The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Pan-AnglesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Pan-AnglesAuthor: Sinclair KennedyRelease date: March 8, 2014 [eBook #45080]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by James McCormick*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAN-ANGLES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Pan-AnglesAuthor: Sinclair KennedyRelease date: March 8, 2014 [eBook #45080]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by James McCormick
Title: The Pan-Angles
Author: Sinclair Kennedy
Author: Sinclair Kennedy
Release date: March 8, 2014 [eBook #45080]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by James McCormick
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAN-ANGLES ***
Produced by James McCormick
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FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
1915
All Rights Reserved
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THE Author is indebted to the following publishers and authors for kind permission to make quotations from copyright matter: to Mr. Edward Arnold forColonial Nationalism, by Richard Jebb; to Mr. B. H. Blackwell forImperial Architects, by A. L. Burt; to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press forFederations and Unions, by H. E. Egerton; to Messrs. Constable & Co. forAlexander Hamilton, by F. S. Oliver, andThe Nation and the Empire, edited by Lord Milner; to the publishers of theEncyclopedia Britannica; to Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for Seeley'sExpansion of England, and G. L. Parkin'sImperial Federation; to Admiral Mahan; to Mr. John Murray forEnglish Colonization and Empire, by A. Caldecott; to Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd. forThe Union of South Africa, by W. B. Worsfold; to the Executors of the late W. T. Stead for theLast Will and Testament of C. J. Rhodes; to Messrs. H. Stevens, Son, & Stiles forThomas Pownall, by C. A. W. Pownall; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin Company for Thayer'sJohn Marshalland Woodrow Wilson'sMere Literature; to Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co. for Woodrow Wilson'sThe State; to Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons forThe Works of Benjamin Franklin, edited by John Bigelow; to the Yale University Press forPopular Government, by W. H. Taft; and also toThe Times;The Round Table;The Outlook; andThe Springfield Weekly Republican.
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THE English-speaking, self-governing white people of the world in 1914 number upwards of one hundred and forty-one millions. Since December 24, 1814, there has been unbroken peace between the two independent groups of this race—a fact that contravenes the usual historical experiences of peoples between whom there has been uninterrupted communication during so long an epoch. The last few decades have seen increasingly close understandings between both the governments and the peoples of this civilization.
In 1900 the British navy controlled the seas—all seas. From 1910 to 1914 the British navy has controlled the North Sea only.[vii-1] Some doubt whether this control can long be maintained. If it is lost, the British Empire is finished.[vii-2] The adhesion of the dependencies to their various governments and also the voluntary cohesion of the self-governing units would be at an end. "The disorders which followed the fall of Rome would be insignificant compared with those which would {viii} ensue were the British Empire to break in pieces."[viii-1] Such a splitting up would place each English-speaking nation in an exposed position, and would strengthen its rivals, Germany, Japan, Russia, and China. It would compel America to protect with arms, or to abandon to its enemies, not only the countries to which the Monroe Doctrine has been considered as applicable, but those lands still more important to the future of our race, New Zealand and Australia. If this catastrophe is to be averted, the English-speaking peoples must regain control of the seas.
These pages are concerned with the English-speaking people of 1914. Here will be found no jingoism, if this be defined as a desire to flaunt power for its own sake; no altruism, if this means placing the welfare of others before one's own; and no sentiment except that which leads to self-preservation. No technical discussion of military or naval power is here attempted. The purpose of these pages is to indicate some of the common heritages of these English-speaking peoples, their need of land and their desire for the sole privilege of taxing themselves for their own purposes and in their own way.
Federation is here recognized as the method by which English-speaking people ensure the freedom of the individual. It utilizes ideals and methods common to them all. Where it has been applied, it fulfils its dual purpose of protecting the group and leaving the individual unhampered.
This consideration may appear to the political {ix} economist to be merely a few comments on one instance of the relationship of the food supply to the excess of births over deaths; to the international politician, as notes on the struggles of the English-speaking race; and to the business man, as hints on present and future markets and the maintenance of routes thereto. Books could be written on each of these and kindred topics. This is not any one of such treatises, but a statement of only a few aspects of a huge question.
To Benjamin Franklin may be given the credit of initiating the thesis of these pages, for he foresaw in 1754 the need of a single government based on the representation of both the American and British groups of self-governing English-speaking people. Possibly there were others before him. Certainly there have been many since. Some have been obscured by time. Others, like Cecil John Rhodes, stand out brilliantly. These men visioned the whole race without losing sight of their own local fragment. They saw the need of blocking intra-race frictions in order to maintain our inter-race supremacy. They spoke the English language, and held by the ideals of English-speaking men—proud of their race.
To such as these, wherever they are found, owing affection to the British and American flags which they protect, and which protect them from others, this discussion is addressed. It is a family appeal in terms familiar to the family here called—the Pan-Angles.
January17, 1914.
[vii-1] Cf.Round Table, London, May 1911, p. 247.
[vii-2]Round Table, London, November 1910, p. 27: "Directly the British Empire is doubtful of its supremacy by sea its full liberty will disappear, even if there has been no war."
[viii-1]United Empire, London, January 1914, J. G. Lockhart, "The Meaning of British Imperialism," p. 53.
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FOREWORD vii
MAPAt the end of the volume
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A GREAT civilization has spread over the earth. Many millions of people believe it the best that has yet appeared. In it the faiths and strivings of a strong race are expressed. History teaches that it will be assailed by rival civilizations. Must it fall and its people be led into the bondage of alien ways?
The date at which a civilization begins must always be unknown, so slowly and steadily do the contributing forces operate. The birth of even so definite an organization as a nation is a matter of opinion. The United States of America, for example, may be regarded as having come into being on July 4, 1776, or at the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, or at the end of the French War in 1763, or on anyone of various other dates, according to the historical bias of the chronicler. But before records now legible to us were made, the Pan-Angles were long past their beginning stages.
Thousands of years ago Europe emerged from the {2} glacial ice. Off its western coast lay islands. The largest was close to the continent, and whatever peoples made their way into Europe had no great difficulty in crossing the narrow water. Migration must have followed migration, as continental tribes, more progressive than the islanders, came with superior weapons and skill to conquer and colonize. Bronze drove out flint and iron overcame bronze. Settlements of invaders assimilated with the subject natives and themselves became natives to the next foreign exploiter. The resulting people became known to the Romans as Britons. Rome's traders saw that the land was worth possessing.
