Chapter X: Conclusion 227 (6)

The growth of the idea of complementary functions in co-ordinate (not superior and inferior) governments has been instanced by many developments in America. There was a time, many now alive can remember the days, when "centralization" and "states rights" were championed by opposing political parties. To-day it is recognized that the successful government of America rests on the proper use of both of these extremes. This is true, whether it refers to national versus state authorities, or state versus municipal authorities. With a strong central authority in America goes to-day greater recognition of the need of a concurrent local control. This local spirit has gone so far in {171} some of the American states that state legislatures have authorized cities to draw up their own charters.[171-1] Moreover, American political experience within the states has adhered in many cases to the theorem that, on such questions as local taxation and the sale of liquor, the smaller subdivisions of the state should decide their own usages.

Once it was assumed that the officers of the federal government in America should enlarge as much as possible their spheres of activity, even if they appeared to encroach upon state functions. It is now realized that the states should be encouraged to attend to their own affairs, and thus avoid increasing the burdens of the federal government. President Roosevelt in 1908 unofficially called together the American state governors to discuss "conservation," and since then yearly these state executives have met to discuss questions of state policy. These conferences not only tend to produce greater uniformity of Pan-Angle political action, but tend also to make that action the product of large experience. This Conference of the Governors[171-2] and other non-official bodies, the {172} American Bar Association among them, are now encouraged by public opinion to remedy, in whatever ways seem wise, undesirable discrepancies in the laws of the various states, not by seeking greater authority in the central government, but by agitating in the states themselves.

The extent of our progress is shown strikingly by the change in Pan-Angle sentiment between the wars of 1861-1865 and 1899-1902. In South Africa the race was spared any repetition of the humiliating political corruption of the "carpet-bag" era of the American "reconstruction."[172-1] We have learned that whether it is in the United States or South Africa, in Canada[172-2] or in Ireland, white men must be made into self-governing Pan-Angles. Rhodes recognized this when he said even while the war was in progress, ". . . you cannot govern South Africa by trampling on the Dutch."[172-3] The impulses toward local autonomy and those toward a common group unity must be correlated. To favour either at the expense of the other is to court disaster.

The spreading of the Pan-Angles is still going on, though in the multiplicity of affairs arising in {173} the places we already occupy we often overlook the pioneer work of the present. The causes for separating have been understood and extensively removed. The converging tendency is now in the ascendant. The political evolution that accompanies this convergence, though it seems slow to the impatient reformer, may, if understood and assisted by those who shape popular opinion, give Pan-Angles in the fulness of time an entity government.

This converging tendency of the race, Americans have seen with satisfaction in their own land. As far as they have been conversant with it, they have approved of it in Britannic lands. A Canadian wrote in 1892: "Among thinking native Americans I have found, as a rule, a genuine sympathy with the advocates of unity for British people, a sympathy perfectly natural in a nation which has suffered and sacrificed so much as the people of the United States have for a similar object."[173-1] Since our knowledge of each other has grown in twenty odd years this might to-day be expressed even more strongly. Moreover, "English people," the same writer testifies, "now understand and respect the motives which actuated the resolute and successful struggle of the people of the United States against disruption."[173-2]

There is to-day a great drawing together of the whole Pan-Angle race. The desires of Franklin and his supporters are nearing realization. The {174} errors which led to our separations have passed into the race experience. We can all profit by them. We have all profited by them. The tendency to convergence was never wholly in operative. It survived the wrench of the American Revolution. Lord Shelburne, in conducting the British side of the peace negotiations of 1783, held to the ideal of restoring Pan-Angle unity, and thereafter worked for it in Parliament, hoping "that this would have been the beginning of the great Anglo-Saxon federation of which Chatham had dreamed; . . ."[174-1]

The power of this impulse drawing us together is evidenced in the peace that has endured among us. The century closing December 24, 1914, stands as witness. Within our whole civilization, this period has chronicled only two wars of white men on Pan-Angle soil--1861-1865 and 1899-1902. These were devastating and deeply to be regretted. They remind us that peace is not to be taken for granted. Between the two entirely independent sections of the Pan-Angles, and these are at the same time the most populous, no conflict of interests has been allowed to develop into war. Differences of opinion have arisen, as was inevitable. They have been settled through the exercise of forbearance, self-control, and concession, without recourse to arms.

