France, the most recent of these four rivals of the Pan-Angles, to-day holds dependencies of {133} greater area than those of the three other rivals combined.[133-1] Over lands on, or islands near, every continent, the French flag flies. Only the flags of the British Isles and of Russia are to-day further flung. No one feels confident of despoiling France at will, and the British Isles regards its late rival as an effective ally. Yet the French hold no true colonies, lands in which France grows again in a new life. Canada and Louisiana are now the nurseries of a vigorous Pan-Angle stock.
Towards these four out-run powers we harbour no unfriendly sentiments. They, alone or combined, can no longer hurt us. We have grown so large and control so vast an area and population that we forget that these rivals once threatened our existence. The place-names they gave and many of their words, now part of the English language, hardly recall the old struggles. So thoroughly have we taken the lands they claimed, that with our own history we associate such names as Columbus, Da Gama, Magellan, Van Diemen, Tasman, Champlain, and La Salle. With our former competitors we can make alliances, if we wish, for the sake of guarding them and ourselves from the powers that loom out of the future.
But because of such friendly alliances we must not lose sight of the truth. Our present supremacy we hold not by the courtesy of these our former rivals, but by the might of our forefathers, who by their strength procured lands for us. The past secured to us the present. The visible method was war. "Between the [English] Revolution and {134} the Battle of Waterloo, it may be reckoned that we waged seven great wars, of which the shortest lasted seven years and the longest about twelve. Out of a hundred and twenty-six years, sixty-four years, or more than half, were spent in war."[134-1] At the end of these wars the Pan-Angles had outrun their rivals.[134-2] That century and a quarter witnessed the steady extension of the Pan-Angle control in North America."The struggle was literally worldwide. Red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America, and black men fought in Senegal in Africa; while Frenchmen and Englishmen grappled in India as well as in Germany, and their fleets engaged on every sea. The most tremendous and showy battles took place in Germany; and, though the real importance of the struggle lay outside Europe, still the European conflict in the main decided the wider results.William Pitt, the English minister, who was working to build up the great British empire, declared that in Germany he would conquer America from France. He did so."[134-3] Taxation in Massachusetts during one of the years of this war was equivalent to an income tax of 66 per cent.[134-4] After Waterloo for over half a century this extension continued. In this struggle for our world domination, in which American and Britannic Pan-Angles each did their share, we showed we were fighters. We fought to win. We won.
{135}
During and after our struggles with these four white nations, we have had lesser struggles with peoples of other colours. Our successes in these struggles have added to our self-satisfaction. Thus far our efforts against the red, brown, and black have not been too great for us. In America the red man had land we needed; we drove him out. In New Zealand the brown man's country was one we could thrive in; we installed ourselves there. In India and through the East the brown man had rich territories; we subdued him, we helped him to increase in numbers, we sold him more of our goods. The same can be said of the blacks in various tropical regions. In Australia the black man had lands suitable for whites, and we occupied them. In South Africa we have done the same, and, though the possession of the whites is hardly as yet undisputed, we bear there as elsewhere a mien of self-reliant superiority.
Our successes have brought us the material benefits we see in the well-fed prosperity of our peoples. The non-material benefits it is difficult to estimate. So naturally do we accept both, that the thoughtless among us assume such comfort to be the normal lot of good people such as we are. We are content with our present portion—the best the world provides—and would counsel others to be content with theirs. We think we are a peaceful people, and deprecate as bad form the huge expenditures made by European nations for military and naval preparations. Some Americans contemplate their small army as though their nation were by that proved virtuous, much as though the learned Babu, contemplating the fur-clad {136} Eskimo, should pride himself on his own tropical attire. Like the sons of wealthy shopkeepers who disdain to demean themselves by trading, we Pan-Angles forget sometimes on what harsh foundations was laid our present exemption from harshness.
Apart from its short-visioned inconsistency, this attitude may betray us into dangers. The English-speaking peoples have fallen into a sense of security, assuming the continuance of our present peace as the normal condition of affairs. We pride ourselves that we mind our own business with success. And from minding it for so long, and with so slight a chance of having it disarranged by outsiders, we have grown accustomed to pursue without doubts our way to greater individual freedom. We are oblivious sometimes of the fact that all our efforts for greater individual freedom are of no avail if some other nation may deprive us of the wherewithal to individualize:—Our land, our trade, and our political system. "To live well a people must first live; and an ideal that ignores the primary conditions of national existence is a castle in the air."[136-1]
Since the throes of the eighteenth century, North America has been developed and Australia and New Zealand have prepared themselves for large populations—all undisturbed by fear of invasions. In these newer countries have been nurtured many of the ideals of the race. There, have been tested not only the federal idea, but also many political and social reforms, such as those whose names are associated with Australasia, but which find a congenial {137} habitat in other branches of the race. In peace we have thus been aiding each other, as we have so often in war. And it is well for us that this reign of peace has continued so long, not merely because peace is to be desired, but because of the strength it allows to accumulate for struggles to come. That this long peace is unusual, that struggles will come, history teaches.
Tacitus tells us of a Teuton tribe, "just and upright." "Unmolested by their neighbors, they enjoyed the sweets of peace, forgetting that amidst powerful and ambitious neighbors the repose, which you enjoy, serves only to lull you into a calm, always pleasing, but deceitful in the end. When the sword is drawn, and the power of the strongest is to decide, you talk in vain of equity and moderation: those virtues always belong to the conqueror. Thus it happened to the Cheruscans: they were formerly just and upright; at present they are called fools and cowards." [137-1]
We, unmolested by our neighbours, are now enjoying "the sweets of peace." Is there anything we are forgetting? Are we backing the Pax Britannica and the Pax Americana with sufficient power to ensure their maintenance? Shall we continue to be called "just and upright"?
We still have land to which to extend our population. Our prosperity is still undimmed. No one is our proved superior in civilization. Recent wars have not contributed to our military reputation, but our faith in our naval superiority has not been shaken and our pride of race intensifies.
{138}
Yet slowly a consciousness is creeping over us by way now of London, now of Brisbane, now of Durban, or again of Vancouver or San Francisco, that all is not as safe for us as it once was. Once we could afford to squabble a bit in the family; now we feel we must stop such silly behaviour. To all of us has come this feeling. It is not merely the appearance of Germany in the North Sea or the South Pacific, nor the desire of Asiatic Indian coolies for entrance to the Transvaal, nor the willingness of these and other Asiatics to share with us the wealth of North America. These are but signs. They forebode coming dangers whose extent we cannot foresee.
Out of the future loom menacing forms, hardly more tangible and comprehensible to us than were the Teutonic hordes to the Romans. What latent energies lie hidden in the north and east we can only fearfully surmise. There, perhaps, are peoples multitudinous in numbers and unmeasured in resources. Their faiths and ideals are not ours. To be subject to them would be no illusion.