In the middle of the first century A.D., Imperial Rome was in a mood for further expansion. It became necessary to intervene in the affairs of the northern island, touched already by Roman influence, but as yet independent of that power. In the island there were many princes and many governments adequate to the local demands, but no organization for concerted action against a powerful intruder. Within fifty years the task of pacification was largely accomplished. The southern two-thirds of the land then enjoyed the beneficent rule of Roman administrators. They governed Britain for its own good—as they saw it. They made it as much as possible like Rome. Baths and temples, roads and bridges, and a firm law brought Roman enlightenment to uncultured Britain. The Latin tongue was the official language. Many Romans of the military and civil services married native women. For more than two centuries Britain was thus a dependency of Rome, and many Britons were proud to belong to the {3} great empire. The rest of the island, to which this boon was never extended, was inhabited by barbarous hill tribes, who, even when Rome was strong, could protect themselves, and who at favourable opportunities made raids against the loyal Britons. The Romans had come to Britain to rule it, but had remained Romans, had taken their orders from colonial secretaries in Rome, had left their Roman wives and children at home—presumably because of the severity of Britain's climate,—and after an honourable term of service had retired on half-pay, or something as good. Just how Rome profited by holding Britain is immaterial now, whether by tribute levied and collected directly, whether through extended opportunities for trade, or whether in the employment ("outdoor relief," a Canadian might put it [3-11]) of a large military and civil force, paid, if Britain were self-supporting, by Britain's taxes. Perhaps the knowledge of having discharged a duty, shirking not the burden of the strong, was the reward Rome really prized.
A change of rulers was, however, in store for them all—Briton and Roman alike. By 350 A.D. a huge amorphous rival had begun to overflow its Northern forest, a race of strong, eager men seeking more land. That their first attacks were toward Rome itself showed the empire's weakness. Rome's intentions toward outlying dependencies may have been of the best, but it was powerless to fulfil them. The navy, such as it was, was forced to concentrate in home waters; and the army, called to protect the heart of the empire, left empty the barracks of Britain.
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Then, on the disorganized Britain, borne by the north-east wind, fell the invaders. With them came many of our most cherished virtues and a new epoch of governmental theory. The Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Norsemen came, not to superimpose themselves as rulers, but to colonize. They brought their families along. The climate suited them nicely. They wanted to live there and make the country their country. The fact that it was already inhabited formed only a temporary obstacle. As has happened repeatedly in history, those who came were strong; those they found were weak. The right of prior occupation was matched against the right to take by force. In time the natives had disappeared and the newcomers were settling and improving the land. There was no looking back to a mother country for orders or protection. Their fathers across the North Sea had evolved certain governmental ideas. These the migrating generations had carried with them and planted in the new soil. They proved adequate; and if any tie bound the lusty offspring to the ancestral home it could have been sentiment only—unencouraged by written and electric communication. The sentiment was short-lived.
Of these separate colonies there were as many as there were tribes, and as many tribes as there were shiploads. They all came from the great Teutonic stock that covered so much of north-western Europe. Five hundred years they spent trying conclusions among themselves, deciding what should be the language, the law, the name, they were to hand down to us. The people long remained without any name common to all; but in time {5} their country became known as England. Here were established the characteristics that have marked us ever since. The framework of the language was set; the greed for land was indulged; and the instinct for self-government, unable to evolve for its own security any system of central control, proved finally the undoing of all the jealous little autonomies. When a single-minded force threatened their cherished liberties, they were capable of no single-minded resistance. A neighbour across the channel thought he could make good use of England, proved his point one day when the wind blew favourably towards Hastings, and became England's master.
Then began a new governmental era, one having no parallel in our history since. The Saxon had been in most recent supremacy. Wealth and power passed from Saxon to Norman hands. Had the Duchy of Normandy been large enough to form the centre of its ruler's activities, England, like the Britain of the past, would have become a dependency of a foreign power. Two factors prevented: England, because of its size and of its separation from the continent was the more valued possession of the two; and William and his followers, although considering themselves greatly superior in culture and breeding, were really of the same race as the men they conquered, and hence easily assimilated with them. Had this been an invasion of people, that is, of men with their wives and children—it must have meant extermination of the Angles, Saxons, and Danes, either in war or in economic strife. But no such colonizing force was at work. The lords of England were reduced {6} to peasantry, and the peasants of whatever origin kept on about their affairs. In time the new nobility was no longer foreign. Neither a dependency, nor a colony, England gradually absorbed the Normans and all the importance of Normandy.
From this assimilation England rose independent and a unit. The Normans, it has been said, crushed the Angles, Danes, and Saxons into one people.[6-1] Just as inexorably were the Normans themselves fused into the common mass—
"Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman: . . .The silent nations undistinguish'd fall,An Englishman's the common name for all.Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now."[6-2]
Out of the vigour and strength that resulted have risen the Pan-Angles; and no foreign power since then has conquered or ruled them in England or elsewhere. With several governmental units co-ordinated to no central authority, England had been devastated and had been unable to repel invasions. These local powers were now combined under a strong unitary government. So efficient did it prove for many generations, that Pan-Angles as a whole are only now realising its limitations. For five centuries no change in circumstances warranted the consideration of any other.
Suddenly, in a few years, everything changed except the minds of men. The world began to {7} grow, and Europe was staggered by the knowledge of areas immeasurable as compared to the lands previously known. England then began to take its place as a great nation. In 1497 a ship, financed by Bristol merchants, discovered Newfoundland,[7-1] and the sea-divided control of the Pan-Angles was foreshadowed. From this date, perhaps, Pan-Angle history may most conveniently be reckoned. If so, four hundred and seventeen years lie behind us. Of these the first hundred are negligible. That was an age of fable, when the children of Europe went out on lonely quests and staked their lives in adventure for prizes whose value they could never know. Men left England and circled the globe; they fished in distant waters;[7-2] they bartered with strange peoples; but in the main they returned again to England. No colonial policy was required to meet their needs.
After 1600, however, they less often returned. They settled the new lands, and grew great in wealth and population. They organized governments and huge instruments of trade. Slowly the fabric grew that was to dwarf England in size and resources, and England, failing to understand that it was no loser thereby, but richer as a part of a {8} strengthening Pan-Angle civilization, found little light on the problems arising. In 1607 Virginia and in 1620 Massachusetts were permanently settled.[8-1] During the same years Englishmen were acquiring titles and trading rights in India. Here, at the outset, we have all the elements that long made for obscurity and discord.
In Virginia and Massachusetts the land was suitable for the occupations and for the breeding of white men. These settlements were typical of many in North America, South Africa, and Australasia. The settler changed his latitude and longitude, but little else. He pushed back the natives, from the land he desired to use, gave the place an English name, and proceeded about his affairs with his fundamental ideals, habits, and institutions unaltered. He brought from England, besides furniture and bricks for his house, his language, his religion, and his notions of government. These he preserved and handed down to his children, who in turn thought and behaved as though Englanders, and in two localities, a hemisphere apart, named their land New England. Self-government was one of their inherited ideas; they believed that he who supports the government with taxes should be represented therein. Settlements such as these are here distinguished as colonies. The first sprang from England, and in some cases have themselves been the prolific parents of new colonies. But of whatever origin, all are a product of the individualism of the Pan-Angle civilization. In them self-government {9} has been a question of time only. "Assemblies were not formally instituted, but grew of themselves because it was the nature of Englishmen to assemble. Thus the old historian of the colonies Hutchinson, writes under the year 1619, 'This year a House of Burgesses broke out in Virginia.'"[9-1] However strongly such colonies may be attached by sentimental and political ties to some other governmental group, they belong to themselves alone. On terms of equality they are part of the Pan-Angle power that controls the world.
