Part 2

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 battleship _Malaya_ means 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.

{18}

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.

{19}

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," in _Novels and Miscellaneous Works,_ London, 1855, vol. v. pp. 441, 442.

[7-1] Richard Hakluyt, _The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques_ and _Discoveries 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's _The 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, see _An 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 to _Encyclopedia Britannica_, Eleventh Edition, Cambridge, England, 1910. Also _Empire 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 the _reductio ad absurdum_ of 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 in _New English Dictionary_, Oxford, 1891--"Englander."

[19-3] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xii. p. 566.

{21}

II

THE PEOPLE

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. With _Ivanhoe_ and _King Lear_ they 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]