Chapter X: Conclusion 227 (7)

[188-1] Thomas Pownall, _The Administration of the Colonies_, 3rd ed. (1766), quoted by C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 187.

[188-2] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, p. 187.

[188-3] Lord Milner, May 28, 1904, at Navy League Meeting, Johannesburg, in Lord Milner, _The Nation and the Empire_, London, 1913, p. 67.

[189-1] C.A.W. Pownall, _Thomas Pownall_, London, 1908, pp. 199-200.

[190-1] W. T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes_, London, 1902, p. 78: "Letter of Cecil J. Rhodes dated August 19 and September 8, 1891, to William T, Stead."

[190-2] _Ibid._, p, 102.

[191-1] R. W. Emerson, _English Traits_, 1856, Boston reprint, 1894, p.261.

[192-1] G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, pp. 71-72.

[192-2] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1898, Boston, rev. ed., 1911, p. 454.

[192-3] _Ibid._, p. 565.

[194-1] When a federation is built from component parts, certain powers are _delegated_ by the parts to the central government. When a federation is made by dividing a unitary government, certain powers are _devoluted_ by the existing government to the parts.

[194-2] P. A. Silburn, _Governance of Empire_, London, 1910, p. 210.

[195-1] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1898, Boston, rev. ed., 1911, p. 473, points out that of the twelve greatest subjects of legislation occupying the attention of the British Parliament during the last century--Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, the abolition of slavery, the amendment of the poor laws, the reform of municipal corporations, the repeal of the corn laws, the admission of the Jews to Parliament, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the alteration of the Irish land laws, the establishment of national education, the introduction of the ballot, and the reform of the criminal law--only two (corn laws and slavery) would in America have been subjects for central (federal) government regulation. Prior to the American Civil War only one of these two, the former, would have been a subject for central (federal) government regulation.

[196-1] For a detailed account of the difficulties of the British Isles Parliament in this connection, cf. _An Analysis of the System of Government throughout the British Empire_, London, 1912, Introduction, pp. xii-li.

[196-2] Cf. "Pacificus," _Federalism and Home Rule_, London, 1910; also Arthur Ponsonby, "The Future Government of the United Kingdom," in _Contemporary Review_, London, November 1913.

[197-1] "Pacificus," _Federalism and Home Rule_, London, 1910, pp. xlviii-xlix.

[197-2] _The Times_, London, October 10, 1913.

[198-1] _The Times_, London, March 3, 1913. Account of meeting of delegates of All for Ireland League, Cork, March 1, 1913.

[198-2] _Ibid._

[199-1] John Bigelow, _The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin_, New York, 1887, vol. ii. pp. 376-387.

[200-1] As federation is used in these pages for combinations of self-governing groups, no allusion is here made to any plans for uniting dependencies for administrative purposes such as that contained in C. S. Salmon's _The Caribbean Confederation_, London, 1888, or in the established grouping of dependent areas now styled "Federated Malay States "--concerning which latter, see Frank Swettenham, _British Malaya_, London, 1907. Such bear no comparison with self-governing federations.

[200-2] W.H. Taft, _Popular Government_, New Haven, Connecticut, 1913, p. 145.

[201-1] G. R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p. 33.

[201-2] As an example, cf. _Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union_, by F. S. Oliver, London, 1906.

[201-3] Lord Milner, April 28, 1910, at Compatriots' Club, London, in Lord Milner, _The Nation and the Empire_, London, 1913, p.454.

[202-1] _The Times_, London, October 10, 1913. Cf. _ante_, p. 197.

[202-2] Letter of Rhodes to Parnell, June 19, 1888, quoted in W. T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes_, London, 1902, pp. 122-124. On p. 120, Stead states as to Rhodes' contribution to the Irish party: "The contract between the African and the Irishman was strictly limited to the conversion of Home Rule from a disruptive to a federative measure. It had no relation directly or indirectly to any of Mr Rhodes' Irish-African schemes. The whole story is told at length by 'Vindex' in an appendix to _The Political Life and Speeches of Mr. Cecil Rhodes_, from which I quote these letters."

[203-1] W. T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes_, London, 1902, p. 102, pp. 51-77 and other pages.

[204-1] P. A. Silburn, _The Governance of Empire_, London, 1910, p. 191: "Half a century before the union of England and Scotland was brought about, a union of British colonies had been successfully achieved. It was in May 1643 that a convention of colonial representatives confederated the British colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven as the 'United Colonies of New England.' The negotiations leading up to this confederation had taken six years, but when once the union was effected its advantages were felt immediately. At this time England, engaged elsewhere, had neither the time nor the inclination to interfere with her American colonies. The newly-formed confederation enjoyed almost complete liberty. A year after the union we find this confederation negotiating treaties with the French and projecting defences against the Dutch. But this, the first union of colonies in the Empire, was not a legislative one, it was simply an agreement of 'offence and defence, advice and assistance.'"