In India, and in the many other instances of the same sort, the land was not suited for the occupations and for the breeding of white men. It was filled with native inhabitants who neither gave way before the European, nor assimilated with him. The English language, law, and governmental forms might be superimposed to some degree, but the great bulk of the people continued to think, talk, and act in ways that were not our ways. Their civilization, however high, was not our civilization. Such lands, and only such lands, may be called "possessions" of any Pan-Angle nation. Ceylon belongs to the British Isles; the Cook Islands belong to New Zealand; Papua belongs to Australia; and the Philippines belong to the United States. Because they "belong to" another than themselves, these lands are called dependencies.
The men who ruled England in 1600 could not anticipate this distinction so as to make their phraseology, their thoughts and their efforts at {10} government correspond. Nor, as years passed, did they come to understand it. Often they knew little about these settlements, except that all were distant very many days sailing. In general, the tendency was to act as though all were possessions belonging to England and subject to its will. To the statesman in London it might seem at most a theoretical difference; not so to the man on the spot. If he were a colonist he felt his land a part of the Mother Country, or its equal in a larger group of which both were parts. His land did not and could not belong to England in any sense that gave him less liberty than Englanders enjoyed.
Here, on the one side, was a stubborn fact; on the other, an inability to recognize that fact. Friction resulted. In 1707 England united with Scotland to form Great Britain. But Great Britain, like England, thought colonies possessions. It so regarded the American colonies. Friction increased.
The colonists understood what it was to desire to be "part of" and to find they were considered as "belonging to." In Taunton, Massachusetts, they raised a liberty pole, October 21, 1774. From it flew the flag of Great Britain bearing the words "Liberty and Union." To the pole was affixed the following lines:
CRESCIT AMOR PATRIAE LIBERTATISQUE CUPIDO"Be it known to the present,And to all future generations,That the Sons of Liberty in TauntonFired with a zeal for the preservation of {11}Their rights as men, and asAmerican Englishmen,And prompted by a just resentment ofThe wrongs and injuries offered to theEnglish colonies in general, and toThis Province in particular, . . ."[11-1]
Not enough of the Pan-Angle statesmen of those days had the insight to read rightly that inscription. It was only by severing the Pan-Angles that the American colonies demonstrated that their citizens were the peers of the citizens of Great Britain.
Yet there were men on both sides of the Atlantic who even in those days appreciated that one group of English-speaking white men cannot be controlled by another. They understood the equality of citizenship in all Pan-Angles. Of these men it is enough to mention five: Burke of Ireland, whose words "ring out the authentic voice of the best political thought of the English race,"[11-2] and who gave us the "Conciliation with America"; Otis of Massachusetts, whose speech against the Writs of Assistance was only the beginning of his work; Galloway of Pennsylvania, the Loyalist who refused re-election to the 1775 Continental Congress when he had to choose {12} between America and Great Britain; Pownall of England, Governor of Massachusetts 1757-1760, and later Member of the British Parliament 1768-1780; and Franklin of Pennsylvania, who with Pownall worked for Pan-Angle unity on both sides of the Atlantic till he, like Galloway, had to decide, and ended by choosing not Great Britain but his own nation. The first was never in America; the second was never in England; the third saw England in his exile only after American nationhood was established; and the fourth and fifth knew both England and America.
These men did not discover to Pan-Angles the doctrine of no taxation without representation. That, like many other alleged Americanisms, was a Pan-Angle tenet already old. "The Principality of Wales, said Galloway, the Bishopric of Durham, and the Palatinate of Chester, laboured, just as America, under the grievance of being bound by the authority of Parliament without sharing the direction of that authority. They petitioned for a share, and their claim was recognized. When Henry VIII., he continued, conquered Calais, and settled it with English merchants, it was so incompatible with English liberty to be otherwise, that Calais representatives were incorporated in the English Parliament."[12-1] But these five men may {13} be said to be among those who rediscovered this tenet. As such they shared in the formation of the nationhood not only of America, but also of the five new nations of the Britannic world.
In 1801 Great Britain and Ireland were formed into one political unit under the official title of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in these pages referred to as the British Isles. And still the distinctions between "part of" and "belonging to" were not understood in the British Isles. Colonies and dependencies grew in importance and size, many of the former having colonies and dependencies of their own; and still their radical differences were not clearly recognized. Repeatedly such colonies as Canada, New Zealand, or South Africa have reasserted the Pan-Angle principle that one group of self-governing white men cannot be the possession of another. So strong has been the effect of this reiteration that now there is some tendency in the British Isles to err on the other side, and to consider India, the Malay States, and other dependencies as though they hold, or should hold, the same status as colonies.
Failure to distinguish between areas that are self-governing and those that are not leads to a loose application of terms which contributes to further obscurity of thought. One recent instance is striking in its subtle suggestiveness. Most of the Malay Peninsula has been taken under the surveillance of the British Isles. Gradually one native ruler after another has been induced to desire the friendship of the men who came from the British Isles.
Some of the areas so acquired are dubbed {14} "States."[14-1] The collective government of this group of "States" has been given the grandiloquent title "Federated Malay States," The Pan-Angle student, familiar with federation in the English-speaking nations which have already succeeded in their autonomous efforts, cannot but be confused by hearing the word "federated" applied to regions where self-government is not even spoken of, and where the inhabitants take their political orders from such officials as are appointed by their white conquerors. The confusion is increased when a battleship guaranteed with funds of the Federated Malay States is presented to the government of the British Isles, and is made the occasion of fulsome speeches about the "loyalty" of the "King's subjects" in the Federated Malay States. The uninformed persons of the British Isles and elsewhere may not realize that this gift of the battleshipMalayameans simply the imposition of additional taxes on the conquered subjects that "belong to" the conquering race. This is equally true whether or not has been obtained the approval of the figureheads that are known to the outside world as the "native rulers."[14-2] Such an instance {15} fogs our perception of the problems pressing for solution by the Britannic self-governing peoples.
