among us recognized means of furthering reform. Through public
discussion, whether printed or spoken, they have fostered many
of the great movements for which we all {219} are now grateful.
"Discussion is the greatest of all reformers. It rationalizes
everything it touches. It robs principles of all false sanctity
and throws them back upon their reasonableness. If they have no
reasonableness, it ruthlessly crushes them out of existence and
sets up its own conclusions in their stead."[219-1] These
associations and their beliefs, if not supplying a public need,
wither and die. But if the times call for them, movements are
started which pass through a regular growth from insignificance
and obscurity to contempt and ridicule, followed by public
opposition and finally by success. Such have been the histories
of the freedom of conscience, the abolition of slavery, and a
host of similar triumphs. Men of like ideals associate
themselves together, take a name that proclaims their tenets,
and spend their time and energy and money to set forth the truth
as they see it. Everyone is given a chance to learn, but no one
is compelled to believe. No purpose can be so lofty, no course
of action so advantageous, that it does not need expounding. The
countless peace societies and the millions spent in that cause
bear witness. Meeting places must be hired, literature must be
printed and posted, advertising in its many forms must not be
neglected. All this means sacrifice of some sort from
somebody--obviously from those who have the success of the work
at heart. In every Pan-Angle nation can be found plenty of
organizations which are doing on a small scale in reference to
some local interest just what some non-local, inter-national
organization could {220} well do on a large scale for such an
ideal as Pan-Angle federation. The organization should be on an
inter-Pan-Angle basis, if for no other reason than to make for
uniformity in its efforts and to prevent it from slipping into
local points of view. As the demand for Pan-Angle federation
grows, practical politics will not remain insensible to it. Then
will be the time to marshal to its aid forces such as have
finally established by law the present nationhood of each of us.
In this labour of education we must work openly in the presence
of each other and under the scrutiny of the nations of the
world. If we were Germans or Japanese, an international _coup_
might be accomplished by diplomatic work unknown to the voters,
and the affair put through with secrecy and despatch. It is vain
to wish for such a style of procedure, and we have no desire, in
this case, to change from the more laborious and tedious method
of popular education and individual action. So to change would
demonstrate that we had lost the very essence of our
civilization--the initial as well as the final control of our
own destinies. We must work openly, because it is one of our
inestimable privileges to make up our own minds.
Not only can individual initiative accomplish this work, it can
do it better than can any other method. Ideas of state
interference under the guise of public ownership are making
headway all over the Pan-Angle world. One industry after
another, for one reason or another, is removed from the field of
private endeavour, and is run for good or ill by governments. It
has never been thus with our political undertakings. The
spectacle of {221} a Pan-Angle government calling on all good
citizens to aid in celebrating a Twenty-first of November, or a
Twenty-fourth of May, or a Fourth of July is so unheard of as to
be laughable,[221-1] and it is to be hoped that in the matter of
Pan-Angle federation the people will be the compelling power
forcing their respective governments to action.
Of the promotion of travel and sojourn of Pan-Angles in each
other's countries we have one notable example. Cecil John
Rhodes, wishing to instil in the minds of Britannic Pan-Angles
"the advantage to the Colonies as well as to the United Kingdom
of the retention of the unity of the Empire,"[221-2] and
desiring "to encourage and foster an appreciation of the
advantages which I implicitly believe will result from the union
of the English-speaking peoples throughout the world and to
encourage in the students from the United States of North
America . . . an attachment to the country from which they have
sprung but without I hope withdrawing them or their sympathies
from the land of their adoption or birth,"[221-3] directed the
trustees of his estate to establish scholarships at the
University of Oxford. Each year picked men from English-speaking
lands travel to England, enrol themselves in this Pan-Angle
university, and there measure themselves against representatives
of all their race. At the end of three years they return to
their respective countries. The book {222} knowledge they have
acquired could have been furnished by any one of many
universities. But Rhodes' sagacity has given them infinitely
more. They have lived and studied and travelled in what is truly
the Mother Country of us all. They have become conscious of
their fellow Pan-Angles and have made their fellow Pan-Angles
conscious of them. Their understanding and sympathy is freed for
all time from narrow prejudices.