Across the north of Europe and Asia stretches Russia—a land of eight and one-half million square miles,[138-1] larger than all the Pan-Angle area were either Australia, Canada or the United States omitted from the total.[138-2] Its population of 168,000,000[138-3] outnumbers the Pan-Angle whites {139} by 22,000,000.[139-1] Russia is self-supporting in that within its borders are food and fuel for years to come. In Siberia are ample coal and iron fields. Petroleum, of such growing importance in these days of aerial navigation, Russia has in plenty. The growth of the Russian power has been practically simultaneous with that of the Pan-Angles, for in 1913 was celebrated the third centenary of Romanoff rule. What was once the small state of Muscovy has extended its borders and pushed back its frontier, until now it presents by far the largest stretch of contiguous territory under one rule in the world. It has, moreover, room for internal development. Only the fighting edges of Siberia are filled with settlers, most of them ex-soldiers and their families. The interior is scantily populated against the time when the advance of the frontier shall be checked.
The significance of this growth has not been ignored in Europe. Statesmen have acted or have feared to act according to their conjectures of Russian desires and powers. For years Russia has been, and indeed still is, the bugbear of the British on the Indian and Persian frontiers. Urged by the British Isles, Japan, fighting for its very existence, checked Russia. The resulting loss to that country was insignificant. It could receive many such checks and still be a formidable rival. Russia's success against Pan-Angles would mean not only to them the material loss of lands and food, but to the whole world the loss of some measure of individual liberty, for the unity and strength of that great country are founded on {140} characteristics the antitheses of those which make the Pan-Angles great.
But a danger greater than Russia has thrown its shadow in our path. The white race once felt assured that it was the chosen race among mankind. It met the red, brown, and black races never to its own ultimate disadvantage, and often, it was convinced, for their good. It felt a similar destiny toward the yellow races. It insisted that they open their doors to the white man's trade and took them to school in the white man's ways. Now the white race apprehensively wonders if it has made a mistake, if destiny is at last on the other side.
China is the wonder of history, both ancient and modern. Civilization after civilization has battered at its gates, taken some trifle only to lose it, and has departed. Chinese civilization has continued unharmed by its transient rivals. Each of these rivals has pondered over China's strangeness, and has failed to impress foreign ideals on its people. The Arab, Malay, Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, American, German, and now the Japanese and the Russian people, have taken trifles. Of these Macao, French Cochin-China, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kiaochow, Wei-Hai-Wei, Formosa, and Tibet are modern examples. How long it will be before these land-takings revert to the Celestial Empire remains to be seen. "The old negative, anti-foreign prejudice is giving way to a positive sentiment of national ambition. With a population—according to the last census—of over 430,000,000 of the cheapest and most industrious workers in the world, China is bound sooner or later to dominate the East, unless she becomes divided {141} against herself. And this the pressure from the greedy competition of foreign powers seems certain to prevent."[141-1]
To-day China is perhaps to become definitely a republic. No one knows what China can or will do. The white race realizes that its problem now is no longer how to distribute among its nations the lands of the yellow races, but how to prevent the yellow races from distributing its lands among themselves. Men who can endure arctic cold and tropical heat with like fortitude and profit, may soon become a factor in the defensive problem of the Pan-Angles.
"The history of China, ancient and modern, is an eternal series of paroxysms; its keynote is bloodshed and famine, with periods of peace and prosperity purchased by the slaughter of countless innocents. Its splendid civilization, based on an unassailable moral philosophy and the canons of the Sages, has ever proved powerless against the inexorable laws of nature, the pitiless cruelty of the struggle for life. . . ."[141-2] It seems not impossible that the Chinese may seek to ameliorate their condition, to lessen "the pitiless cruelty of the struggle for life" by overflowing into the lands now held by the Pan-Angles. By what means could we save ourselves from being crushed before the advance of a people our superiors in thrift and industry and in ability to render the soil productive, and who are three times our number?
{142}
Russia and China may be the active foes of our children. We can bequeath them only such aid in their struggle as our foresight dictates. Meanwhile we have problems of our own demanding more immediate solution.
Russia and China are the rivals of to-morrow.
Japan and Germany are the rivals of to-day.
To Japan the Pan-Angles should doff their hats as to their peers. Radically different, they are not our inferiors. Japan has forged ahead materially at a rate that Pan-Angles have never in their history approached. In 1853, when the American Pan-Angle Admiral Perry forced foreign commerce on Japan, the land was a feudal area given over to devastating civil wars. The privileges that the white races after 1853 exacted have been gradually and entirely taken back. Japan now stands as a world power. Its people are increasing rapidly. It builds its own ships. The three fastest merchant steamers on the Pacific to-day are Japanese.[142-1] No one forgets, and it is hoped that no Pan-Angle underestimates, the medical ability and the discipline that backed the bravery and the patriotic spirit of the Japanese in their life-and-death struggle against Russia. The Japanese have taken Formosa and Korea from China, and have held the last-named acquisition against Russia, taking also from Russia the southern half of Sakhalin. As Scotland, Wales, and England have been called Great Britain, so the Japanese have called their home group "Dai Nippon," Great Japan.
Japan, the Dai Nippon group of islands, has a {143} geographical area of about 150,000 square miles, or three-quarters the size of Germany, or slightly greater than the area of the British Isles. Its population of forty-nine millions is three-quarters that of Germany, or about one-ninth more than that of the British Isles, or five-sixths that of the whites of the Britannic nations, or over one-third the white population of the Pan-Angle world. Although Formosa and Korea, and possible portions of Manchuria, are to be considered to-day as dependencies of Japan, the fact remains that Great Japan as a power, despite slight differences of dialect, contains a homogeneous people actuated by the same spirit. The population is now overburdening the land of Japan. Japan must have either more land or more trade in order to feed its people, or it must reduce its standard of living—or lessen the population by emigration.
In Japan's search for more land, Asia offers few inducements.[143-1] From Japan to the west lies China, full to overflowing with people. From Japan to the north and north-west lies Russia-in-Asia under various names. Outside of Asia the allurements increase. From Japan to the southward lie the Philippines, now a Pan-Angle dependency, and the islands of the East Indies,—mostly Dutch, some German, one Portuguese, some French, and some Pan-Angle. This network of islands paves the route from Japan to almost empty Australia and fertile New Zealand. To the eastward, across the Pacific, lie the Hawaiian Islands, the key of the Pacific, containing 80,000 Japanese, which is 45 per cent. of a population {144} of which only a small per cent. are white.[144-1] Further to the eastward lie Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Slope of America—all comparatively empty. Mexico contains Japanese to await there the tide of international events. South of the Panama Canal is a whole continent with its many open places. The Japanese are not a tropical people. They want temperate, arable lands. The best lands for Japan to annex are controlled by Pan-Angles.