This confused thinking and failure to appreciate the difference between "part of" and "belonging to" has delayed Pan-Angle progress. It led to the disrupting American Revolution, to the Canadian Rebellion of 1837, and to frictions less in importance only because they were more promptly remedied. It has been an unnecessary difficulty in the way of all schemes proposed for closer Britannic union. Are the self-governing colonies to be united to each other and to the Mother Country?—or to these and to the dependencies besides? The word empire is variously used, and the thought underlying it sometimes vague. To some Britannic writers it refers inclusively to every spot over which the British flag flies, classing all colours and conditions of men in one category.[15-1] Others restrict its use to self-governing areas and peoples.[15-2] To still other minds it connotes lack of self-government, and is applicable only to the dependencies.[15-3] The "imperial parliaments" conjured {16} up by these three definitions are vastly dissimilar. And the New Zealander, for instance, would like to know, before he becomes a party to one, whether he is going to help rule India, or to sit in joint deliberation with its representatives.[16-1]
The British Isles and the countries that have developed from British colonies form numerous and interrelated political groups. The largest, and now most important areas from a racial point of view, are New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States of America. In this discussion these seven nations are considered as representing their race. Their peoples are known respectively as New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans, Newfoundlanders, Canadians, Britishers, and Americans. These seven nations hold in actual or allied control lands amounting to sixteen million square miles, with a population of five hundred and thirty-five million people,[16-2] or thirty and thirty-three per cent. respectively of the entire surface, and the entire {17} population of the world. Rome at her greatest dominated a population of one hundred and twenty millions.[17-1] In these seven nations more than one hundred and forty-one millions are white people,[17-2] nearly all speaking the same language, and all enjoying individual liberty of substantial equality. They govern themselves and they govern other peoples of other languages, colours, and ideals, to a total of nearly four times the entire Roman Empire. To the English-speaking whites these subject-peoples owe their privileges, such as they are. Success or failure in governing themselves and others depends for these whites on their ability so to control themselves that no foreign powers can interfere with this world-wide domination.
The words "the English-speaking, self-governing white people of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States of America," make a long expression. No suitable abbreviation seems to have been devised. The word Pan-Angle as a noun and as an adjective is here offered.
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There are various reasons why other words are unsatisfactory. None in existence exactly denotes the meaning which is here desired. Anglo-Saxon may refer to the fusion of two stocks of conquering immigrants who contributed men and vitality of ideas to the present Pan-Angles. Sometimes, however, it has referred to only one of these tribes, the Saxons, and designated them as the Saxons colonizing Angle-land, as opposed to the parent stock, the Saxons of the continent.[18-1] Some writers have employed the word loosely as a collective name for all persons and ideas whose ancestry can be traced to the British Isles. Again, a literature, a law, an architecture, and a language is each called Anglo-Saxon. Moreover, there is a people called Saxons, and a land of Saxony, forming no part of the Pan-Angle group. Anglican is one of our race names, with its roots deep in the past, but it has already a restricted meaning as a name for one of our religious creeds. English is equally unsatisfactory. It is properly applied to our common language and to the people inhabiting a part of the British Isles. Even this seemingly simple meaning has not been faithfully preserved. Writers, otherwise careful, speak of the English flag and the English Parliament, when they mean the flag and Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Robert Louis Stevenson, by a recent student and author, was called an Englishman![18-2] This inexactness is equally distasteful to those to whom the appellation rightfully belongs, and to those who have names of their own of which they are proud.
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To avoid confusion, the word English in this discussion is restricted as far as possible to the language alone, or is used in the sense of belonging to or originating in England. The term England refers only to the geographic area bearing that name.[19-1] The inhabitants of England are herein referred to as Englanders.[19-2] It would be well to have a name for these self-governing, English-speaking white people that would direct the mind back to the European stocks, whose bloods have mingled in the British Isles and in these six other nations, and that would suggest the origin of the ideals and of the men that have made possible the present world domination of these people. Failing such an extensively composite and suggestive word, resort is had to the name of one of these many tribes. They are but one of many peoples that went to our making. The Angles to-day exist nowhere as Angles. But they gave their name to our tongue and to the country through which we have inherited much. Every English-speaking schoolboy knows Gregory's exclamation at the sight of the fair-skinned children brought from Britain.[19-3] "Angels," they may have looked to the fervent {20} priest, on their block in the Roman slave market; but, as "inheritors of the earth, successors to Rome about to fall," he might prophetically have saluted them. Their political descendants have abolished slavery throughout a large part of the world. They are the white people who speak English, citizens of the autonomous nations: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States of America. Pan-Angles they are here called, and their nations, Pan-Angle nations.
[3-1]Round Table,London, September 1913, p. 639.
[6-1] C. H. Pearson,History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, London, 1867, vol. i, p. 136.
[6-2] Daniel Defoe, "The True-born Englishman: A Satire," inNovels and Miscellaneous Works,London, 1855, vol. v. pp. 441, 442.
[7-1] Richard Hakluyt,The Principal Navigations Voyages TraffiquesandDiscoveries of the English Nation,Hakluyt Society reprint, Glasgow, 1904, vol. vii. p. 146: "IN the yere of our Lord 1497 John Cabot a Venetian, and his sonne Sebastian (with an English fleet set out from Bristoll) discovered that land which no man before that time had attempted, on the 24 of June, about five of the clocke early in the morning,"Cf.Alfred Caldecott,English Colonization and Empire,London, 1891, p. 28.
[7-2] D. W. Prowse,History of Newfoundland,London, 1895, pp. 28, 58, 83.
[8-1] John Fiske,Old Virginia and Her Neighbours,London, 1897, vol. i. pp. 93, 94; John Fiske,The Beginnings of New England,Boston, 1889, pp. 81-83.
[9-1] J.R. Seeley,The Expansion of England,London, 1883, p.69.
[11-1] P. D. Harrison,The Stars and Stripes,Boston, 1906, p. 24;ibid.,p. 23: "The Taunton flag was the regular English [Great Britain's] flag, adopted by the union of the aforesaid crosses upon a red field. Its significance lay in its motto, signifying that there was at that time no thought of severance from the mother country, their only thought being liberty of action; and it has historic value because it was the first to wave with that motto."
[11-2] Woodrow Wilson,Mere Literature,Boston, 1900, p. 105.
[12-1] A. L. Burt,Imperial Architects,Oxford, 1913, p. 60. Henry VIII. above should read Edward III. After the battle of Crecy he besieged Calais in 1346.Cf.C.A.W. Pownall,Thomas Pownall,London, 1908, p. 204, who refers to the same ideas as above, quoted from the 4th edition (1768) of Thomas Pownall'sThe Administration of the Colonies.For maps of these four historical areas, see W. R. Shepherd,Historical Atlas,Boston, 1911, pp. 74 and 84.
[14-1] For a definition of grades of government of dependencies of Britannic nations, seeAn Analysis of the System of Government throughout the British Empire,London, 1912, pp. 59-61.
[14-2]Round Table,London, September 1913, p. 697: "It is not true that she [Malaya] was offered as the result of pressure by the British Government. She owes her existence partly to the imagination of the Colonial Secretary in the Malay States, who would by general agreement have been well advised to keep his visions to himself instead of communicating them even to sympathetic chiefs, but the Government in the 'Malay States certainly received no suggestion on the subject from the Colonial Office.'"