[205-1] H. E. Egerton, _Federations and Unions within the British Empire_, Oxford, 1911, p. 103, "Articles of Confoederation betwixt the Plantations under the Government of the Massacusetts, the Plantations under the Government of New Plymouth, the Plantations under the Government of Conecticutt, and the Government of Newhaven, with the Plantations in combination with Itt."

{206}

IX

WORKING FOR FEDERATION

To maintain the individual liberty of its citizens from alien interference is the task before each of the seven Pan-Angle nations. Whether a closer union of the six units of the Britannic power is sufficient insurance of the safety of each, and whether the United States standing alone has sufficient margin of safety, are at least debatable questions. Some foreign power arguing in the negative might win. But that a closer union of the entire self-governing English-speaking race would be strong enough to protect each of its component nations is here assumed to be not a debatable question. It is here postulated that upwards of one hundred and forty-one million English-speaking whites are strong enough to hold their own against the forces of the world for considerable time to come. The problem resolves itself into a struggle for the supremacy, and finally for the survival, of the Pan-Angle civilization.

We can federate. All our past history teaches this.

The Britannic nations and America all contain an individualistic form of patriotism that lends itself to Pan-Angle federation. Just as {207} American Pan-Angle gives allegiance to the ideals behind the dull earth he calls his home, be it city, town, township or parish; so he gives a larger allegiance to his state; and a still more comprehensive loyalty to his nation of forty-eight states. Just as the Britannic Pan-Angle holds in affection his throbbing factory city, or sheep-trimmed shire, or township lush with ripening wheat; so he holds in greater affection "That blessed plot, that earth, that realm, that England," or "that" New South Wales, or "that" Saskatchewan; and in still greater affection the British Isles, or Australia, or Canada. Among the Britannic Pan-Angles is now growing a further patriotism for the ideal of a Britannic whole of which each of the six nations would be a part. Throughout the Pan-Angle world let us add to these patriotisms for our dreamed-of Britannic whole and for our United States a still larger patriotism for our English-speaking civilization, our Pan-Angle lands.

Patriotism cannot attach itself to treaties or alliances, "the very nature of an arbitration board is negative."[207-1] Nor can it profess "loyalty" to a nation not its own. A Massachusetts man cannot be loyal to New York State, nor a Victorian to New South Wales, nor an Englander to Scotland. Nor can an American be loyal to New Zealand, an Australian to South Africa, nor a Britisher to Canada. But a Massachusetts man can be loyal to America, a Victorian to Australia, and an Englander to the British Isles. And all three of these men, when their nations are part of the {208} federation of the English-speaking people, can be loyal Pan-Angles.

Expressive of multiple patriotisms fly a multiplicity of flags. Into battle alongside of the Stars and Stripes go the American state flags. They know no jealousy of the national banner. Its thirteen stripes stand for the thirteen independent nations that originally federated; its stars, now increased to forty-eight, stand each for a state now bound into the Union. It is not forgotten how the men of the flag of the Maple Leaf and those of the Four-starred and Five-starred Southern Crosses fought in South Africa alongside the men under the Union Jack. There is as yet no Britannic flag. The Union Jack is the British flag. It is not, as often called, "the English flag"; it never has been. It was formed of crosses, the emblems of three nations now united into one nation, the British Isles. As the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes were made, so we can make a Pan-Angle flag which every English-speaking man will instinctively salute. Such a flag will subtract no glory from the cherished symbols of our local prides. Loyalty to our common race in no way forbids loyalty to our present local groups. All these our flags, our loyalties, our groups, are to protect and to be protected by all Pan-Angles.

Federation can be accomplished by either of two procedures: the combination of the seven Pan-Angle nations directly, as seven independent units; or the combination of the United States and a Britannic Federation, after this latter has been formed. Arguments for Britannic federation are arguments for Pan-Angle federation. The man {209} who has persuaded himself of the soundness of the former will be in a position to appreciate the soundness of the latter. These pages are intended to set forth the necessity and inevitableness of Pan-Angle federation, by whichever method attained, and as such are in thorough accord with all efforts towards Britannic federation. Either course is possible, if delay does not furnish opportunities for our separate destruction in the meantime by some rival civilization.

All over the Britannic world are men working for "closer union." "The wisest and most farseeing Imperialists have steadily maintained that the ultimate end of the whole movement is Federation."[209-1] They are working now with only the six Britannic nations as their acknowledged field. Organized and unorganized, they are seeking patiently and intelligently for the safety of their respective nations, which they know is bound up in the safety of the whole people. They know the political ideals of their race. They know that though the unrepresented may be spasmodically willing to waive their rights in times of great common danger, they none the less believe that "taxation without representation is tyranny." These men know also that money gifts by any Pan-Angle nation to a navy controlled by another Pan-Angle nation is contrary to the political instincts of all involved. They know that "mutual funk," though it may hold their nations together for a time, is no safeguard against the future. They are working to create a political entity, able by the determination of its representatives to swing the whole of its strength {210} at once against any foe. These men have undertaken to persuade the Britannic Pan-Angle nations to put aside local prejudices and to support the whole of which each is a part.