Needless to try to apportion the credit between the two nations. Canadians have sometimes felt {175} that their interests were being sacrificed on the altar of British-American friendship. "Those who study the history of the questions which have arisen from time to time since the Peace of 1813 between this country [British Isles] and the United States, can hardly fail to be struck by a difference in the habitual attitude of the two Powers. Great Britain has always been pliable as to such questions; having indeed every motive, both of sentiment and of interest, for being and remaining on the best terms possible with the United States."[175-1] Another Britannic critic not only denies that the British negotiators have been pliable, but claims that as envoys on Canada-America disputes they have been of a cleverness at least equal to that of the Americans.[175-2]

Whoever may have appreciated it more keenly, the fact is now evident that the community of interests which embraces all Pan-Angles is an affair of transcending importance. Our great men have understood this and given it repeated expression. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said at Toronto in 1897: "But I should think our patriotism was dwarfed and stunted indeed if it did not embrace the Greater Britain beyond the seas; if it did not include the young and vigorous nations carrying throughout the globe the knowledge of the English tongue and the English love of liberty and law; and, gentlemen, with {176} those feelings I refuse to think or speak of the United States of America as a foreign nation. We are all of the same race and blood. I refuse to make any distinction between the interests of Englishmen in England, in Canada, and in the United States."[176-1] An Australian in 1912 wrote: "British interests in India or the East Indies would not be attacked; if there were a large Australian fleet. The problems of defence in Canada, South Africa, Egypt, and United States [_sic_] would be distinctly easier with such a fleet."[176-2] Note that he makes no distinction which sets the United States aside from other Pan-Angles. Lord Bryce--and no American is more highly esteemed in the United States than he,--[176-3] speaking in London in 1913, said: "Returning hither from America, I have two things to say to the British Pilgrims gathered here as friends of the American people. One is that you must not take too seriously the lurid pictures of American life drawn in some organs of the European press. In Washington I used to be struck by the dark view which the press news from England conveyed of British events and conditions, a view which I knew to be misleading. Here the same thing happens. Cable messages and {177} the vivid pens of correspondents inevitably heighten the colour. My other message is to assure you that the friendship you entertain for the people of the United States is reciprocated by them far more universally and heartily than ever before. There is a friendship of governments and a friendship of nations. The former may shift with the shifting of material interests or be affected by the relations of each power with other powers. But the latter rests on solid and permanent foundations. With our two peoples it is based on a community of speech, of literature, of institutions, of beliefs, of traditions from the past, of ideals for the future. In all these things the British and American peoples are closer than any two other peoples can be. Nature and history have meant them to be friends."[177-1]

Against this spirit of amity not a dissenting voice is raised. We rejoice in the peace of the years behind us and in the good feeling of the era at hand. We seek some means to perpetuate them.

Political good feeling in its different degrees takes, according to Pan-Angle experience, three forms. These so merge, that it is difficult at times to define in terms of them. They may be known for purpose of study as: friendship, alliance, and common government.

The relations between England and its American colonies started in the friendship stage. Later developed a co-operation that can be fairly called {178} alliance. In the French-Pan-Angle struggle for North America, the colonies contributed men and money, as did Great Britain. Together they won much of the territory now the United States and all that is now Canada. Together they did more than this. "The Seven Years War made England what she is. It crippled the commerce of her rival, ruined France in two continents, and blighted her as a colonial power. It gave England the control of the seas and the mastery of North America and India, made her the first of commercial nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that has planted new Englands in every part of the globe."[178-1] Pownall, during his term as governor, saw Massachusetts raise at the requisition of the Crown not the 2300 men asked for, but 7000.[178-2] "Owners of property were paying in taxes two-thirds of their incomes."[178-3] Yet their legislature in 1759 voted funds for a monument to Lord Howe, who had fallen the previous summer at Ticonderoga. It stands in Westminster Abbey[178-4] to-day, a memorial as well of the men whose "affection to the mother country . . . zeal for the service," Pownall knew from experience.[178-5] Speaking in the British House of Commons, of which he was a member 1768-1780, {179} he describes their attitude during the Seven Years War. In case of a French invasion of England at that time, he testifies: "Those New England men would have been ready to come over at their own expense to the assistance of their native country--as they always hold England to be."[179-1]

After the pressure of war was removed, the alliance, instead of being carried to the stage of common government, was neglected. Friendship and co-operation became things of the past, and separation took place. Many then thought that this might have been avoided. Governor Pownall, for one, knew that there was "a certain good temper and right spirit which, if observed on both sides, might bring these matters of dispute to such a settlement as political truth and liberty are best established upon."[179-2] The "certain good temper" did not then prevail. To-day, in 1914, we see the advantage of acting in the "right spirit" which may bring all our affairs to such a settlement as is conducive to the welfare of all Pan-Angles.