[15-1]Ency. Brit., vol. iv. p. 606. "Ency. Brit." in this and subsequent notes refers toEncyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Cambridge, England, 1910. AlsoEmpire Movement (Non-Party, Non-Sectarian, Non-Aggressive, and Non-Racial), London, 1913; Leaflet 19,Shorter Catechism: "The British Empire is that portion of the Earth's land surface which is subject to the authority of King George."
[15-2] J. R. Seeley,The Expansion of England,London, 1883, p. 46: "The English Empire is on the whole free from that weakness which has brought down most empires, the weakness of being a mere mechanical forced union of alien nationalities. . . . the English Empire in the main and broadly may be said to be English throughout."
[15-3]Cf.G.R. Parkin,Imperial Federation, London, 1892, p. 248: "Unquestionably confusion of thought is caused by the careless use of the term Empire into which English people have fallen. Applied to India and the crown colonies it is admissible, . . . As a name for the 'slowly grown and crowned Republic' of which the mother-land is the type and the great self-governing colonies copies, the term Empire is a misnomer, . . ."
[16-1] Richard Jebb,Studies in Colonial Nationalism,London, 1905, p. 276: "Indeed, the inclusion of India involves thereductio ad absurdumof the imperial-federation theory which forms the logical complement of the expansion-of-England theory."
[16-2]Whitaker's Almanack, London, 1913, pp.479, 646: 16,897,126 square miles and 535,753,952 persons.
[17-1]An Analysis of the System of Government throughout the British Empire, London, 1912, p. v, gives the Roman Empire population as eighty-five millions and the British Empire as four hundred and ten millions. But see Edward Gibbon,Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, 1782, vol. i. pp. 51, 52: "We are informed, that when the emperor Claudius exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens, . . . it seems probable, that there existed, in the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there were citizens, . . . and that the slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of the Roman world. The total amount of this imperfect calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions of persons."
[17-2]Cf.post, p. 81, note 1.
[18-1] Cf.Ency. Brit., vol. ix. p. 588.
[18-2] Price Collier,England and the English,London, 1911, p. 341.
[19-1] As to quoted passages, the reader is cautioned to distinguish in each instance the meanings of the terms England, Britain, Great Britain, British, Britannic, etc. The usage in one quotation may differ from that in another and from that in the non-quoted passages. The terminology in the latter has been adopted to accord with the most accurate and consistent present usage. The only innovation in terms here employed is the word Pan-Angles.
[19-2] Sir Walter Scott,The Abbot, iv.: "I marvel what blood thou art—neither Englander nor Scot," quoted inNew English Dictionary, Oxford, 1891—"Englander."
[19-3]Ency. Brit., vol. xii. p. 566.
{21}
If an intelligent traveller from Mars were to tour the earth to-day he would jot down in his note-book that New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, the British Isles, and the United States were all inhabited by the same sort of people. Their language, their forms of government, their ways of thinking and of conducting the various departments of life would lead him to think so. And he would be right. The English-speaking traveller, denied the point of view of an outsider, is prone to take the likenesses for granted and to dwell on the differences, using his own local group as a yard-stick to measure the rest. Beneath his criticism, however, he is conscious that in these countries he is at home in the same sense that he is an alien in all others. Whichever of the seven he may be from, he finds in each of the other six, men he can hardly tell from himself, and realizes that in his own political unit, whose oneness he never questions, there are communities with natures more dissimilar than are the natures of these seven nations. No knowledge of history is needed for either him or the Martian to conclude that while they use different names to designate this part or that, {22} they are speaking always of one people and one civilization.
Of what stuffs the English-speaking people were fashioned has already been explained. England, when colonization began, held the germ of the future Pan-Angles. Within two centuries Scotland and Ireland were united with England and Wales under one government, and the English language and English ideals penetrated further and further into those once Celtic strongholds. Welsh, Scots, and Irish brought their contributions to our development. They wrote English poems and English books. They officered the army and built battleships. They made and administered laws, and furnished prime ministers for the British Isles. Like the Englanders they too migrated to the new Pan-Angle lands, seeking religious or political liberty in some cases, but oftenest seeking the means of a more satisfactory life. These they have found. By this blending of all British Isles stocks came new vitality to the Pan-Angles.
Three centuries ago this diffusion of Britishers began, and it continues to-day in far greater numbers than then.[22-1] Nor have they come less to the United States since it became independent of Great Britain.[22-2] {23} A French student divides the American people into two groups: those whose ancestors were in the United States previous to 1830, and hence almost totally British, and those descended from persons immigrating since that time. The former, according to his computation, comprises more than one-half of the present population of the United States. And of the latter, one-third at least are likewise of British stock. A total of two-thirds, or perhaps even of three-fourths, of the American people to-day are, he concludes, the descendants of Britishers.[23-1] The Irish he considers an important element. Of the result of the mingled immigrations of the Irish and other Celts with the Scandinavians and Germans, an American student says: "When we remember that it was the crossing of the Germanic and the Celtic stocks that produced the English race itself, we are obliged to assume that the future American people will be substantially the same human stuff that created the English common law, founded parliamentary institutions, established American self-government, and framed the Constitution of the United States."[23-2] Of all Pan-Angles a tremendous majority are of British descent. Of all Pan-Angles outside the British Isles a majority are still of British descent; and theirs has been the influence that has made six new nations vastly alike, and like, also, to the Mother Country.
In some instances, notably in Canada and in South Africa, the Pan-Angles found on their {24} arrival other peoples, sprung from European stocks, firmly rooted to the land. Descendants of these first settlers still form communities apart, in which one hears English less often than French or Taal, as the case may be; much as one finds communities in the British Isles where only a form of Celtic is spoken. In other places, too, as in New York and London, are little foreign nuclei engaged in some particular trade, where a man can live and earn his wage and know no English. These are, however, the remarked exceptions.
British blood, moreover, has not in the meantime been stagnant. Through these centuries, as from earliest history, it has been constantly enriched and invigorated by admixtures from the continent of Europe. To the British Isles, South Africa, Newfoundland, Canada, and the United States, non-British peoples have come. Even New Zealand and Australia, almost purely British as they are, have their French and German settlements respectively. In the British Isles the reception and absorption of foreign stocks has been unspectacular. Individuals, or from time to time groups, seeking the larger tolerance of England, have taken up an abode there. One has but to observe and listen in the streets to be convinced that foreign invaders, though with no hostile intent, still land on British soil. Outside the British Isles, this replenishing of the British stock by "foreign" immigrants often presents features that are spectacular—especially where the bulk of the foreigners now arrive—in the United States and Canada.[24-1]
{25}
The immigrant often comes with no ability to speak English or to understand the habits of mind and forms of government of those who do. He may never have been proudly conscious of any nationality. But in an amazingly brief length of time, we find him taking his place among his Pan-Angle fellows and conducting himself as one of them. In one generation he is transformed into a Pan-Angle.