Plans for Britannic "closer union" range from a scheme for Britannic representation in the British Parliament at London, such as Franklin advocated before the race had evolved federalism, through schemes for an alliance of the six nations with a capital outside the British Isles[210-1] to a plan for definite federation, including a new Britannic Parliament to be constituted of the representatives from each of the six nations.[210-2]

Being now in the stage of vague alliance, it may be that the Britannic Pan-Angles must accomplish definitely the alliance stage as a step on the road to federation. If so, those who favour a Britannic alliance[210-3] have the wisdom of the race on their side. But the same wisdom prophesies that the negative advantages of alliance will have to be changed later to the affirmative strength of a common government. Federation has been "the great ideal of the nineteenth century,"[210-4] and apparently continues to {211} gain advocates. Britannic "present 'imperial architects' are building more carefully and laboriously than did their predecessors."[211-1]

The greater part of the work for federation, either Britannic or Pan-Angle, has already been done for us. The explorer, the trader, the missionary, and the soldier have won for us the eminence from which we are now able to survey the world and form our plans. The statesmen who in our many legislative halls have laboured to fit forms of government to the needs of the governed have tested for us the material for our building and have discarded what was ill-suited to our purposes. The millions of individuals who have held true to their Pan-Angle ideals have bequeathed them to us for inspiration. It is for us to continue the work begun three centuries and more ago.

What remains to be done is to follow the path of our previous successes and avoid a repetition of our failures. These failures each nation can find often in the events of its own history without turning to the histories of other Pan-Angles; and these successes each nation can find in the histories of others, quite as well as in that of its own. Such seeking will make for a becoming modesty towards each other, and by it we shall lose nothing. We are not dealing in this matter with our inferiors or our betters. We are dealing with each other, to whom we cannot give, and with whom we cannot curry, favour. Conciliation among us is not less {212} necessary than compromise; without conciliation in the past we should not have framed successful constitutions. To-day, as in the folk-moots of our political ancestors,--" No man dictates to the assembly: he may persuade, but cannot command."[212-1] There is no room for hypocrisy among free whites who talk English. In our dealings with each other neither force nor intrigue should have place. Our history shows that if we adhere to these ideals we can succeed in co-operation.

We must avoid interfering with each other. Interference even when actuated by the best of motives leads, as Pan-Angles have repeatedly experienced, to disastrous frictions and ruptures. This knowledge we have repeatedly bought at great cost. So well has the lesson been learned, that even in cases where interference is constitutional and where circumstances seem to justify it, a Pan-Angle government first tries persuasion. The United States Federal Government may consider a Californian alien land act contrary to a United States treaty; the British Parliament may consider the Ulster agitation serious enough to justify coercion: both know that conciliation and persuasion are the safe and permanent means to employ to right whatever the wrong may be. Interference augments stubbornness; persuasion hastens co-operation.

More than this, interference leads to failure. In 1849, the British Privy Council drafted a bill for the federation of the Australian colonies. It was not made by those for whose use it was intended. {213} Its clauses did "not show any close grip of the subject, or sign that their authors realized how they could be worked in practice."[213-1] Nothing came of the plan. The only purpose it served was to illustrate the futility of one Pan-Angle nation acting for another. In 1819-1820 began the Britannic immigrant occupation of South Africa.[213-2] In 1875 the British Isles government suggested that the various colonies in South Africa should be combined.[213-3] Viewed in the knowledge of to-day it almost appears such a step would have been advisable. The best intentions must be imputed to the outside government. Had this action been advocated by the South Africans, some kind of joint government might have resulted. Since it was not, the plan was merely a source of increased hard feeling between colonists of Dutch and British descent, and is to be included with other instances of British interference which were the major causes of the long and bitter Great Boer War. Each of these nations, Australia and South Africa, when it was ready and in its own way, produced for itself a plan of common government. A Britisher in the highest administrative office in South Africa wrote in 1907: "It is a modern axiom of British policy that any attempt to manage the domestic affairs of a white population by a continuous exercise of the direct authority of the Imperial Parliament, in which the people concerned are not represented, is, save under very special circumstances, a certain {214} path to failure."[214-1] American experience goes still further. There, every community is represented in every government having legislative jurisdiction over it. Yet it has been proved advisable to leave certain spheres of legislation solely to the wishes of the community affected.