Preliminary to annexation in past histories has often gone occupation. But even if annexation by a foreign power is not to follow the occupation of our lands by any considerable number of aliens, who remain aliens loyal to a foreign power, our integrity and welfare are thereby seriously disturbed. Several of our groups are awakening to this fact. Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Slope states on one side of the ocean, New Zealand and Australia on the other, and the Hawaiian Islands between, all find the problem of Japanese migration a live topic of practical politics. In every one of these places legislation has been enacted to discriminate against the Japanese. To both New Zealand and Australia, the nearness of Japan has been a stimulus toward undertaking means of self-protection, naval and military, since these countries have come to feel that the British navy does not furnish adequate protection to their exposed shores. He who looks into the conditions of exclusion of the Japanese from these Britannic and American shores will note the fact that the {145} action of British Columbia, California, New Zealand, and Australia has at one time or another been in conflict with the treaties made by the larger political entity of which each respectively is a part. He will see how Australia and New Zealand have changed their legislation to accord with the letter, but not the spirit, of the Anglo-Japanese treaty, and how British Columbia and California have insisted on protecting themselves.[145-1]
As new areas of the Pan-Angle world are affected by the problem, such comment as the following appears: "A brisk controversy is going on in the South over the proposed colonization of Japanese in Florida. The newspapers of that state ridicule the alarm shown by Representative Clark; the three or four Japanese seen in Jacksonville, says theTimes-Unionof that city, appear to be perfectly tame, and the editor concludes: 'It is not at all probable that many Japanese will ever wish to come to Florida, and we are willing that all who wish to come should come. 'TheNew Orleans Times-Democratis more pessimistic, and remarks: 'That, it will be remembered, was California's attitude not many years ago.'" [145-2]
In the solution of this problem, which relates not only to the Pacific but which is a problem of a civilization, we are aided by the Pan-Angle individualistic habit of each locality controlling its own local questions. "'No one,' said the Premier of British Columbia the other day . . . 'no one {146} can question the supreme authority of the Legislature of British Columbia to deal with oriental immigration.'"[146-1] In cases where no one does question such authority, the matter is promptly settled according to the wishes of the locality affected. If, on the other hand, anyone does question such authority, the locality has, at least, by its insistence warned the whole race of its perils. Each such insistence offends the Asiatics. To those Pan-Angles concerned, it is becoming increasingly understood that the struggle has only just begun.
The anti-Asiatic feeling has been expressed from Vancouver to Hobart, and from Auckland to Durban. Its utterance has been earnest and measured, bitter and extravagant, loud and long. A whole race would not in various corners of the earth so talk and act for no reason. It would be tedious here to catalogue the phrases ranging from mild to execrative. Nor can the credit be given to any special one of the Pan-Angle nations involved for moderation of statement or care in analysis of the problem.
Enough here to quote a statement of one[146-2] who is known throughout the Pan-Angle world: "The question discussed . . . is based . . . upon the Alien Land Bill recently passed by the California Legislature. Upon that particular measure I have no comment to make; it is in fitter hands than mine. It is to 'the ultimate issue involved,' . . . {147} that I direct my remarks. 'The ultimate issue involved'. ..'is whether Japan, who has made good her title to be treated on a footing of complete equality as one of the Great Powers of the world, is not also entitled to rank among the civilized nations whose citizens the American Republic is ready to welcome, subject to a few well-defined exceptions, within its fold whenever they are prepared to transfer their allegiance to it.' In brief, this means, I apprehend, whether the attainment by Japan of the position of a Great Power entitles her to claim for her citizens free immigration into the territories of any other Great Power, with accompanying naturalization.
". . . In my own appreciation there is no necessary connexion between a nation's status as a Great Power and her right to receive for her people the privileges of immigration and naturalization in the territory of another State; and the reasonings adduced in support of the proposition seem to me defective, both in some of their assertions and still more so in ignoring certain conspicuous facts.
"Primary among these facts is that of the popular will, upon which, in the fundamental conceptions of both British and American government, the policy of a nation must rest. Be the causes what they may—economical, industrial, social, racial, or all four; and if there be any other motives—the will of the people is the law of the Government. So far as that will has been expressed in America and in Canada it is distinctly contrary to the concession of such immigration. With the question of immigration that of naturalization {148} is inextricably involved. There cannot be naturalization without immigration; while immigration without concession of naturalization, though conceivable and possible, is contrary to the genius of American institutions, which, as a general proposition, do not favour inhabitancy without right to citizenship.
"Another tacit assumption is that changes of governmental methods change also natural characteristics, to such an extent as to affect radically those qualities which make for beneficial citizenship in a foreign country. Stated concretely, this means that the adoption of Western methods by Japan has in two generations so changed the Japanese racial characteristics as to make them readily assimilable with Europeans, so as to be easily absorbed. This the Japanese in their just pride of race would be the first to deny. It ignores also the whole background of European history, and the fact that European civilization (which includes America) grew up for untold centuries under influences of which Eastern Asia—including therein Japan—experienced nothing. The 'Foundations of the Twentieth Century,' are not only a succession of facts, or combination of factors. They are to befoundchiefly in the moulding of character, national and individual, through sixty-odd generations.
"It is, I conceive, this deep impress of prolonged common experience which constitutes the possibility of assimilation, even among the unhappy, poverty-stricken mass often coming to us, . . . Undoubtedly they constitute a problem, but one with which the immense assimilative force of {149} English institutions, especially when Americanized, has been able so far to deal successfully, and I believe will continue able. But there are those who greatly doubt whether, in view of the very different foundations of the Japanese 20th century, and of the recognized strength and tenacity of character of the Japanese people emphasized by strong racial marks, they could be so assimilated. We who so think—I am one—cordially recognize the great progresses of Japan and admire her achievements of the past half century, both civil and military; but we do not perceive in them the promise of ready adaptability to the spirit of our own institutions which would render naturalization expedient; and immigration, as I have said, with us implies naturalization. Whatever our doubts as to the effect upon national welfare of the presence of an unassimilable multitude of naturalized aliens, the presence of a like number of unnaturalized foreigners of the same type would be even worse.
"The question is fundamentally that of assimilation, though it is idle to ignore that clear superficial evidences of difference, which inevitablysautent aux yeux, due to marked racial types, do exasperate the difficulty. Personally, I entirely reject any assumption or belief that my race is superior to the Chinese, or to the Japanese. My own suits me better, probably because I am used to it; but I wholly disclaim, as unworthy of myself and of them, any thought of superiority. But with equal clearness I see and avow the difficulties of assimilation due to formative influences of divergent pasts and to race. . . .