This process of assimilation was formerly unconscious on the part of the receiving nations. Now, as the task has grown more stupendous, special machineries in the way of day and night schools and settlement clubs and classes have been devised in the larger centres, and are maintained at the expense of the public. The immigrant, safely arrived, finds himself still outside the unyielding wall of the English language. He cannot ask for food or work. Even those from his former country talk English together, and jeer at his ignorance. By hard experience and whatever help is offered, he qualifies himself in this first requisite. With his English he acquires much else. He learns words which express ideas peculiar to Pan-Angle psychology. From the words he progresses to the ideas themselves. Thus he learns somewhat of the theory of law and government, and of the aspirations and ideals, and of the expected privileges that have evolved with this language. The pride of the Pan-Angle comes over him, and a faith in those precepts of individual freedom of which he {26} had never dreamed, it may be, until he learned to read and talk of them in English. "An Englishman's house is his castle." Here is a promise of privacy perhaps unknown in the land he has quitted. "Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed." This is a long step from the doctrine of the Divine Right of kings. Thus with the language goes an atmosphere of many things that are not to be translated, historical heritages which the immigrant must substitute for those of his birth. As he practises the new tongue amid increased material and spiritual comforts, his perception quickens and he is already fairly started to become one of us. "I am an American," he cries; or "I am a Canadian": more noisily, perhaps, because his liberties are newer, but speaking none the less from the same fountains of pride that inspire—"I am an Englishman."
On the second generation the same force operates; the stubbornness of the English-speaking people for their language acts firmly as the Inquisition and gently as a blessing. They attend free schools, read only books written in English from the point of view of English-speaking people and on subjects interesting to such people. Non-Pan-Angle theories of government are non-existent; alien moral standards unheard of. The wall that once hedged the father out, hedges the children in. More often than not they cannot speak the tongue their parents were born to. WithIvanhoeandKing Learthey are familiar; they quote Burns and Wordsworth and Longfellow; after local history they study that of England. The history and poets of their fathers' native lands are foreign {27} and unknown. If oratory be demanded, it is Burke or Lincoln who furnish the words and sentiments to young Hans and Pietro.[27-1]
This is a consideration of English-speaking whites, and as such is not concerned with the non-whites of various races and various and inconsistent degrees of subjection or citizenship, who dwell in Pan-Angle countries. The aborigines of the United States and Canada, of New Zealand and Australia, are now problems of the past, solved according to nature's rule of the survival of the fittest. They could not live and increase in the environment the white man was strong enough to throw about them. The negro, numbering almost four times the whites in South Africa[27-2] and one-eighth of the whites in America,[27-3] is a problem yet unsolved, for nature has not yet made it clear which, all things considered, is the most fit. He not only thrives in contact with whites, but with his low standard of living multiplies more rapidly. The Asiatic races are the problem of the future. In every quarter we see a determination that it shall not grow beyond its present incipient stage. All Pan-Angle nations may not be able to obtain, as Australia wishes to, an exclusively white population. {28} But each nation, whenever non-whites appear to endanger the success of white local self-government, are able to exclude from the privilege of the franchise any non-assimilable inhabitants. In each of these seven nations white local autonomy is recognized as necessary. The existence of these problems in no way modifies the definition of Pan-Angles as English-speaking whites who are the self-governing forces in the seven above-named nations.
The language Pan-Angles speak grew out of the Germanic tongues of the Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Jutes. Our most common and familiar words have been in uninterrupted use since the days of those invaders.[28-1] To this Teutonic basis was added the French of the Northmen called Normans. A proclamation of 1258 is sometimes called the first specimen of English,[28-2] but its resemblance to modern speech is not for the uninstructed to discern. Through the thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen hundreds English took on a form more intelligible to us of to-day. In the latter part of the fifteen hundreds a great poet and playwright employed it so effectively that his diction and style became a standard.[28-3] From the same epoch dates the translation of the Bible and its popular use. "The English version of the Bible remains the noblest example of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the {29} instant of its appearance the standard of our language."[29-1]
Thus it came about that in theMayflowerand other early emigrant ships was carried to the new countries an English of authenticated stamp. The standards then recognized are still recognized. This was, however, the English of books and education. Each shire of England in its own speech bore witness to its past. Kent and Yorkshire often could not understand each other, and words used in one were unknown to the other. The emigrating Englander carried with him accordingly, besides the English as established for educated men, the common dialect of his neighbourhood. In the colonies these differences tended to vanish under the influence of the press, free schools, and easy methods of travel; though occasionally in a word, or here and there a pronunciation, the delighted etymologist sees the ghost of some local English usage, as in the old Devon still spoken in Newfoundland.[29-2] In England these local variations of speech have persisted longer, and still puzzle the unaccustomed ear. In America there still exist words and expressions which when they left England were in good usage, but which have there since been dropped. Though the dictionaries of to-day call it an Americanism, Shakespeare wrote: "Better far, I guess, That we do make our entrance several ways."[29-3]
{30}
The variety and interest of the English language does not lie alone in these historical survivals. It has been, and still is, constantly enriched from outside itself. In the colonies and dependencies, and in foreign lands as well, the English language has come in contact with practically all the tongues of the earth. From these it has helped itself according to need or fancy. The result gives locally a strong dash of colour which inevitably tends to tinge the whole. Ranch, trek, amok, portage, taboo, tomahawk, coolie,—have long since ceased to serve limited communities, and stand acknowledged in our dictionaries besides words of Saxon and Norman pedigrees. Spruit, kai, bilabong,—if not lost altogether will come to the same dignity. Whether the new word is taken from another language or coined from English roots as local slang, the story of a growth in usage is the same. The "tramp" and "sun-downer" may consort together in any library with a "creeper," a "tenderfoot," and a "new chum." In language usages we have no authority but our own desires.
Such is our language, a living thing growing in parts, dying in parts, and ever ready to adapt itself to local needs. It is, moreover, uniform, as nearly as any living tongue can be uniform. The peculiarities of speech observed in different localities are enough to furnish picturesque touches for a novel and humour to the stage, but never [30-1] {31} enough to make even the slightest barrier between any two regions. Even so it is a matter largely of pronunciation and inflection. The writer who would suggest the twangs and drawls, and indicate the r's that are rolled or ignored, and the h's insecure in position, has hard work with tortured spelling to accomplish his end. To the art of printing and all the publishing, useful and otherwise, it has made possible; to popular education and the reading it stimulates, we owe a uniform written language. Had the colonists gone forth and builded their nations prior to the days of type and presses and cheap books, the Kansan and Tasmanian might have been to-day as linguistically remote from each other as both are now from the Anglo-Saxons of Bede's days. Instead, though they may "labor" or "labour" according to fancy, and each have his preference about going to "jail" or to "gaol," they are able to pool their literatures and draw from a common fund. To increasingly comfortable and rapid means of transportation, whether of the tourist, the British bagman or American drummer or the job hunter, we are indebted for our homogeneous speech. And in that common speech lies possibly the strongest tie between Pan-Angles and the one that makes all others potent.
