Part 13

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.

It has survived so long that to-day the United States is the oldest republic in the world. It has endured the strain of both foreign and civil wars. It has permitted the assimilation of vast hordes of white people, who now cherish this government as their own. This government expresses the will of eighty-one millions of whites--a majority of the English-speaking people of the world.[180-2]

Of the six Britannic nations, Canada, Australia, and South Africa have travelled through friendship and alliance to common government. Canada, apparently divided by two languages, was the first thus to establish its nationhood. Australia was the second. More recently still, South Africa, in spite of a diversity of tongues, achieved the same result.[180-3]

{181}

There are those who maintain that the six Britannic nations have not yet arrived at the alliance stage. "Everything hangs on sentiment, influence, and management."[181-1] Some recommend that an alliance should be definitely entered into.[181-2] Yet while it is true that the five younger Britannic entities are "nations, with a life, a pride, a consciousness of their own, with separate, divergent, and in some cases indeed conflicting interests,"[181-3] it seems also true that a friendly alliance does exist among them and between them and the British Isles.

It is an alliance _de facto_ if not _de jure_, its terms being unwritten, unstated, and unknown. In the Colonial Conference of 1902, "To Sir Wilfrid Laurier's famous challenge, 'If you want our aid, call us to your councils,' the Colonial Secretary [Chamberlain] made an emphatic response. 'Gentlemen, we do want your aid. We do want your assistance in the administration of the vast Empire which is yours as well as ours. The weary Titan staggers under the too vast orb of his fate. We have borne the burden for many years. We think it time that our children should assist us to support it, and whenever you make the request to us, be very sure that we shall hasten gladly to call you to our councils.'"[181-4] In the South African {182} War, and more recently in their efforts in behalf of greater naval strength, the six nations behaved as allies affording inspiring examples of what they can and may again do. Certainly the political good feeling between the Britannic nations cannot be said to have progressed further than to the alliance stage, since "any political arrangement in which powers are withheld, or granted upon terms, or are subject to revision at the will of any member of the confederacy, is not a real union, but only an alliance."[182-1]

Between the United States and the British Isles are treaties that bind them into an extraordinarily close alliance--treaties which are the strongest written expressions of international goodwill.[182-2] On the even closer "understanding" between the two nations, so that they are found acting in concert in every part of the globe, it is unnecessary to dwell.

But between the United States and the younger Britannic nations, what is the relation? They are undoubtedly friendly, but where is the formal evidence of such friendliness? The five younger nations can hardly be considered partners to the alliance between the United States and the British Isles, as in making this alliance these five had no share. To form an alliance between the United States and the Britannic power, inclusive of the six Britannic nations, is now impossible, because such {183} a Britannic political entity able to ratify treaties is non-existent. Postulating an alliance among all the Britannic nations, the United States through its alliance with the British Isles may perhaps be considered as allied to the allies of its ally. As we are now organized, this is as far as we have been able to progress. It is just beyond the friendship stage.

The seven Pan-Angle nations are to-day bound together by friendship and, in some cases, alliance. They are united by sentiment only, whether it be unwritten or written. At this stage many of our groups have found themselves in the past. It has held for them two possibilities. Sentiment was the bond between Pan-Angles after the French War which ended in 1763. The bond failed to hold and separation followed. Sentiment in alliance form was tried in the Articles of Confederation in 1781. It failed; and on its ruins was built a common government. It is of no moment that sentiment in the first case was unwritten, and in the second case, written. Sentiment is not government. Need other cases of failure be mentioned? It is for us to determine whether, when our present relationships change, they give way to separation and weakness, or develop by convergence into the strength of a common government. The motto of our youngest nation points out the hope of our future, "Ex unitate vires."

[160-1] J.R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883, pp.174-175.

[161-1] Cf. _ante_, p. 16.

[162-1] Jones, _History of New York_, ii. pp. 259,268,500,509, quoted by G. F. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, note, p. 124.

[162-2] _Cf._ G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, pp. 127, 153.

[162-3] J. R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883, p. 48.