The work so generously begun should be extended. Not only in the
British Isles but in North America, in South Africa, and in
Australasia young Pan-Angles should be brought in touch with the
other portions of our race, and should see at first hand what
problems require solving by us throughout the world. Not a
Pan-Angle university from McGill to Dunedin, from Ann Arbor to
Stellenbosch, but would welcome some exchange of students
similar to the growing system of exchange professors. Not one,
if it could offer scholarships to the youth of the other
nations, but would have enlarged the scope of its usefulness and
have grown from local to inter-national importance. Patriotic
Pan-Angles by endowing such scholarships could hasten the
accomplishment of the Pan-Angle federation, and thus share in
ensuring the safety of every Pan-Angle nation, and in securing
our civilization for the benefit of ourselves and for the peace
of the world.
Meanwhile no vision of future Pan-Angle safety should blind
anyone of us to his country's present needs. In the interim
before federation, we must so strengthen each of our respective
nations as best to weather the storm of adversity should it
{223} burst upon us before co-operation is secured.
Simultaneously with the recession to home waters of the British
Isles fleet, the younger Britannic nations are taking
appropriate steps to ensure their separate interests. This is an
evidence that each recognizes danger. Each assumes that these
defensive efforts are not induced by the fear of other
Pan-Angles. This is no place to discuss the compulsory military
service already established in New Zealand, Australia, and South
Africa, nor to suggest that it would not be needed were
Pan-Angle federation already an accomplished fact. Nor is this a
suitable occasion to discuss the policies, strengths, or
weaknesses of separate Britannic or Pan-Angle navies. America
must be equal to the emergency of defending all Pan-Angles who
would seek its protection if the British Isles fleet were to
suffer a serious setback. Wisely, America and Canada waste no
Pan-Angle funds in fortifications on their long boundary or in
war vessels on the Great Lakes. But they should both maintain on
salt water navies, which they can use for the joint interests of
Pan-Angles. Canada and America may soon need to co-operate with
Australasia in solving the problems of the Pacific.[223-1]
Pan-Angle nations may severally make alliances with foreign
powers for the purpose of protecting us all. One of them has
already done so.[223-2] But peoples who are strong enough make
no foreign alliances.
As we work towards federation we must not be {224} discouraged
at our slow rate of visible progress. For "slow thought is the
ballast of a self-governing state."[224-1] The growth of the
federal idea may be none the less vigorous because its fruitage
appears long delayed. These pages abound with examples of the
fact that we are slow to move politically. Were it otherwise,
the autonomous nations of the Britannic world would long since
have had representation in some common parliament, would have
established a single final court of appeal, and a common
citizenship; an overburdened British Parliament would no longer
legislate on English municipal drainage, affairs of the
dependencies, and questions of inter-Pan-Angle concern. As it
is, the five younger Britannic nations, realizing tardily that
the British navy no longer adequately protects them, have not as
yet bestirred themselves to effect more cohesive and coherent
political relations with each other, and between themselves and
the British Isles. America, astride the Western Hemisphere, in
her own estimation secure against invasion, is taken up with
internal development, and but seldom, even since the last
Pan-Angle war with Spain, looks out at the increasing pressure
beyond her borders.
We move slowly. Pan-Angle federation is still a dream. But no
one can foresee how rapidly external pressure may turn dreams
into practical politics. The federation of the Pan-Angles may be
forced upon us--ready or not. Or we may find some day that it is
too late to federate.
Our method of combining, the distribution of powers between the
existing governments and the {225} new government, it is not
here necessary or appropriate to discuss, other than to
acknowledge that our history confesses that federation is the
present ideal of government of this civilization. In other
instances of suggested closer union, "The advocates of national
consolidation have been constantly subjected, as everyone
familiar with current discussion knows, to two diametrically
opposite forms of criticism. They are vigorously reproached
. . . for not stating in detail the method by which their
purposes are to be accomplished; they are ridiculed . . . as
people who aim at binding together by means of a 'cut and dried
plan' an Empire which has hitherto depended upon slow processes
of growth for its constitutional development."[225-1] Enough
that in our previous separate histories we have had
constitutional conventions to draw up both national and state
constitutions. Many men who have taken part in such conventions
are now living. What we have acquired a habit of doing on a
large scale, we can do again on a larger scale. Such
representatives can construct, for submission to our voters, a
framework of federal Pan-Angle government.