The United States in itself shows, perhaps most completely, the detailed history of the political growth of groups of Pan-Angles through the three stages. The defensive alliance of the American colonies fell apart after the successful outcome of the French War. The friendship between the thirteen nations survived, and common necessity with a common cause[179-3] produced the alliance {180} which made successful the American Revolution. Thereafter came the critical period of American history.[180-1] The first attempt at common government in 1781 took the form of a strengthened alliance and failed, because alliance was at this juncture inadequate. Undaunted, the Americans framed another constitution for the potential nation. Here at last was a common government.

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]

The Albany scheme failed of adoption. The race was not ripe for Franklin's foresight.[186-2] Years afterwards he wrote: "The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan make me suspect that it was really the true medium; and I am still of opinion that it would have been happy for both sides if it had been adopted. The Colonies so united would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves. There would then have been no need of troops from England. Of course, the consequent pretext for taxing America and the bloody contest it occasioned would have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom but forced by the occasion."[186-3]

{187}

But Franklin's idea did not die. Thomas Pownall, just out from England, a man later appointed Downing Street's Governor of Massachusetts, attended the Albany Colonial Conference. He heard the deliberations and talked with the commissioners and, as he himself wrote later, then "first conceived the idea and saw the necessity of a general British union."[187-1] The acquaintance he made there with Franklin grew into closest friendship. Both men wrote in favour of colonial representation;[187-2] and present in many ways an adequate epitome of the best thought of each branch of their civilization.

Pownall recognized that the race would outgrow its London capital. In 1766 he wrote that representatives of the colonies, if apportioned according to population, would in time outnumber those of Great Britain, and "the centre of power instead of remaining fixed as it is now in Great Britain will, as the magnitude and interest of the colonies increases, be drawn out from these islands by the same laws of nature, analogous in all cases, by which the centre of gravity, now near the face of the sun, would, by an increase of the quantity of {188} matter in the planets, be drawn out beyond that surface."[188-1] This result, he thought, might be guarded against by stipulating that the colonial members were always to come to England.[188-2] A present-day Englander makes no such stipulation. Lord Milner in Johannesburg in 1904 stated: "I am an Imperialist out-and-out--and by an Imperialist I don't mean that which is commonly supposed to be indicated by the word. It is not the domination of Great Britain over the other parts of the Empire that is in my mind when I call myself an Imperialist out-and-out. I am an Englishman, but I am an Imperialist more than an Englishman, and I am prepared to see the Federal Council of the Empire sitting in Ottawa, in Sydney, in South Africa--sitting anywhere within the Empire--if in the great future we can only all hold together."[188-3]

About another objection Pownall consulted Franklin. "He had been told that if the colonists were to pay the same taxes as people in England and, like them, to send members to Parliament, equal powers of trade must be conceded. When that was done the Atlantic commerce might afterwards centre in New York or Boston, and power be transferred there from England. 'Which consequence, however it may suit a citizen of the world, must be folly and madness to a Briton.' {189} So exclaimed the Englishman who wrote to his colonial friend for a solution of the difficulty. The American-born Franklin took quite another view. He saw no difficulty at all; he replied that the fallacy lay in supposing that gain to a British Colony was loss to Britain. He maintained that the whole Empire gained if any part of it developed a particular trade, and he predicted that without a complete union, by which full and equal rights were given, the existing system of government could not long be retained. Assuming Pownall's premises to be correct he inquired, 'which is best--to have a total separation or a change of the seat of government?'"[189-1]

Soon it was too late to answer Franklin's question. A separation took place, and two supreme governments divided the responsibility of safe-guarding the English-speaking whites. As time passed, each portion of the Pan-Angles founded colonies. The American colonies were held to the American "home" states by means of a federal government The British Isles colonies have, in some instances, federated among themselves, so that to-day the Britannic power consists of six nations. And now all seven nations are appreciating how superficial are these political separations. To-day we have seven central seats of government, and after a century of peace, a new question arises--whether we should re-form our relations.