Every Pan-Angle is in instant communication with every other Pan-Angle wherever he may meet him. Through books, newspapers, and magazines written in his mother tongue, he may be in constant touch with the doings of the whole Pan-Angle world. American youths study Geikie'sGeologyin their schools; New Zealanders buy {32} and read theAtlantic Monthly; and theCentury Dictionaryis in use at Oxford. Men like Lord Bryce and Admiral Mahan write on matters vital to the existence of Pan-Angle civilization; and attention and esteem are theirs from every thoughtful English-speaking man. Through the pulpit, the lecture platform, and the stage, the people of each nation daily form first-hand acquaintance with the representatives of each of the other six—no bar of translation or interpretation standing between. Of the popular authors and novelists, one-half of their readers probably hardly know which are American, which Britannic. Thus our common language produces a continuous interchange of thought which makes for mental unity and keeps us one people.
Through this world-wide interchange of thought we see not only each other, but ourselves, from the point of view of each other. Family criticism is often harsh when most friendly; and among ourselves we speak our minds freely, whether it be tolls, boundaries, or table manners under discussion. Frank opinions are sometimes resented. "I do not talk through my nose," says the American. "Nor do I use my a's like a cockney," retorts the Australian. "I have no accent," rejoins the Englander with an unmistakable drawl. "Look at your police and your yellow press," say six of us, and the American stands ashamed. "Look at the abject misery of your poor and the waste of your fertile lands," and the Englander winces. "Look at your defenceless condition," and Newfoundlanders, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, and South Africans all admit the indictment. {33} Mutual criticism is accordingly not without profit. In each other's virtues and failings we find models and warnings, for our ideals are in the main the same, and to no foreign opinion are we so sensitive as to the opinion of other members of our own family.
In Pan-Angle nations there are to-day more people speaking English than have ever before in the world's history spoken one tongue.[33-1] But even outside of those seven nations, English ranks as the world language, the one most useful for commerce, travel, or education. Some maintain that it is the richest language known. On a computation of words that may perhaps be so.[33-2] Others claim it is easy to learn. No one calls it easy to spell. Some say English-speaking people cannot learn other languages; others say they will not. The story is {34} told of a man for many years the only British resident on 1500 miles of Arabian coast. He knew less than a dozen words of Arabic. "How do you carry on your trade?" someone asked. "Oh," he replied, "the beggars have got to learn English."[34-1] Similar is Mr. Dooley's promise to the Filipinos: "An' we'll larn ye our language, because 'tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours."
That the wide knowledge of its language is a source of advantage to a nation, Benjamin Franklin pointed out in a letter to Noah Webster in 1789: "The Latin language, long the vehicle used in distributing knowledge among the different nations of Europe, is daily more and more neglected; and one of the modern tongues, viz. the French, seems in point of universality to have supplied its place. It is spoken in all the courts of Europe; and most of the literati, those even who do not speak it, have acquired knowledge enough of it to enable them easily to read the books that are written in it. This gives a considerable advantage to that nation; it enables its authors to inculcate and spread throughout other nations such sentiments and opinions on important points as are most conducive to its interests, or which may contribute to its reputation by promoting the common interests of mankind. It is perhaps owing to its being written in French, that Voltaire's treatise on 'Toleration' has had so sudden and so great an effect on the bigotry of Europe, as almost entirely to disarm it. The general use of the French language has likewise a very advantageous effect on the profits of {35} the bookselling branch of commerce, . . . And at present there is no capital town in Europe without a French bookseller's shop corresponding with Paris.
"Our English bids fair to obtain the second place. The great body of excellent printed sermons in our language, and the freedom of our writings on political subjects, have induced a number of divines of differents sects and nations, as well as gentlemen concerned in public affairs, to study it; so far at least as to read it. And if we were to endeavor the facilitating its progress, the study of our tongue might become much more general."[35-1]
By 1856 the use of our language had progressed so that Emerson thought it "destined to be the universal language of men."[35-2]
That we who talk English go about with an assumption of superiority, there is abundant testimony. In 1676 an English ship visited Mauritius, then a possession of Holland. A modern historian quotes from the records of the Dutch Governor: "This breed imagine the Hollanders are of a lower stock, naturally inferior, who ought always to be humbly and servilely at their disposal."[35-3] A Bostonian, who sailed from his home port for Liverpool on news of the ratification of the treaty of Ghent, mentions a British army officer with whom he chatted in London in 1815: "The colonel complimented the American troops in a curious manner by observing that they were brave {36} and it was not to be wondered at since they were 'descendants of Englishmen.' It required all my gravity to make an acknowledging bow for this compliment I frequently found that the bravery displayed by the Americans in the last war was accounted for from this source."[36-1] "They [the Scots]arebumptious, very bumptious," says Goldwin Smith. "They try to force their Burns down our throats."[36-2] "Do not, above all things," counsels an official circular addressed to British emigrants to Canada, "try to impress on your Canadian employer how much better we do things in England, for it will only make him dislike you and perhaps not care to keep you in his employ. Canadians, too, often resent criticism of their country or its methods, but you should remember that they have been working in Canada long before you were born, and that they are more likely than a stranger like yourself to know what suits that country best."[36-3] The American Ambassador, speaking in London in 1913, said "he was asked almost every day by the kindly people whom he met—and he could not too strongly emphasize the word 'kindly' since he had come to England—how they were getting on in the United States assimilating the endless hordes of people from all lands who came to their shores. He did not wish {37} to boast. He was a humble man from the humblest of countries. (Laughter.) But he was delighted to assure them that the Anglo-Saxon, or British, race, who settled the United States first, shaped its destinies, directed its energies, according to their conscience, against their own Motherland, and developed themselves and the great territory which they subdued, to this day, no matter how many men came from how many lands, still ruled it and led it. (Cheers.) And there was no time in sight when that would have changed. Every President of the United States had been of English or Scottish blood dominantly. Out of 121 mayors of cities only 11 per cent. had names which showed that they or their predecessors came from countries other than the United Kingdom. Only 14 per cent. of the representative men who took part in the government of the United States in the House of Representatives or the Senate bore foreign names, which left 86 per cent. who came from the United Kingdom. The Anglo-Saxon was quite as much the leader of men in the great Republic as he was in the great United Kingdom. That was not a boast; it was a natural phenomenon. It was destiny, and they could not help it if they would. Americans deserved no particular praise for it. They believed, just as Englishmen believed, that they were born to rule the world."[37-1] "That complacency which never deserts a true-born Englishman"[37-2] speaks wherever a Pan-Angle voice is raised. {38} Foreign testimony on this point in our character is unanimous, but no foreigner can demonstrate so vividly the arrogance of our self-satisfaction as do we in our every act and attitude. Moreover, what do most of us care about what foreigners think? Was it not Dr. Johnson who said, "All foreigners are mostly fools"?[38-1]
As Pan-Angles we are, in short, the cream of the earth. As Britishers, Americans or Australians we are the cream of the cream. As Englanders, Missourians, or Queenslanders we are something even more superlative. As Londoners, St. Louisans, or Brisbanians,—words fail to express the height of our self-approval. The Englander says little on the subject but, like the calm ungainsayable fog of his habitat, simply is. If called from his high estate to pass judgment, he characterizes the rest of the world as "beastly peculiar." "Colonials," in this term he lumps also the inhabitants of the United States, are to him unfortunates, having "jolly rotten luck to live way off out there." The American, more nervously pitched, raises his voice and talks long about his bigness. "You call that a river?" he indicates the Thames. "Why, if we had a damp streak like that in one of our fields in Iowa, we'd tile it just to keep from getting our feet wet crossing." The Australian, conscious that little attention has been paid him as yet, and conscious too that his "potentialities" are really great, {39} aggressively balances a chip for the inspection of critics. His sheep, his harbour, his apples, his stars—woe to anyone who fails to acquiesce in their paramount excellence! "And after all," he sighs, returned from the other fair places of the earth, "after all, there is only one Sydney."