"Let me say here that . . . is mistaken in the {150} statement that the United States' within living memory waged the greatest civil war of modern times in order to establish the claim of American negroes to equal right of citizenship with the white population.' With the statement falls necessarily his inference from it, that 'a colour bar cannot be logically pleaded as prohibitive.' The United States did not wage the War of Secession even for the abolition of slavery, still less for equal rights of citizenship. Goldwin Smith, as a contemporary, held against us that the war, not being for abolition, was one of conquest. Lincoln said distinctly:—'I will restore the union with slavery or without slavery, as best can be.' Myself a contemporary and partaker, I can affirm this as a general tone, though there was a strong minority of abolition sentiment. The abolition proclamation came 18 months after the war began, and purely as a measure of policy. The full rights of citizenship came after the war ended, as a party political measure, though doubtless with this mingled much humanitarian feeling. Concerning this legislation a very acute American thinker, himself in the war, said to me within the past two years, 'The great mistake of the men of that day was the unconscious assumption that the negro was a white man, with the accident of a black skin.' That is, the question was not one of colour, but of assimilation as involved in race character. Now, while recognizing what I clearly see to be the great superiority of the Japanese, as of the white over the negro, it appears to me reasonable that a great number of my fellow-citizens, knowing the problem we have in the coloured race among us, should dread the introduction {151} of what they believe will constitute another race problem; and one much more difficult, because the virile qualities of the Japanese will still more successfully withstand assimilation, constituting a homogeneous foreign mass, naturally acting together irrespective of the national welfare, and so will be a perennial cause of friction with Japan, even more dangerous than at present. . . .
[Here follows a personal appreciation of the Japanese as Admiral Mahan had known them for forty years, and to which most thoughtful Pan-Angles would gladly subscribe. He then concludes:]
". . . Despite gigantic success up to the present in assimilative processes—due to English institutions inherited and Americanized, and to the prevalence among the children of our community of the common English tongue over all other idioms—America doubts her power to digest and assimilate the strong national and racial characteristics which distinguish the Japanese, which are the secret of much of their success, and which, if I am not mistaken, would constitute them continually a solid homogeneous body, essentially and unchangingly foreign."
If there are, as Admiral Mahan suggests, good reasons why the Japanese should not be allowed to settle in Pan-Angle countries, those certainly form the best of reasons why the Pan-Angles should not allow themselves to occupy a position where Japan could demand of them this privilege for its subjects.
But while Japanese immigration, for the present peaceful except in the field of economics, has been {152} agitating the nations that border the Pacific, half way round the world other Pan-Angles have had nightmares of a military invasion. "Within twelve hours' steam of Essex and Lincolnshire is the port of Emden, recently adapted for the embarkation of large bodies of troops."[152-1] "The past need not concern us here. However serious the old scares may have been, at least they came and went, leaving a clear sky behind them when they had gone. But now the sky refuses to clear. The 'scare' of 1909, launched on that March afternoon when Sir Edward Grey told the House of Commons that, in view of German competition, the whole British Fleet would have to be rebuilt in Dreadnought form, has left a permanent mark upon the public mind."[152-2]
There, at England's door, has been growing a nation small in geographical area but with a population of 65,000,000 whites,[152-3] which, though less than the number of whites of the United States, is more than the number of whites of the six Britannic nations. Roughly stated, Germany has about one-half as many whites as have all the Pan-Angle nations combined.[152-4] In many respects Germany's position is not unlike Japan's. Both nations have had a victorious rise based on military efficiency, and there is no proof that their naval efficiency is not similarly high. Both nations {153} have, relatively speaking, but a small subject population to control. Both nations must necessarily be warlike on account of the pressure of population about them, and both have birth-rates which are already crowding their lands more than the Pan-Angles are crowding theirs.
Practically all the non-European areas of the world which the white race can occupy are held by the seven Pan-Angle nations, or protected by one of them, or are in the hands of their out-run rivals, or in the control of Japan, Russia, or China. The same is true of lands unsuited for white occupation, but desirable as dependencies. Germany arrived on the scene so recently that it shared practically only the last divisions of the lands of the blacks. Consequently, the only lands available for Germany are those now held by the white and yellow races.
Under such circumstances, if Germany is to take land from whites, Pan-Angle common-sense suggests that such land should not be ours. In accord with such policy is Sir Harry H. Johnston's suggestion that Portugal's African dependencies be divided between the British Isles and Germany.[153-1] If Germany should, however, show a preference for Pan-Angle lands and should ask for those lands on which we now depend for our life and comfort, common-sense equally suggests that we be in a position to refuse. We could not expect the Germans to starve themselves and their children, or even to reduce their standard of living out of respect for claims we could no longer uphold. We did not so respect the claims {154} of Portugal or Spain, Holland or France. Episodes in our own history ought to point plain the only road to security of possession.
The rise of the German Empire might by Pan-Angles be regarded with antagonism, if Japan, Russia, and China offered no dangers. The old and lasting fear that Pan-Angles have for centuries held toward Europe was the fear that called for the naval supremacy of the British Isles and for the Monroe Doctrine of America. Antagonism toward Germany might seem justified were it not that the fear of these other three powers, so different in civilization from us, makes Germany our natural and civilization ally. The victory of Germany over any portion of the Britannic world would be a Pan-Angle calamity. The fall of modern Germany would be hardly less of a Pan-Angle calamity. Any thought of the whites weakening each other, and especially of weakening their chance for developing their individualism, should be abhorrent to every Pan-Angle or German who can see further than the mass of his fellows.
International politenesses often verge towards the extravagant. But certainly, if human relationships can be ascribed to nations, Germany is our near of kin. German blood has enriched ours for fifteen hundred years. Pan-Angle ideals of religious and political freedom came originally from Germany. Pan-Angle language, Pan-Angle law, and many of the qualities of which we are most proud had the same source. Individualism has developed more highly among the Pan-Angles—at least in matters of government. This is {155} demonstrated by Pan-Angle and German ideas regarding civil officers. "Of course, in every nation its affairs are, and must be, conducted by officials. That is as true of America as of Germany. The fundamental difference is that with us these official persons are executive officers only, the real captain is the people; while in Germany these official persons are the real governors of the people, subject to the commands of one who repeatedly and publicly asserts that his commission is from God and not from the people."[155-1] Contrast with this the utterance of an American "official": "the people have not transferred their government to us. They still retain ownership and all the rights and powers of ownership. We are merely their temporary agents in performing duties which they have delegated to us."[155-2] The German point of view would be intolerable to a Pan-Angle, but there is no reason for assuming that this bureaucratic country may not develop a truly representative form of government.[155-3]
To prevent a conflict with Germany should be not merely a matter of Pan-Angle sentiment, but of Pan-Angle business. If the Pan-Angles were so strong that Germany was no longer a source of danger to anyone of their nations, Germany would be changed from a dangerous rival to a political ally. It would be the buffer state for the Pan-Angles {156} against Russia, indeed against all Europe, providing thus greater security for itself as well as for us. We now realize the world has already been staked off by the white and yellow races. While the British Isles and Germany are making extraordinary efforts to build navies, Japan, Russia, and China are growing unmolested. Germany should be the nation with which all Europe and all Pan-Angles should unite to neutralize Japanese and other Asiatic questions that press for solution, and the nation with which all other whites should rally if this test of strength ever has to come. Properly understood in reference to the economic and political struggle between the white and yellow races, a Pan-Angle federation should be welcomed by every German.