One hundred and twenty-three years after Franklin and Pownall so discussed the migration of the seat of government of the English-speaking {190} peoples, another Colonial and another Englander corresponded on the same subject. Cecil John Rhodes wrote to William T. Stead: "What an awful thought it is that if we had not lost America, or if even now we could arrange with the present members of the United States Assembly and our House of Commons, the peace of the world is secured for all eternity! We could hold your federal parliament five years at Washington and five at London."[190-1] Stead has recorded a conversation of the same year in which Rhodes "expressed his readiness to adopt the course from which he had at first recoiled--viz. that of securing the unity of the English-speaking race by consenting to the absorption of the British Empire in the American Union if it could not be secured in any other way. In his first dream he clung passionately to the idea of British ascendancy--this was in 1877--in the English-speaking union of which he then thought John Bull was to be the predominant partner. But in 1891, abandoning in no whit his devotion to his own country, he expressed his deliberate conviction that English-speaking reunion was so great an end in itself as to justify even the sacrifice of the monarchical features and isolated existence of the British Empire . . . and from that moment the ideal of English-speaking reunion assumed its natural and final place as the centre of his political aspirations."[190-2]

As Franklin and Pownall foresaw, the race {191} centre moved out of England. Emerson in 1856 realized that in America "is the seat and centre of the British race,"[191-1] a statement strengthened since by the growth of Canada. North America is now the centre of Pan-Angle civilization, and Canada is the key of the Britannic world.

The impulse to closer union has never been long quiescent. It has been active again and again in the minds of men. A century after Franklin presented his Albany plan for the race, Joseph Howe "looked upon the attainment of complete independence of local government in the colonies as but a stepping-stone to the assertion of still higher national rights, to the acceptance of still higher responsibilities; to some form of substantial union among British people, based on considerations of equal citizenship and the defence of common interests. As far back as 1854 he delivered in the Nova Scotia Legislature an address, since published . . . under the name of the 'Organization of the Empire' which ... embodies most of what has since been said by the advocates of national unity. Twelve years later, when on a visit to England, he published in pamphlet form an essay bearing the same title, and giving his more fully matured views upon the question. If the genesis and enunciation of the Imperial Federation idea in its modern form is to be credited to anyone, it must be assigned to Joseph Howe for this early and comprehensive statement of the main issues involved. The study of the utterances of this great colonist, this champion of colonial rights, may be {192} commended to those shallow critics who profess to believe that the proposal for national unity is an outcome of Imperial selfishness, and that its operation would tend to cramp colonial development."[192-1]

Franklin and Pownall wrote in the days when the race knew only the English method of integration--"absorptive, incorporative."[192-2] The various American colonies had been experimenting in effecting combinations on another principle, but their successes had hardly yet proved that the same principle in extended form could be applied to the desired union between all the governments of the English-speaking race. In 1787 was drawn up the Constitution of the United States of America, and the federal method of integration was put definitely to trial. In 1801 Ireland was united to Great Britain, but not by federation. Irish members were admitted to the Parliament of the United Kingdom much after the manner in which Franklin had suggested that American members should be admitted. In the century or more since has been proved the value of federation which means neither confederation[192-3] of groups bound by treaties whereby no adequate affirmative policy or common government would be possible, nor absorption whereby local self-government would be obscured or blotted out, but an expedient combining both local freedom and central strength. The South African Colonial writing to the {193} Englander who shared his vision takes for granted a "federal parliament."

The forms Pan-Angle governments take are now two. One is the simple unitary form in which the central government is supreme within the sanction of the will of the voters expressed at the polls, any other government being a subordinate, i.e. a municipal government. The other form is not unitary, and the central government is supreme in the exercise of certain authority only, other governments being in all else supreme and autonomous partners.

The states of America, for example, and those of Australia are unitary in government. Of the seven Pan-Angle nations, three, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and the British Isles, are unitary, the central government in each being supreme over every part and in every respect.

Of the non-unitary governments there are four: the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. By an accident of time and place America was the first to grapple with the problems which called for such a government. Thirteen states independent of each other and of any outside power found themselves in danger from inter-state contentions and external aggressions. Building for their very lives, they devised a form of government which has been called federal. In it each state kept most of its sovereign powers, but delegated certain others of them to a central legislature. The federation of the six Australian states followed much the same lines. In Canada and South Africa the states (in both cases called provinces) have retained less of their local autonomy. {194} The central government in the former may with some legislative difficulty and delay assume any power it desires, while in the latter unrestricted power has been lodged from the beginning in the central government. In neither of these two nations, however, has the central government assumed the exercise of its full possible power. In both it co-exists at present with the provincial governments after a federal manner, obtaining thus the advantages of federation.

