal of
English-speaking reunion assumed its natural and final place as
the centre of his political aspirations."[190-2]
As Franklin and Pownall foresaw, the race {191} centre moved out
of England. Emerson in 1856 realized that in America "is the
seat and centre of the British race,"[191-1] a statement
strengthened since by the growth of Canada. North America is now
the centre of Pan-Angle civilization, and Canada is the key of
the Britannic world.