The Pan-Angles are responsible for large subject populations, which they both control and protect. This requires a greater or less military effort according to local circumstance and the fluctuating make-up of the international situation. Fortunately, from a military point of view, these Pan-Angle dependencies are widely scattered over the earth, and of such diverse languages that no combination among them has thus far appeared probable. But in case of any conflict with a foreign power they must always be regarded as an element of weakness to us. The Pan-Angles are not a military people. In each of our recent wars we have had to make ready an army after hostilities began—even though we were not taken unawares. In this regard we are at a disadvantage with those powers who keep {157} their military force in constant readiness. In the past we have been willing to forego a fighting efficiency, if thereby we could be free of a possibly tyrannical system and obtain greater play for our individualism. We may continue of this mind for the future. But if we choose to disregard the usual national precaution of military safety, we must make doubly sure of other strength as its equivalent.
The Pan-Angles do not occupy a contiguous land area. They are scattered over the globe, and are exposed not only on their many shores but throughout the length of their lines of sea communication. The oceans sever them from each other and sever some of them from their food. One answer to the problems which arise from this wide separation is sea power. On this depends the very daily existence of some of our groups.
Until recently six of our nations have relied almost entirely upon the taxing power and efforts of the British Isles to maintain a navy for them.
The burden on the British Isles has been heavy, and is growing steadily heavier. To defend the British Isles from Germany the British navy was withdrawn to European waters. Since 1910 this concentration has been practically a defence of the North Sea shores of the British Isles. How long can the British Isles alone bear the strain of its own naval defence? And who is to defend the other five Britannic nations? "We have made great efforts, as in the past, but we are realizing that even so our efforts, in Great Britain alone, may before long fall short of what Imperial security requires. And this increasing anxiety is not due solely to a narrow {158} apprehension of German aims. It is due to the rate of naval expansion everywhere."[158-1] "It is quite clear that external pressure is already more severe than it has been for nearly a hundred years, and that it will probably become even greater in the future."[158-2]
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have now taken steps towards maintaining their own navies to co-operate with the British navy, but it is still true that, "Once the command of the sea is lost by the [British] Empire no local system of defence, naval or military, could secure Australia's autonomy, and she would become the prey of the strongest maritime power."[158-3] A like statement could be made of the other younger Britannic nations. And while the American navy is not to be disregarded as a possible aid, it is not wise for either the Britannic or American people to assume that navies under separate governments will act with that promptness possible under a single control.
In comparison with some of their competitors now rising to the stage of active rivalry, all the seven Pan-Angle nations are collectively only one first-class world-power. Each Pan-Angle nation is naturally more solicitous for its own welfare than for that of its fellow nations. The Englander is exasperated that the other Britannic nations take so little interest in the German peril. Australia and South Africa block the immigration of Asiatics from British dependencies. Canada dallies over {159} the merits or demerits of a naval appropriation bill. The United States fortifies its Canal. Our co-operation is still uncertain, for we are still divided into seven different nations. Neither New Zealand, nor Australia, nor Newfoundland, nor Canada, nor South Africa, nor the British Isles, nor the United States would care to try to stand alone against the possible combinations that might be brought against it; sentiments of warmest friendship, or even treaties, are a poor substitute for a machinery of government tried and tested before the crash comes. As they now are, the seven Pan-Angle nations offer the maximum of inducements for inter-Pan-Angle friction and extra-Pan-Angle aggressions. Together the Pan-Angles could ensure the peace of the world.
[120-1]The Times, London, November 28, 1913, Cape Town despatch concerning Lord Hardinge's speech at Madras, November 26, in reference to treatment of Indians in South Africa states: "After criticizing severely several passages in the speech, theCape Times, referring to the suggestion that the Imperial Government should intervene in South Africa, utters the warning that this way madness lies."
[121-1]Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Rawle's revision, Boston, 1897, "Court."
[122-1]Round Table, London, February 1911, pp. 107-108;cf.alsoRound Table, December 1912, p. 29: "Arbitration is no cure for war so long as there is no agreement between nations to substitute arbitration for war, and no power strong enough to enforce such an agreement if made."
[123-1] For an account of some of these discords,cf.H. C. Lodge,One Hundred Years of Peace, New York, 1913; alsoRound Table, London, December 1913, pp. 106-122.
[123-2] P. A. Molteno,A Federal South Africa, London, 1896, p. viii.
[123-3] Concerning these Chinese coolies, cf.Ency. Brit., vol. xxv. p.481.
[123-4] M. C. Bruce,The New Transvaal, London, 1908, p. Ill.
[124-1] "Proceedings in the Court of Appeal of New Zealand with reference to comments made upon that Court by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Wallis and Others, Appellants, and His Majesty's Solicitor-General for the Colony of New Zealand, Respondent. Together with the Judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council in the same Case," Dunedin [New Zealand], 1903, p. 28.
[125-1] "Hindus" (an unfortunate application of a religious creed-name to a people) who had been admitted to the Philippines and who sailed from Manila to San Francisco were debarred entrance to United States, according toSpringfield(Massachusetts)Weekly Republican, December 11, 1913.
[127-1]Springfield(Massachusetts)Weekly Republican, November 27, 1913: "The Monroe Doctrine Today."
[127-2]Round Table, London, September 1913, p. 680.
[127-3] Cf.Ency. Brit., vol. xviii. p. 789.
[130-1]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]; Lord Selborne's letter of January 7, 1907, p. viii.
[132-1] Sir Harry H. Johnston inNineteenth Century, London, March 1912, questions the appropriateness of leaving these dependencies in the care of Portugal.Cf.thirteen months later,Springfield(Massachusetts)Weekly Republican, June 12,1913: "That something is brewing in the way of a partition of Portuguese Africa seems likely despite official disclaimers, and the LondonSpectatornow sketches a hypothetical division. . . . " Cf.Transvaal Leader, Johannesburg, December 5, 1912, for an account of Lourenço Marques' "warning against the neglectful attitude of the Home [Lisbon] Government toward this Colony."
[132-2] The ratio of the population of British India to the British Isles is approximately 7 to 1. A like ratio exists between the populations of the Dutch Indies and Holland.Cf.A. Cabaton,Java, Sumatra, and the other Islands of the Dutch East Indies, trans. Bernard Miall, London, 1911, p. 26.
[133-1] George Philip & Son Ltd.,Chamber of Commerce Atlas, London, 1912, p. 32.
[134-1] J.R. Seeley,The Expansion of England, London, 1883, p. 20.
[134-2]Cf.W.M. West,Modern History, Boston, rev. ed., 1907, pp.300-301.
[134-3]Ibid., pp. 294, 295.
[134-4] C.A.W. Pownall,Thomas Pownall, London, 1908, p. 95. This was as of 1758.
[136-1]Round Table, London, June 1913, p. 485.
[137-1] Arthur Murphy,The Works of Cornelius Tacitus, London, 1798, vol. iv. p. 35.