For comparatively restricted areas within which problems and opinions are tolerably uniform, a unitary government satisfies Pan-Angles. States and provinces are such areas. Newfoundland and New Zealand are at present such areas. In Newfoundland the population is very sparse and the local variations are slight. It will be many years probably before there arises a need and a desire for devolution[194-1] of power from the present legislature. In New Zealand conditions are not so uniform, and although a unitary government seems satisfactory to-day, the time may readily be imagined when a denser population and conflicting interests of different sections of the country may make feasible local legislatures, each, for its allotted tasks, supreme. The only attempt so far towards that end originated outside of New Zealand and was abandoned before being put into practice.[194-2]

{195}

The unitary method of government has never proved itself able successfully to integrate areas divided from each other by distance or interests. It failed to hold together the first Britannic growth; it has been unable to bring into unity the second Britannic growth; it is acknowledged to be inadequate for such a task. Its weaknesses are evident in the British Isles. The British Isles, although no larger than many states and provinces, is composed of several sections divided by history, prejudice, and interest. These are now united into one government, in which one central legislature is supreme. Questions which may affect some one section alone are decided by the representatives of the country at large who are possibly both uninterested and uninformed. Scottish education, Welsh Church, and Irish land bills are dependent on the will of the whole British Isles,[195-1] and a multitude of strictly local affairs must wait for the attention of Parliament, since no other body has power to deal with them.

The results of this condition are two: first, a congestion of business in Parliament incompatible {196} with efficient and intelligent action; and, second, the violation of the principles of self-government producing discord between the several sections of the country. No one questions that Parliament to-day labours under the terrible disadvantage of having more to do than it possibly can accomplish. Needed and uncontended legislation is delayed for years, and such bills as are passed receive often inadequate consideration.[196-1] Though unity has up to now been preserved, the lack of local self-government has produced discords always more or less active. At times these have threatened to break out into violent disruption.

To overcome these weaknesses--to relieve the burdens of Parliament and to check the tendency to separation--many thinkers and patriots in the British Isles are convinced that some devolution of power to local legislatures cannot be long delayed.[196-2] There is talk of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh home rule. The present control of British Isles affairs by the Irish members of the House of Commons is teaching the desirability of home rule for England. Some would re-form the country into still smaller governmental sections. In the operation of any such plan a central Parliament is to be in control of certain nation-wide interests, among which would be foreign affairs and the army and navy.

{197}

"Now, what the Federalist is anxious to set up in the United Kingdom is an arrangement upon the Canadian model, in which there will be a supreme and sovereign Parliament, as at present, for the United Kingdom, and under it a certain number of subordinate parliaments, to attend to local and domestic legislation and administration. . . . No Federalist has ever suggested that Ireland should be turned into a Canada, although this accusation has occasionally been made against him by persons who have read his proposals carelessly, and have, accordingly, misunderstood their nature."[197-1]

A British Cabinet Minister, speaking in Dundee on October 9, 1913, stated: "I am perhaps at an unfortunate age for making a prophecy. I am ceasing to belong to the young men who dream dreams, and I have not yet joined the ranks of the old men who see visions; still I will run the risk of prophecy and tell you that the day will most certainly come--many of you will live to see it--when a federal system will be established in these Islands which will give Wales and Scotland the control within proper limits of their own Welsh and Scottish affairs, which will free the Imperial Parliament from the great congestion of business by which it is now pressed, and which will redound and conduce to the contentment and well-being of all our people."[197-2]

When some such re-formation of government is adopted by the British Isles, it will only be utilizing {198} the fruits of the race's experience in other parts of our civilization.