With the voters of the seven Pan-Angle nations rest the
decisions of when and how our co-operation is to be
accomplished. That it is to be accomplished many now earnestly
believe. And of it many can now say, as did Washington in the
American Constitutional Convention: "Let us raise a standard to
which the wise and honest can repair." Before that future
constitutional convention can have been accomplished, men will
have {226} gathered together the wisdom of the race, and will
have drawn up a constitution better than any now in use. Voters
from the ends of the earth will discuss what our governmental
framework should be, and, although our statesmen will act the
major parts, we may agree with Burke: "I have never yet seen any
plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who
were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the
lead in the business."[226-1]
What is desirable in this federation to preserve ourselves from
the menace of other civilizations? How shall we balance our
powers to ensure freedom to the individual and freedom to local
groups to follow their individual yearnings with safety to them
and to us all? How shall we bind ourselves for that all-time,
the indefinite future, so that we shall be gladly bound, and yet
be freemen still? "If, . . . in the famous words of Lincoln, we
as a body in our minds and hearts 'highly resolve' to work for
the general recognition: by society of the binding character of
international duties and rights as they arise within the
Anglo-Saxon group, we shall not resolve in vain. A mere common
desire may seem an intangible instrument, and yet, intangible as
it is, it may be enough to form the beginning of what in the end
can make the whole difference."[226-2]
[207-1] A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 86.
[209-1] A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 125.
[210-1] Richard Jebb, _Colonial Nationalism_, London, 1905, p.
336: "The imperial city shall lose her pride of place. In
another seagirt isle, by the margin of the Pacific. . . . sleeps
a fair city." According to Mrs. Henshaw, F.R.G.S., in _United
Empire_, London, January 1914, p. 80, Vancouver Island was named
by Sir Francis Drake, 1579, New Albion.
[210-2] A _résumé_ of projects for Britannic federation is given
in A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, pp. 152-195;
the necessity of, and possible transitional stages on the way
towards, federation are discussed, _ibid._, pp. 196-225.
[210-3] Richard Jebb, _Studies in Colonial Nationalism_, London,
1905; and _The Britannic Question_, London, 1913.
[210-4] A.L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 147.
[211-1] _Ibid_., Introduction by H. E. Egerton, p. vi.
[212-1] Arthur Murphy, _The Works of Cornelius Tacitus_, London,
1793, vol. iv. p. 17.
[213-1] H. E. Egerton, _Federations and Union within the British
Empire_, Oxford, 1911, p. 183.
[213-2] W. B. Worsfold, _The Union of South Africa_, London,
1912, p. 104.
[213-3] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxv. p. 475.
[214-1] _A Review of the Present Mutual Relations of the British
South African Colonies, to which is appended a Memorandum on
South African Railway Unification_, "Printed by Authority"
[Johannesburg, 1907], p. 5.
[215-1] Quoted in Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston,
1900, p. 149.
[215-2] Cf. _ante_, p. 121.
[216-1] The growth of inter-cantonal arbitration in Switzerland,
leading to present federal court, is alluded to in Woodrow
Wilson, _The State_, 1898, rev. ed., Boston, 1911, p. 328.
[216-2] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvii. p. 685.
[216-3] _Ibid._, vol. xxv. p. 482.
[216-4] _Britannica Year Book_, London, 1913, p. 664.
[217-1] _The Times_ Weekly Edition, London, January 9, 1914.
[218-1] _The Times_ Weekly Edition, London, December 19, 1913.
Account of Speech of American Ambassador at dinner of the
Institute of Journalists, London, December 13, 1913.
[218-2] _United Empire_, London, January 1914, p. 13.
[219-1] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1898, Boston, rev. ed.,
191, p. 139.
[221-1] The French Government Proclamations posted in Paris (in
1909) concerning the 14th of July called on all good citizens to
help the government celebrate the day.
[221-2] W.T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John
Rhodes_, London, 1902, p. 28.
[221-3] _Ibid_., pp. 24-29.