[138-1]Ency. Brit., vol. xxiii. p. 870: "The Russian empire stretches over a vast territory in E. Europe and N. Asia, with an area exceeding 8,660,000 sq. m., or one-sixth of the land surface of the globe. . . ."
[138-2] Cf.ante, p. 81, note 1.
[138-3] H. P. Kennard, comp. and ed.,The Russian Yearbook for 1912, London, 1912, p. 46. This is as of 1910 census.
[139-1] Cf.ante, p. 81, note 1.
[141-1]Round Table, London, February 1911, p. 140.
[141-2] E. Backhouse and J.O.P. Bland, "Secret Annals of the Manchu Court," inAtlantic Monthly, Boston, December 1913, p.767.
[142-1] Toyo Kisen Kaisha (Oriental Steamship Company) boatsShinyo Maru, Chiyo Maru,andTenyo Maru.
[143-1] Cf.Round Table, London, May 1911, pp. 263-269.
[144-1] Cf.Springfield(Massachusetts)Weekly Republican, June 26, 1913; andBritannica Year Book, London, 1913, p. 941.
[145-1] Cf.Round Table, London, February 1911, pp. 123-153.
[145-2]Springfield(Massachusetts)Weekly Republican, November 27, 1913.
[146-1]Round Table, London, September 1913, p. 602.
[146-2] A. T. Mahan, "Japan among the Nations," a letter to the editor ofThe Times, inThe TimesWeekly Edition, London, June 27, 1913.
[152-1] C.A.W. Pownall,Thomas Pownall, London, 1908, Supplement, p. 51.
[152-2]Round Table, London, September 1913, p. 675.
[152-3]Statesman's Yearbook, London, 1913, p. 857: 1910 population of Germany 64,925,993, which is 310.4 per square mile.
[152-4] Germany 65,000,000; Japan 49,000,000; America 81,000,000; and all the seven Pan-Angle nations 141,000,000.
[153-1] Cf.ante, p. 132, note 1.
[155-1] Price Collier,Germany and the Germans, New York, 1913, p.190.
[155-2] Inaugural message of Governor David I. Walsh of Massachusetts to the State Legislature, January 8, 1914.
[155-3] Note the effort, December 1913, of the lower house of the German Parliament to make the Chancellor responsible not to the Emperor but to the lower house.
[158-1]Round Table, London, September 1913, p. 675.
[158-2]Ibid., May 1911, p. 244.
[158-3] Admiral Henderson in "Report to Australian Government," quoted inRound Table, London, May 1911, p. 258.
{160}
THE future of the Pan-Angles must flow out of their past. The course it will take is indicated by our history if, following Seeley's admonition, the investigator turns "narrative into problems." "For in history everything depends upon turning narrative into problems. So long as you think of history as a mere chronological narrative, so long you are in the old literary groove which leads to no trustworthy knowledge, but only to that pompous conventional romancing of which all serious men are tired. Break the drowsy spell of narrative; ask yourself questions; set yourself problems; your mind will at once take up a new attitude; you will become an investigator; you will cease to be solemn and begin to be serious."[160-1]
The events of Pan-Angle history reveal three tendencies. These may be designated as: spreading, separating, and converging. They are to be noted both in the various national growths and in the collective growth of the entire civilization. Without discussing seriatim these three tendencies in each one of the seven nations, or the singular {161} similarities exemplified in the histories of the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa, consideration is here given only to the aggregate swing or movement in the whole civilization.
The spreading, starting with the days that saw the discovery of Newfoundland, continued and made the whole of North America Pan-Angle land. If the impulse had produced nothing more than this, its work would have been stupendous. Yet the spreading was so effective in other parts of the world that a large proportion of the Southern Hemisphere also became Pan-Angle land. To-day we control thirty per cent. of the world's land surface.[161-1]
The tendency to separate is stimulated whenever the imperative Pan-Angle need of exercising self-government is improperly checked. If this need is satisfied, separation is prevented. If the need is denied satisfaction, it grows more and more acute to the point of rupture.
The story of separations among us began with the failure to recognize this principle of local autonomy, and the many interferences which slowly exasperated the "American Englishmen" to rebel. Thus was destroyed the first Britannic Empire. Thus were embittered against each other the Americans and the British of three generations.
The American Revolution, aptly called the Imperial Civil War, started migrations. Loyalists from the thirteen new nations took Pan-Angle ideals into Canada. "It has been estimated, apparently on good authority, that in the two provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick {162} alone, the Loyalist emigrants and their families amounted to not less than 35,000 persons, and the total number of refugees cannot have been much less than 100,000."[162-1] This is the principal reason why Canada to-day is Pan-Angle rather than French.[162-2] It is the reason, too, why in some parts of Canada there is a feeling grounded on inherited prejudice against the United States.
So little were the causes of the phenomenon of separating understood by the rulers of the British Isles, that Canada, in turn, came to the verge of a revolt which "was in fact a war of nationality in the British Empire, though it wore the disguise of a war of liberty."[162-3] "The settlement of the difficulty was effected by means not very commonly in high favour. For once_ systematic thought was brought to bear upon politics_. . . . a young peer of considerable promise, Lord Durham, was sent out as Governor in 1838; he issued a famous report, due to the pen of Charles Buller, in which the Radical philosophers' principles were vigorously applied . . . and in 1840 Parliament was persuaded to give effect to the proposals made in the report; . . . the main point was thatthe Executive branch of government was brought under the control of the colonists. . . . The year 1841 is therefore the year of the inauguration of modern Colonial government."[162-4] The year 1841, therefore, inaugurated the {163} policies that were in time to check the separating tendency.
Not only was separation the desire of certain of the younger groups, but it was to some extent the desire and foregone conclusion of one group from which separation might take place. The attitude of the British public concerning those portions of the British world where English-speaking white men were claiming increasingly the right to govern themselves was in itself more than an invitation to these "colonies" to separate themselves from the Mother Country. Comparison was made to a tree whose ripened fruit in due season detaches itself from the parent stem. The loss of the richest area in whose conquest the British government ever shared had so impressed statesmen that such men as Gladstone could desire the separation from the British Isles of various Pan-Angle nations.
"During the years which preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 there was in this country [British Isles] a general indifference to the colonial question which did not cease till long afterwards. . . . After the Cobden era came that of Mr. Gladstone, who was in his zenith in the sixties and as purely insular and deficient in the power of Imperial thought as Cobden had been in the forties."[163-1] "A governor, leaving to take charge of an Australian colony, was told even from the Colonial Office that he would probably be the last representative of the Crown sent out from Britain. This tendency of official thought found its culmination when, in 1866, a great journal frankly warned Canada, the {164} greatest of all the colonies, that it was time to prepare for the separation from the mother-land that must needs come."[164-1] "Mr. Goldwin Smith . . . in his . . .Canada and the Canadian Question, which may fairly be supposed to condense all that can be said in favor of the separation of Canada from the Empire, and generally in support of that form of national disintegration which is involved in the great colonies becoming separate states or annexing themselves to other nations . . . is almost the last conspicuous representative of a school of thinkers which twenty-five or thirty years ago appeared likely to dominate English opinion on colonial affairs."[164-2] Only slowly were learned the lessons of the American Revolution, which a British historian in 1883 could truthfully say, "We have tacitly agreed to mention as seldom as we can."[164-3]
The tendency to separation is latent in every Pan-Angle community. It is only when local and central authority are properly balanced that it is quieted. In one it has never been quieted. The story of Ireland it is unnecessary and inexpedient here to narrate.[164-4] An Englander calls it "the greatest and most lamentable failure of the Pax Britannica."[164-5] It is merely the proof, again and again repeated, of the inability of Pan-Angles {165} successfully to control the local affairs of other Pan-Angles. There is something in us, in our individualism, that forbids such success, and calls for separation, which leads to rebellion if opposed, or revolution if permitted.