If the first steps to this "home rule all round" aimed at in the present (1914) legislation regarding Ireland prove defective, in that it concedes what is _not_ needed, and denies what _is_ needed, it is because the British Isles has not taken to heart the inwardness of the federal idea. Lord Dunraven pointed this out when he said that "there were only two principles on which Home Rule could be founded--the Federal system or absolute independence. The present Bill applied to neither and he could recognize in it no basis of settlement."[198-1] In the following resolution, he indicated how the question of "home rule all round" should be attacked: ". . .'The best means of arriving at a settlement by consent of the Irish political question and of the constitutional difficulties connected with it, and of securing the harmonious working of any system of self-government in Ireland and the permanency of friendly relations between the two islands is to be found in a convention, or conference, representative of all nationalities and parties in the United Kingdom, and . . . it is the duty of his Majesty's Government to take the initiative in inviting such convention or conference.'"[198-2] But the fact that a majority of the British Parliament has gone so far as to advocate any form of Home Rule is evidence of a sincere effort to meet the conditions of Pan-Angle individualism where longest suppressed, {199} and thus hasten the harmonious self-government of the British Isles.

Franklin, when he wrote to Shirley[199-1] in 1754 about the need of colonial representation to the British Parliament in London, may or may not have realized how far the gaining of that desire would fail to satisfy. His plan would not have produced a federal government for Pan-Angles. It would have created a larger unitary government than then existed. There would not have been co-ordinated spheres of governmental control. The local affairs of Pennsylvania and England, of Scotland and New York, would together have been in the hands of a Parliament composed of representatives elected from the nation at large. This would have been unacceptable to the people of England, Pennsylvania, Scotland, and New York. They would have asked for something more. A lesson can be drawn from this by those who to-day urge Australian or Canadian representation in the present British Isles Parliament. Such representation would subject Britishers to outside control of their local problems, just as to-day Englanders are affected by Irish representatives voting on local problems of England. Conversely, it would mean a continued interference in Australian and Canadian local problems by the local representatives of the British Isles--the very thing the peoples of the five new nations have already taken appropriate steps to obviate. The Irish question demonstrates that representation alone is not enough for Pan-Angles. The Irish are more than {200} fairly represented in Parliament. Still they clamour for more. That something more desired by all Pan-Angles is local autonomy.

To representation in a central legislature must be added the local control of local questions so dear to Pan-Angle individualism. This is what federalism accomplishes.[200-1] "Our Federal system is the only form of popular government that would be possible in a country like ours, with an enormous territory and 100,000,000 population. . . . But for this safety valve by which people of one State can have such State government as they choose, we would never be able to keep the union of all the people so harmonious as we now have."[200-2] "The growth of the United States has widened political horizons. It has proved that immense territorial extent is not incompatible, under modern conditions, with that representative system of popular government which had its birth and development in England, and its most notable adaptation in America. It has shown that the spread of a nation over vast areas, including widely-separated states with diverse interests, need not prevent it from becoming strongly bound together in a political organism which combines {201} the advantages of national greatness and unity of purpose with jealously guarded freedom of local self-government."[201-1]

The indefinite governmental relationships between the Britannic nations are to-day satisfactory to no one. Britannic closer union forms the thesis of much writing and speech making and the subject of much earnest study.[201-2] That the demands of the situation can be met adequately only by federation seems evident to many. This thought is thus expressed by Milner: "If, as I fervently hope, the present loose association of the self-governing states of the Empire grows in time into a regular partnership, it can only be, as it seems to me, by the development of a new organ of government representative of them all, and dealing exclusively with matters of common interest. It would only heighten confusion to bring representatives of the Dominions into the House of Commons. And if, as I think everyone would admit, it is impracticable to bring them into the House of Commons, they would certainly say, 'Thank you for nothing' if we were to offer them a few seats in the House of Lords."[201-3]

Mr. Winston Churchill continued in his speech at Dundee: "I tell you further that that system when erected and established will in itself be only the forerunner and nucleus of a general scheme of Imperial federation which will gather together in {202} one indissoluble circle the British people here and beyond the seas."[202-1] Rhodes wrote over twenty years ago: "I will frankly add that my interest in the Irish question has been heightened by the fact that in it I see the possibility of the commencement of changes which will eventually mould and weld together all parts of the British Empire.

"The English are a conservative people, and like to move slowly, and, as it were, experimentally. At present there can be no doubt that the time of Parliament is overcrowded with the discussion of trivial and local affairs. Imperial matters have to stand their chance of a hearing alongside of railway and tram bills. Evidently it must be a function of modern legislation to delegate an enormous number of questions which now occupy the time of Parliament, . . .