Such are our local prides, or such at least do they appear in their most blatant types. "The habit of brag runs through all classes"[39-1] wherever we live. Those of us who observe the good form of appearing tolerably meek-minded, are perhaps at heart no more so. Why, then, do we smile tolerantly at all the world and take no offence at each other. Because each is confident of his own place in the sun, and confident too that the Pan-Angles, although he may not use that term, by virtue of these very local prides, are one in their desire and determination to maintain their civilization against all others who are not of our language and our ways.
An American was one day asked by a cutlery salesman from Birmingham (England), "Are you not humiliated by having no national language?" "We have one," was the prompt reply; "it is English." So would have spoken a Canadian or a Newfoundlander, a South African, a New Zealander, or an Australian. That is one of our prides. Our language is ours. It reflects our many-rooted origins, our varied and severally branched histories, our constantly converging growths. It binds us to the ideals of our kind. Its very name takes us in imagination to the infancy of our race, where {40} from subservience to the wills of others the individual emerged. "The English have given importance to individuals, a principal end and fruit of every society. Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is, and is guarded in the indulgence of his whim. 'Magna Charta,' said Rushworth, 'is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.' By this general activity and by this sacredness of individuals, they have in seven hundred years evolved the principles of freedom. It is the land of patriots, martyrs, sages and bards, and if the ocean out of which it emerged should wash it away, it will be remembered as an island famous for immortal laws, for the announcement of original right which make the stone tables of liberty."[40-1] To acknowledge the relation of America to the land of these struggles and their earliest successes can never be humiliating. England's past belongs to us all, and to-day England is one of us. There, was cradled the individualism of our Teuton forbears that has grown into a civilizing world-wide domination. We all have helped to nurture and shield it. We are as seven guardians whose harmony is secured not only because they are one in aim and method but because being one in language they are bound into understanding.
The Pan-Angle enjoys the highest standard of living known to any comparable number of people in the world, either formerly or to-day. If civilization depends on the margin of wealth above mere {41} means of existence, Pan-Angles are the most civilized of the races.
Given a hypothetical community possessed only of such material resources that all the energies of every member must be used to provide food and protection from the elements, and there is presented the lowest possible standard of living. Anything lower would mean starvation, exposure, and death. Add but ever so little to those resources, so that some few, still fed and sheltered, may employ their energies in other ways, and they may become scientists and prolong the lives of their fellows and teach them more productive methods of food getting; they may become artists and poets for the delight and recreation of the rest; they may devise laws and systems of government to regulate labour and control wealth; and may develop certain instinctive cravings into hopeful religions. The community has now taken its first steps toward what we call civilization. Add further to the resources, increase the amount of energy that can be spent in channels other than the maintenance of life, and there is developed a complex organism, with churches and schools, music and literature, steam transportation, electric machinery, and contrivances of many other sorts to make life comfortable, enjoyable, and inspiring. Between this hypothetical primitive community and civilization as the Pan-Angles understand it are many stages, some of them occupied to-day by our neighbours whose material resources have not increased to the extent of ours. Now, of all the world, the people having most time and strength {42} after their physical necessities are secured are the Pan-Angles.
The per capita wealth and the per capita land holdings of the Pan-Angles are greater than those of any other comparable number of people. Their diet is more generous, more costly, and more varied. Their apparel is more expensive, and their housing more capacious and more comfortable. They are able to support a greater number of instructors and entertainers in their writers, artists, and musicians. Hardly an act of their lives, hardly an article they use, but has some embellishment not strictly necessary to life and utility. With all this the Pan-Angles, so much have they beyond the mere means of existence, furnish lavishly the pleasures of the so-called "higher life" to their own souls. They study philosophies and ponder the rights of man; they support the weak and economically useless with the proceeds of their own labour. They send of their wealth to other civilizations, as missionary reports testify, trying to contribute to their welfare. And with all this spending, they still have at their disposal such resources that they increase in numbers from generation to generation, and each generation has more than the generation before.
The reason for this high standard of living is not far to seek. We have all this because we have been strong enough to take land, the source of food and shelter, the basis of all life and wealth. The Teutons came and took England; the Normans came and took England; and Pan-Angles since have taken land in every continent and throughout the seas: from the bleak coast {43} and rich shore-fisheries of the Labrador to the fertile plains of the Missouri and the grassy ranges of Otago. In Canada and the United States for years land was the prize that the country offered to pioneers, giving thousands of acres in parcels of one hundred and sixty as long as they lasted. From their land and sea-coast holdings, the Pan-Angles have taken the yield of fish and grain and meat; and those who laboured in getting food produced enough for themselves and for their fellows who were working in other ways. Besides food, these lands provided many other of the essentials of the standard of living we desire.
Other lands rich in promise came under the Pan-Angle gaze. Often there seemed the best of reasons why we should not go and live there. We thereupon set up additional factories at home and made cloth and knives above our own demands to send out to those countries in trade. By working at home in smoky cities we were able to gather the food and the luxuries we wanted from all parts of the world. These lands we have taken into our custody in order to guarantee our trade supremacy. Unproductive spots here and there, such as Gibraltar, Aden, Singapore, and Hong Kong, we have been forced to hold to facilitate and protect our trade. In the main we acquired some very valuable pieces—the most valuable in sight some of our rivals have thought. We never know how valuable a place may be, and, conversely, we never appreciate what a nuisance a place may be until after we have taken it. Yet, the nuisances we try to turn to useful account.