[162-4] Alfred Caldecott, _English Colonization and Empire_, London, 1891, pp. 131-133.

[163-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, Supplement, pp. 9, 10.

[164-1] G.R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p. 8.

[164-2] _Ibid._, p. 163.

[164-3] J.R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883, p. 22.

[164-4] For a general account of Ireland in this connection, see Price Collier, _England and the English_, London, 1911, pp. 230-262; and for a constitutional discussion, Cf. _Round Table_, London, December 1913, pp. 1-67.

[164-5] H.S. Perris, _Pax Britannica_, London, 1913, p. 139.

[165-1] As Home Rule, like other political terms, has been used to denote many theorems, its meaning in any statement depends somewhat on the particular instance.

[166-1] W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven, Connecticut, 1913, p. 137.

[166-2] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxiii. p. 178, Letter of Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 1862.

[167-1] _Cf._ W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven, Connecticut, 1913, p.151: "It is essential . . . in the life of our dual government that the power and functions of the State governments be maintained in all the fulness that they were intended to have by the framers of the Constitution."

[168-1] Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston, 1900, pp. 208-210.

[168-2] _United Empire_ is also the title of the magazine published monthly by the Royal Colonial Institute, London.

[168-3] C. W. Dilke, _Greater Britain_, London, 1868; J. R. Seeley, _The Expansion of England_, London, 1883.

[169-1] G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p. 25.

[169-2] According to H.C. Lodge--_One Hundred Years of Peace_, New York, 1913, p.108--September 3, 1863, was the crucial day.

[169-3] _Ibid._, pp. 118-119.

[171-1] Cf. _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvii. p. 651.

[171-2] _The Outlook_, New York, December 21, 1912, p. 843: "The first Governors' Conference was called by President Roosevelt in 1908. It met at the White House to consider the subject of Conservation. So immediately evident was the desirability of co-operation that Governor Willson, of Kentucky, sprang to his feet at the close of one of the sessions and said, 'Gentlemen, let me detain you a moment.' He went to the platform and there unfolded a plan for a Conference of the Governors, to be called by themselves. This was held at Washington in 1909. The third meeting of the Governors occurred at Frankfort, Kentucky, Governor Willson's own capital, in 1911, . . . The Governors' Conference is apparently becoming something of a fixture in our political life."

[172-1] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxv. pp. 480-481: Peace signed at Pretoria, May 31, 1902; self-government decreed, December 12, 1906; elections held in Transvaal, February 1907.

[172-2] _Cf._ Alfred Caldecott, _English Colonization and Empire_, London, 1891, p. 130: "Canada was a conquered possession, not a settlement, it is true; but the attempt to treat it as a conquest nearly ended in another catastrophe."

[172-3] W.T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes_, London, 1902, p. 113.

[173-1] G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p. 253.

[173-2] _Ibid._, p. 254.

[174-1] _Round Table_, London, December 1913, p. 112. As to Chatham's plans for both Irish and American co-operation in Pan-Angle government, see A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, pp. 28-32.

[175-1] Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne, _Memorials: Part II., Personal and Political_, London, 1898, vol. i. p. 202.

[175-2] _Round Table_, London, December 1913, pp. 106-122. This article should amuse all Pan-Angles by its fraternal frankness in describing the diplomacy of both British and American actors in these dramas. It also throws light on the usages of so-called "international arbitration."

[176-1] Mr. Chamberlain at Toronto, December 30, 1897, quoted by M. Victor Bérard, _British Imperialism and Commercial Supremacy_, trans. H. W. Foskett, London, 1906, p. 200.

[176-2] _Round Table_, London, September 1912, p. 722.

[176-3] At a farewell dinner given to Mr. Bryce in New York City, former American Ambassador to the British Isles Joseph H. Choate turned to the guest of honour and stated: "England has sent, will send, many Ambassadors, but there's only one Bryce in the whole list. The American people from the Atlantic to the Pacific love and honour you, sir." See _The Outlook_, New York, May 10, 1913, p. 80.

[177-1] Mr. Bryce before the Pilgrims Club in London, November 6, 1913, quoted by _Springfield_ (Massachusetts) _Weekly Republican_, November 7, 1913.