"But side by side with the tendency of decentralisation for local affairs, there is growing up a feeling for the necessity of greater union in Imperial matters. . . ."[202-2]

Not alone the federation of the Britannic nations, but the federation of the whole Pan-Angle people, {203} is the end to be sought. Behind Rhodes' "greater union in Imperial matters" lay his vision of a common government over all English-speaking people.[203-1] If we are to preserve our civilization and its benefits to our individual citizens, we must avoid frictions among ourselves and take a united stand before the world. Only a common government will ensure this.

The four federations have been the results of similar practical impulses. The separate states and provinces realized their mutual need of co-operation to avoid conflict among themselves and to withstand enemies, actual or possible, from without. In some cases one, in some cases the other, of these arguments was most pressing at the time of federation. American states were vexed by many custom houses and were endangered by European civilization and the savagery of the American Indians. Canada was split by two languages and feared the waxing strength of America. The Australian and South African internal contentions arising over customs and railway rivalries were overshadowed by ominous additions to German holdings in the South Pacific and in East and West Africa respectively. Similar reasons are adduced to-day in favour of the federation of the six Britannic nations.

The union of the "United Collonyes of New England" in 1643 appears inadequate and impotent in the light of our subsequent "closer unions." But it was the first voluntary common government instituted by separate governments of English-speaking {204} people.[204-1] The reasons for this co-operation are stated in terms worthy the attention and study of present-day Pan-Angles: ". . . and whereas in our settling (by a wise providence of God) we are further dispersed upon the sea-coasts and rivers then was at first intended, so thatt wee cannott (according to our desire) with conveniencie communicate in one government and jurisdiction; and whereas we live in compassed with people of severall nations and strange languages which hereafter may prove injurious to us and our posterity: and forasmuch as the natives have formerly committed sundry insolencies and outrages upon severall plantations of the English and have of late combined against us and seeing, by reason of the sad distractions in England, which they have heard of, and by which they know we are hindered both from thatt humble way of seeking advice, and reaping those comfortable frutes of protection, {205} which att other times we might well expect, we therefore doe conceive itt our bounden dutye without delay to enter into a present consociation amongst ourselves for mutuall help and strength in all our future concernments, thatt . . . we bee and continue one, according to the tennure and true meaning of the ensueing articles."[205-1]

Federation was evolved by our race. Though its use was only dimly understood in the years that followed 1643, its powers are now known to us. It has proved the means of welding many of our once jealous and discordant units into concentrated and self-protective powers. Applied to all our nations, federation would produce that co-operation necessary for the survival of our civilization, yielding both the freedom we demand and the strength that is indispensable--that Pan-Angle paradox of flexity and firmness.

[184-1] A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 14; cf. pp. 14-16: "In all likelihood it was but a chance suggestion without any serious purpose behind it, for, in his subsequent career as Governor, though he erected an assembly which was not ratified by the King, he did not, as far as can be ascertained, once recur to this idea.

"It is doubtful when, or by whom, in the eighteenth century, the first suggestion of American representatives in the British Parliament was made. Though Franklin was perhaps not the first, yet his proposal is the earliest extant."

[185-1] John Bigelow, _The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin_, New York, 1887, vol. ii. pp. 343-375, gives the plan in full.

[186-1] John Bigelow, _The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin_, New York, 1887; "Letter of Franklin to Shirley, December 22, 1754," vol. ii. p. 384.

[186-2] _Ency. Brit_., vol. i. p. 832; "In him [Franklin] was the focus of the federating impulses of the time. . . . He was, first of men, broadly interested in all the colonies, and in his mind the future began to be comprehended in its true perspective and scale; and for these reasons to him properly belongs the title of 'the first American.'"

[186-3] H.E. Egerton, _Federations and Unions within the British Empire_, Oxford, 1911, p. 16.

[187-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, pp. 50-51.

[187-2] _Ibid.,_ p. 204, and _ante_, p. 186, note 1. One of Franklin's cleverest hoaxes was, "An Edict of the King of Prussia," 1773, proclaiming that the island of Britain was a colony of Prussia, having been settled by Angles and Saxons, having been protected by Prussia, having been defended by Prussia against France in the war just passed, and never having been definitely freed from Prussia's rule; and that, therefore, Great Britain should now submit to certain taxes laid by Prussia--the taxes being identical with those laid upon American colonies by Great Britain. Cf. _Ency. Brit._, vol. xi. p. 26.