The Irish for generations have been leaving Ireland. They leave embittered against England. That bitterness they spread broadcast in the six younger Pan-Angle nations. Everywhere in these six nations the Irish find home rule.[165-1] The bitterness against government, as government, wears off. The Irishman becomes a citizen of a new and proud nation—he becomes a self-conscious Pan-Angle. But the Irish Question is no nearer solution than before.
Contemporaneous with the separation sentiments among the Britannic peoples were the agitations in the United States that were to culminate in the secession movement. The dread of a strong central government had left in the southern portion of America a belief in state separateness that worked against the existence of a common government which, within the scope of its authority could make decisions binding on all its component lands and people. From the end of the French-Pan-Angle struggle to the beginning of the American Civil War, the century of 1763-1861, the course of separation ran almost unchecked.
As this separation tendency strengthened, the unity of the race and that of one of its component nations were exposed to disintegration. The outcome {166} appeared to forebode the end of Pan-Angle world control. A house divided against itself cannot stand. If this family was to split into national factions of increasingly smaller size, its end was apparent. Some other civilization would absorb the scattered bits of the once powerful race and another chapter of the struggles of successive civilizations would be concluded.
Certain American states, desiring to loosen the tie by which they were bound, seceded from the Union. Other states declared their faith in the federal principle and took their stand against separation. The issue was befogged in many minds by other points of contention. But "the question submitted to the arbitrament of war was the right of secession."[166-1] Those who looked on could see that if success attended the secession movement, Pan-Angles would have to begin again their search for the means of preserving the balance between local and central government. "My paramount object is to save the Union and not either to save or destroy slavery," wrote Lincoln in 1862.[166-2]
Wilson characterizes the three great men of that struggle in terms of the question at stake. Of Lincoln he says: "The whole country is summed up in him: the rude Western strength, tempered with shrewdness and a broad and humane wit; the Eastern conservatism, regardful of law and devoted to fixed standards of duty. He even understood {167} the South, as no other Northern man of his generation did. He respected, because he comprehended, though he could not hold, its view of the Constitution; he appreciated the inexorable compulsions of its past in respect of slavery; he would have secured it once more, and speedily if possible, in its right to self-government when the fight was fought out . . .
"Grant was Lincoln's suitable instrument, . . . A Western man, he had no thought of commonwealths politically separate, and was instinctively for the Union; a man of the common people, he deemed himself always an instrument, never a master, and did his work, though ruthlessly, without malice; a sturdy, hard-willed, taciturn man, a sort of Lincoln the Silent in thought and spirit."
On the opposite side Robert E. Lee fought "for a principle which is in a sense scarcely less American than the principle of Union. He represented the idea of the inherent—the essential—separateness of self-government. . . . Lee did not believe in secession, but he did believe in the local rootage of all government. This is at the bottom, no doubt, an English idea; but it has had a characteristic American development. It is the reverse side of the shield which bears upon its obverse the devices of the Union,[167-1] . . . Lee . . . could not conceive of the nation apart from the State: above {168} all, he could not live in the nation divorced from his neighbors. His own community should decide his political destiny and duty."[168-1]
The outcome of the American Civil War, to those in the Pan-Angle world who were looking forward to an end of separatings—and this included many in the British Isles,—gave hope and inspiration. It demonstrated the reality of American nationhood and, more important still, it encouraged the race on its path towards convergence. It made natural the Canadian Constitution, otherwise known as the British North America Act of 1867. It made reasonable the foundation in London of the Royal Colonial Institute in 1868, whose motto is "United Empire."[168-2] It made comprehensible the theses of such books as Dilke'sGreater Britain, 1868, and Seeley'sExpansion of England, 1883.[168-3] Later were to come the convergences of the Australian states in 1900 and the South African provinces in 1909. "For the idea of national unity the people of the United States twenty-five years ago made sacrifices of life and money without a parallel in modern history. No one now doubts that the end justified the enormous expenditure of national force. 'The Union must be preserved' was the pregnant sentence into which Lincoln condensed the national duty of the moment, and to maintain this principle he was able to concentrate the national energy for a supreme effort. The strong man who {169} saved the great republic from disruption takes his place, without a question, among the benefactors of mankind."[169-1]
Moreover, the outcome of the American Civil War tended to revise the attitudes of the British Isles and America toward each other. Up to this time, their attention had been fixed on the conditions of their separation. Hostility seized on various acts performed or permitted by the British government which, rightly or wrongly, the American people considered acts of unfriendliness. These, as the Americans realized, they were hardly in a position to resent while the Civil War was in progress, although at one time war was very nearly declared against the British Isles.[169-2] When the Civil War was over, retaliation might have been undertaken. The American government had at its disposal a navy of over seven hundred vessels, of which over seventy were ironclads. It had an army of over one million seasoned men. The opportunity suggested itself as a proper time to payoff American grudges against the British Isles by annexing Canada. This would have been holding Canada blamable for the doings of another nation. To the credit of the Pan-Angles, President Grant successfully opposed the scheme.[169-3] Not only did the decade 1860-1870 mark the rise of the converging movement in the United States and in Canada, but the same decade saw the culmination and abatement of separating tendencies between {170} the two great powers of the Pan-Angle group, the British Isles and America.
Since those days Pan-Angles have made progress in understanding the balance necessary between the separating and the converging impulses. Men have erred by emphasizing too strongly one side or the other. In America they cried out blindly for "centralization," or "states rights "—in ignorance that only by the complementary strengths of both central and local governments can our sort of people be governed in great masses. Among the Britannic peoples men favoured either British Isles ascendency, or colonial independence—ignorant that the first would as quickly destroy them as would the second. Either course would produce the independence of the younger nations and, through lack of strength to maintain that independence, the loss of it, possibly to some nation outside the Pan-Angle group. These American and Britannic extremists are now a diminishing minority.