[223-1] _Cf_. R.M. Johnston in the _New York Times_, November
16, 1913, p. 5; and _Round Table_, London, June 1913, pp.
572-583.
[223-2] British-Japanese treaty and French understanding.
[224-1] Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston, 1900, p. 98.
[225-1] G.R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p.
296.
[226-1] Quoted in Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston,
1900, p. 152.
[226-2] Rt. Hon. Richard Burdon Haldane, Lord High Chancellor of
Great Britain, before the American Bar Association, Montreal,
September 1, 1913, _Report of Thirty-Sixth Meeting of the
Association_, Baltimore, 1913, p. 416.
{227}
X
CONCLUSION
THE English-speaking peoples who govern themselves are faced by
the not remote possibility of the destruction of one or more of
their seven nations, should these nations be unable to
co-operate. The destruction of anyone would be a loss to all the
others. The destruction of one or more of these nations might
carry in its turn the destruction of others--or all. If one of
the densely populated and wealthy nations were overpowered, the
others would be exposed to the greater risk of attack. If one of
the less densely populated and less wealthy nations were
destroyed, the race would be deprived of homes for its growing
numbers. The Britannic nations and America have identical
interests in the safety of each and everyone of these seven
nations. The belief is here expressed that no co-operation short
of unity of government will form an effective means of
safeguarding the Pan-Angle civilization.
The danger to the Britannic nations was expressed in May 1911:
"The truth is that the safety of the Imperial system cannot be
maintained much longer by the arrangements which exist at
present. No one, in the face of the facts brought {228} forward
in this article, can believe that the need for national strength
is disappearing. The British naval budget and the creation of
the Dominion navies alone disprove it. Yet it is quite clear
that Great Britain alone cannot indefinitely guarantee the
Empire from disruption by external attack. The further one looks
ahead the more obvious does this become. A nation of 45,000,000
souls, occupying a small territory and losing much of the
natural increase in its population by emigration, cannot hope to
compete in the long run even against single powers of the first
magnitude--with Russia, for instance, with its 150,000,000
inhabitants, with America with its 90,000,000, with Germany with
its 65,000,000, increasing by nearly a million a year, to say
nothing of China with its 430,000,000 souls. Far less can if
hope to maintain the dominant position it has hitherto occupied
in the world, with a dozen new powers entering upon the scene.
Each of these powers, of small account by itself, is already an
important factor in the scale which measures the balance of
power. And as they are steadily increasing in wealth and
population, it is only a question of time before some of them
will become first-class powers in their turn. What will be the
position of the Empire then, if it has to depend upon the navy
of England alone? Obviously the day must come when, if the
Empire is to continue, it must be defended by the joint efforts
of all its self-governing peoples."[228-1]
In March 1913 another Britannic writer states: "The urgency of
the situation does not diminish. {229} Already, without striking
a blow, Germany has practically detached the British navy from
every sea except the North Sea--a result which no Englishman a
few years ago would have believed to be possible in any
circumstances whatever."[229-1]
The Britannic nations are not united in any single foreign
policy. Hence they offer many opportunities for fatal discord.
"It is simply impossible for the Dominions to set up independent
foreign policies and independent defensive systems of their own
without destroying the Empire, even if foreign powers refrain
from attack. Suppose the present tendency carried to its logical
conclusion. Instead of there being one government responsible
for the safety of the Empire, there will be five. Each of these
governments will be free to pursue any policy it likes, and each
will have military or naval strength with which to back its
policy. Each of them, therefore, may involve itself in war. And
if the policy of one government, or the use it makes of its
navy, does lead to war, what is to be the position? Are the
other governments to be involved? The Dominions, not
unreasonably, do not admit their responsibility for the policy
of Great Britain, because they have no share in framing it. Is
Great Britain to be responsible for the policy of the Dominions?
Australia, for instance, is committed to the policy of Asiatic
exclusion--a policy which may lead to international
complications of the gravest kind."[229-2] Again, "Obviously,
the principle of complete local autonomy, admirably as it works
for the {230} internal politics of the Empire, cannot be applied
to foreign affairs. The Empire will infallibly disappear if
anyone of five governments can involve it in war."[230-1]
The _Round Table_ article does not even consider the chance of
war between Britannic nations. Doubtless the thought is so
abhorrent that the possibilities which the facts present are
often overlooked. Yet such possibilities do exist, and are added
reasons for Britannic unity of government.