[178-1] Francis Parkman, _Montcalm and Wolfe_, London, 1884, vol. i. p.3.

[178-2] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 157.

[178-3] _Ibid._, p. 95. This is as of 1758.

[178-4] Cf. _ibid._, p. 125. The monument is in the Belfry Tower, the north aisle of nave. _Cf._ Baedeker's _London_, 1911, p. 217. It was Lord Howe's brother, Sir William Howe, who on March 17, 1776, evacuated Boston to abandon the city to these same American Englishmen--now rebels.

[178-5] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 157.

[179-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 232.

[179-2] _Ibid._, p. 202.

[179-3] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1897, rev. ed., Boston, 1911, p. 453: "Despite very considerable outward differences of social condition and many apparent divergencies of interest as between colony and colony, they one and all _wanted the same revolution_. . . . They did not so much _make_ a common cause as _have_ a common cause from the first."

[180-1] See John Fiske, _The Critical Period of American History_, 1788-1789, Boston, 1898.

[180-2] Cf. _ante_, p. 81, note 1.

[180-3] P. A. Molteno's _A Federal South Africa_, London, 1896, written more than three years before the Boer War, compares the then condition of South Africa with the condition of the American thirteen nations in the days covered by Fiske's _The Critical Period of American History_, contains a prophecy now fulfilled, and is a valuable comment on many of the needs of the Pan-Angle world of to-day.

[181-1] F. S. Oliver, _Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union_, London, 1906, p. 447.

[181-2] Richard Jebb, _The Britannic Question_, London, 1913.

[181-3] Lord Milner, December 14, 1906, at Conservative Club, Manchester, England, in Lord Milner, _The Nation and the Empire_, London, 1913, p. 142.

[181-4] Richard Jebb, _Studies in Colonial Nationalism_, London, 1905, p.138.

[182-1] F. S. Oliver, _Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union_, London, 1906, p. 452.

[182-2] For a history of the General Arbitration Treaty of 1911 between America and the British Isles and its full text as proposed and as ratified, see H.S. Perris, _Pax Britannica_, London, 1913, pp. 285-298, 801-807.

{184}

VIII

A COMMON GOVERNMENT

WHO, first of all, dreamed of closer union between England (or Great Britain) and its colonies we do not know. As early as 1652 there came from Barbados a suggestion. It was in no way followed up. Colonel Thomas Modyford "desires, although it may seem immodest, that two representatives should be chosen by the island to sit and vote in the English parliament."[184-1]

In the following century Benjamin Franklin devised a scheme of union and laboured to commend it to the makers of Pan-Angle history. In June 1754 he attended a conference of eleven of the colonies met at Albany to consider defence against the Indians. That matter disposed of, Franklin submitted a plan for the union of the {185} colonies.[185-1] Later in the year he wrote as follows to Shirley, Royal Governor of Massachusetts: "Since the conversation your Excellency was pleased to honor me with, on the subject of _uniting the colonies_ more intimately with Great Britain, by allowing them _representatives_ in Parliament, I have something further considered that matter, and am of opinion that such a union would be very acceptable to the colonies, provided they had a reasonable number of representatives allowed them; . . .

"I should hope, too, that by such a union the people of Great Britain and the people of the colonies would learn to consider themselves as not belonging to different communities with different interests, but to one community with one interest; which I imagine would contribute to strengthen the whole, and greatly lessen the danger of future separations. . . .

"Now, I look on the colonies as so many countries gained to Great Britain, and more advantageous to it than if they had been gained out of the seas around its coasts and joined to its lands; . . . and since they are all included in the British empire, which has only extended itself by their means, and the strength and wealth of the parts are the strength and wealth of the whole, what imports it to the general state whether a merchant, a smith, or a hatter grows rich in Old or New England? . . . And if there be any difference, those who have most contributed to enlarge Britain's empire and commerce, increase her strength, her wealth, and {186} the numbers of her people, at the risk of their own lives and private fortunes in new and strange countries, methinks ought rather to expect some preference."[186-1]