The growth of the idea of complementary functions in co-ordinate (not superior and inferior) governments has been instanced by many developments in America. There was a time, many now alive can remember the days, when "centralization" and "states rights" were championed by opposing political parties. To-day it is recognized that the successful government of America rests on the proper use of both of these extremes. This is true, whether it refers to national versus state authorities, or state versus municipal authorities. With a strong central authority in America goes to-day greater recognition of the need of a concurrent local control. This local spirit has gone so far in {171} some of the American states that state legislatures have authorized cities to draw up their own charters.[171-1] Moreover, American political experience within the states has adhered in many cases to the theorem that, on such questions as local taxation and the sale of liquor, the smaller subdivisions of the state should decide their own usages.
Once it was assumed that the officers of the federal government in America should enlarge as much as possible their spheres of activity, even if they appeared to encroach upon state functions. It is now realized that the states should be encouraged to attend to their own affairs, and thus avoid increasing the burdens of the federal government. President Roosevelt in 1908 unofficially called together the American state governors to discuss "conservation," and since then yearly these state executives have met to discuss questions of state policy. These conferences not only tend to produce greater uniformity of Pan-Angle political action, but tend also to make that action the product of large experience. This Conference of the Governors[171-2] and other non-official bodies, the {172} American Bar Association among them, are now encouraged by public opinion to remedy, in whatever ways seem wise, undesirable discrepancies in the laws of the various states, not by seeking greater authority in the central government, but by agitating in the states themselves.
The extent of our progress is shown strikingly by the change in Pan-Angle sentiment between the wars of 1861-1865 and 1899-1902. In South Africa the race was spared any repetition of the humiliating political corruption of the "carpet-bag" era of the American "reconstruction."[172-1] We have learned that whether it is in the United States or South Africa, in Canada[172-2] or in Ireland, white men must be made into self-governing Pan-Angles. Rhodes recognized this when he said even while the war was in progress, ". . . you cannot govern South Africa by trampling on the Dutch."[172-3] The impulses toward local autonomy and those toward a common group unity must be correlated. To favour either at the expense of the other is to court disaster.
The spreading of the Pan-Angles is still going on, though in the multiplicity of affairs arising in {173} the places we already occupy we often overlook the pioneer work of the present. The causes for separating have been understood and extensively removed. The converging tendency is now in the ascendant. The political evolution that accompanies this convergence, though it seems slow to the impatient reformer, may, if understood and assisted by those who shape popular opinion, give Pan-Angles in the fulness of time an entity government.
This converging tendency of the race, Americans have seen with satisfaction in their own land. As far as they have been conversant with it, they have approved of it in Britannic lands. A Canadian wrote in 1892: "Among thinking native Americans I have found, as a rule, a genuine sympathy with the advocates of unity for British people, a sympathy perfectly natural in a nation which has suffered and sacrificed so much as the people of the United States have for a similar object."[173-1] Since our knowledge of each other has grown in twenty odd years this might to-day be expressed even more strongly. Moreover, "English people," the same writer testifies, "now understand and respect the motives which actuated the resolute and successful struggle of the people of the United States against disruption."[173-2]
There is to-day a great drawing together of the whole Pan-Angle race. The desires of Franklin and his supporters are nearing realization. The {174} errors which led to our separations have passed into the race experience. We can all profit by them. We have all profited by them. The tendency to convergence was never wholly in operative. It survived the wrench of the American Revolution. Lord Shelburne, in conducting the British side of the peace negotiations of 1783, held to the ideal of restoring Pan-Angle unity, and thereafter worked for it in Parliament, hoping "that this would have been the beginning of the great Anglo-Saxon federation of which Chatham had dreamed; . . ."[174-1]
The power of this impulse drawing us together is evidenced in the peace that has endured among us. The century closing December 24, 1914, stands as witness. Within our whole civilization, this period has chronicled only two wars of white men on Pan-Angle soil—1861-1865 and 1899-1902. These were devastating and deeply to be regretted. They remind us that peace is not to be taken for granted. Between the two entirely independent sections of the Pan-Angles, and these are at the same time the most populous, no conflict of interests has been allowed to develop into war. Differences of opinion have arisen, as was inevitable. They have been settled through the exercise of forbearance, self-control, and concession, without recourse to arms.
Needless to try to apportion the credit between the two nations. Canadians have sometimes felt {175} that their interests were being sacrificed on the altar of British-American friendship. "Those who study the history of the questions which have arisen from time to time since the Peace of 1813 between this country [British Isles] and the United States, can hardly fail to be struck by a difference in the habitual attitude of the two Powers. Great Britain has always been pliable as to such questions; having indeed every motive, both of sentiment and of interest, for being and remaining on the best terms possible with the United States."[175-1] Another Britannic critic not only denies that the British negotiators have been pliable, but claims that as envoys on Canada-America disputes they have been of a cleverness at least equal to that of the Americans.[175-2]
Whoever may have appreciated it more keenly, the fact is now evident that the community of interests which embraces all Pan-Angles is an affair of transcending importance. Our great men have understood this and given it repeated expression. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said at Toronto in 1897: "But I should think our patriotism was dwarfed and stunted indeed if it did not embrace the Greater Britain beyond the seas; if it did not include the young and vigorous nations carrying throughout the globe the knowledge of the English tongue and the English love of liberty and law; and, gentlemen, with {176} those feelings I refuse to think or speak of the United States of America as a foreign nation. We are all of the same race and blood. I refuse to make any distinction between the interests of Englishmen in England, in Canada, and in the United States."[176-1] An Australian in 1912 wrote: "British interests in India or the East Indies would not be attacked; if there were a large Australian fleet. The problems of defence in Canada, South Africa, Egypt, and United States [sic] would be distinctly easier with such a fleet."[176-2] Note that he makes no distinction which sets the United States aside from other Pan-Angles. Lord Bryce—and no American is more highly esteemed in the United States than he,—[176-3] speaking in London in 1913, said: "Returning hither from America, I have two things to say to the British Pilgrims gathered here as friends of the American people. One is that you must not take too seriously the lurid pictures of American life drawn in some organs of the European press. In Washington I used to be struck by the dark view which the press news from England conveyed of British events and conditions, a view which I knew to be misleading. Here the same thing happens. Cable messages and {177} the vivid pens of correspondents inevitably heighten the colour. My other message is to assure you that the friendship you entertain for the people of the United States is reciprocated by them far more universally and heartily than ever before. There is a friendship of governments and a friendship of nations. The former may shift with the shifting of material interests or be affected by the relations of each power with other powers. But the latter rests on solid and permanent foundations. With our two peoples it is based on a community of speech, of literature, of institutions, of beliefs, of traditions from the past, of ideals for the future. In all these things the British and American peoples are closer than any two other peoples can be. Nature and history have meant them to be friends."[177-1]
Against this spirit of amity not a dissenting voice is raised. We rejoice in the peace of the years behind us and in the good feeling of the era at hand. We seek some means to perpetuate them.
Political good feeling in its different degrees takes, according to Pan-Angle experience, three forms. These so merge, that it is difficult at times to define in terms of them. They may be known for purpose of study as: friendship, alliance, and common government.
The relations between England and its American colonies started 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.