Whatever dangers threaten the Britannic nations, threaten also
America. In some cases these dangers are indirect or seemingly
remote, in others, more immediately pressing. Injury to any part
of the race would be an injury to America. If the Britannic
nations receive any substantial damage, America must face the
world as the head naval power of the English-speaking
civilization. It would succeed to all the responsibilities and
difficulties of that position, and its ability to discharge that
duty would have been diminished by whatever damage the Britannic
nations had sustained.
War between any of the Britannic nations and America would be as
fratricidal as that between any of the six Britannic nations.
But the possibility of such a war, however abhorrent, is not to
be ignored. America's population among the Pan-Angle nations
soon will be approximated only by that of Canada. Rivalry
between America and Canada would weaken the civilization in its
population and wealth centre--its heart. If such rivalry should
involve the clash of the six Britannic nations against America,
the struggle {231} would be more stupendous than any the race
has yet experienced.
All that is written as argument for closer union among the
Britannic nations applies with equal force to a project intended
to check the intra-racial struggles and safeguard the
inter-racial security of our whole Pan-Angle civilization. The
Pan-Angles have had their civil wars, both in and out of
England: the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the
American Civil War. The Pan-Angles have had their foreign wars.
They have outrun the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French.
These struggles warn us to co-operate to avoid further civil
wars and to meet the foreign wars to come.
The race centre has moved, as Franklin foresaw, across the
Atlantic. Canada, reaching to the two oceans, is the keystone of
the Britannic arch. Its population will soon exceed that of the
British Isles, whether compared with the present or any future
British Isles population now imaginable. A proposal to establish
the Britannic capital in Canada commends itself to some who are
anxious for Britannic closer union. This, however, concerns the
political unity of only the smaller portion of the race. The
Pan-Angle house would still be divided. The future will be
better secured to the race if the seven nations, taking counsel
together, build a common capital on that unfortified boundary
between the two Atlantic-Pacific nations.
Bound into one federal body politic, the seven Pan-Angle nations
would ensure to each of their component groups as final a sense
of political security as any people have ever experienced {232}
within the knowledge of history. We should doubtless prefer to
enjoy such a security without entering into any political
combination. Each nation desires to go its own gait, yielding no
iota of its independence. Since we cannot do that in safety, it
is better to be bound into a co-operative unity with our fellow
Pan-Angles, than to run any risk of suffering the bondage of an
alien government. Most of us have already tried federation and
found it effective. The British Isles appears about to adopt it.
While it makes for strength, it permits and encourages
individual freedom and local self-government, essentials to
Pan-Angle existence.
The reasons for federation are many, and the obstacles are not
as great as those we have met and overcome in previous instances
of like nature in our local histories.
Only a few reasons for federation have been here given. They are
based on some of the reiterative similar facts which in our
various local histories emphasize the same Pan-Angle principles.
Many other reasons drawn from Pan-Angle experience will occur to
the reader. He who wishes to see these arguments supplemented in
the stories of the downfall of other civilizations can find much
in non-Pan-Angle history to verify the theme of this book. But
he will fail to find any case of the rule of one people over
areas so extensive and so populous; he will fail to find free
men so equal in freedom--religious, political, and personal.
There are to-day over one hundred and forty-one millions of
white, English-speaking, self-governing people, who are living
witnesses that government of the {233} people, by the people,
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
For the citizens, and subject to their presentative sanction,
the practice of representative government exists. The citizens
do not exist for the sake of the government. To enlarge the
sphere of the individual with due regard to the preservation of
the group, Pan-Angles have used and proved the federal idea of
government.
England gave us the tenets of presentative and representative
control manifested in unitary governments. New England,
beginning in the days of "The United Collonyes" of 1643, added
to our English heritage the tenet of the co-existence of a
federal common government and partner unitary governments.
England is now merged into the nationality of the British Isles,
and New England is merely a small corner of America. But the
ideas they gave to us live wherever Pan-Angles talk of the
safety of our civilization.