For many years the British Isles has been the Pan-Angle nation which, from its position, was most tempted to interfere with the affairs of the others. The lessons its failures set forth may be taken to heart by the younger nations as they grow in strength. Neither America, nor Canada, nor Australia, nor South Africa, nor New Zealand, nor Newfoundland can at any time in their future afford to make the mistake of trying to compel one of the six other nations. An advantage of numbers, or position, or wealth, may lie at some time with anyone of them. On that one, then, will rest the obligation of keeping its hands off the others. Particularly does this apply to that one of us whose very existence is due to its revolt against interference, but hardly less to those others of us whose more peaceful origins were made possible by an already won revolution.

Federation should be attained through familiar governmental forms, not through innovations. Burke knew his civilization's aversion to _change_ which "alters the substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them," {215} whose results "cannot certainly be known beforehand." He knew his civilization's belief in _reform_--" a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the very worst, is but where it was."[215-1] In this _re-form_, the essence of our civilization--our language, our individualism, our standards of living based on land plenty--should be left unchanged. The new growth, federation, will "remedy the grievance complained of"--the danger of the extinction of our civilization.

Pending federation, the Pan-Angle nations must on no account weaken each other, and so the entire race, with war. Much faith is put, in these days, in arbitration, but on false presumptions. No so-called "international arbitration court" in existence has any authority whatsoever.[215-2] Such a body is of value only when it is giving advice to contestants who greatly desire to come to a friendly agreement, and who, for the sake of peace, are predisposed to take the "court's" advice. Even then its value is not great, for such contestants might very probably, without its aid, have come to a peaceable understanding. The Pan-Angle nations do most heartily desire peace among themselves. They are then the best calculated to find arbitration useful. The question thus arises whether some tribunal can be established on Pan-Angle soil, for the settlement of Pan-Angle inter-national {216} disputes. It would be a makeshift and powerless, until by the establishment of a common government it ceased to be inter-national, and became a potent source of justice under the Pan-Angle federation.[216-1] It is, however, a straw we well might grasp until we reach a firmer footing. The greatest advantage of an organized body for Pan-Angle arbitration is that from it might develop something more practicable, as from the Maryland-Virginia Conference at Alexandria in 1785[216-2] and as from the South African Railway Rates Conference in 1908[216-3] developed respectively the federations of the United States and South Africa.

Other stepping-stones ready for our use are to be found in Britannic-American conferences on matters of mutual interest. In February 1908 a conference on the conservation of the natural resources of North America was held at Washington, at which three Pan-Angle nations were represented by delegates.[216-4] Some of the subjects suitable for such discussion are forests, river flowage for power or irrigation purposes, and migrating birds. If a conference were held for mutual information on sea-fisheries, all our nations might well send delegates. A similar opportunity is afforded in the urgent need of making uniform and sensible the spelling of our language. At a meeting in connection with the Conference of Education {217} Associations in London, January 5, 1914, it was stated "that an international conference should be summoned at which all parts of the British Empire and the United States should be represented."[217-1]

However great the good resulting from such conferences in relation to their stated objects, it may some day appear insignificant compared to the assistance rendered towards producing federation.

Quicker and cheaper communication is working steadily towards better Pan-Angle understanding. International postal arrangements date only from 1874, but two-cent (penny in the British Isles, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa) postage is now so general from points within to other points within the Pan-Angle world, that by far the majority of inter-Pan-Angle letters have the advantage of that rate. Land and water telegraphs by wire and wireless are steadily linking up points further and further apart, and rates are becoming cheaper. The telephone is now a common household necessity over much of the Pan-Angle world, and bids fair in time to conquer distances as effectively as do telegraph lines. Every such agency, producing a very real "closer union," is a factor in promoting Pan-Angle federation.

The cheapness and speed of travel are increasing at rates to which no bounds can reasonably be set. Steamers, on which we so largely depend as inter-Pan-Angle carriers, yearly serve more routes, are more numerous and faster. We shift easily from one country to another as business or inclination takes us. Ambassador Page has proposed that newspaper men from the British Isles and America serve an {218} apprenticeship on journalistic staffs in each other's countries.[218-1] The imperial "grand tour" of the British Isles parliamentary party, recently completed,[218-2] gave British politicians, better than would any number of voluminous reports, an opportunity to appreciate the needs and aspirations of the five other Britannic nations. The celebration of the Centenary of Peace will this year furnish innumerable similar opportunities. Every personal acquaintance of one Pan-Angle with the country of other Pan-Angles makes for the understanding that must precede federation.

The formation of a Pan-Angle federation must depend in the end on our voters who are the source of first and final appeal in our political problems. It will be achieved when they are self-persuaded that it is desirable, that is, when they have been educated to see its necessity. Only such means of education may properly be used as will open the path to self-persuasion. Among these, two readily suggest themselves. The first is the educative work that can be done by associations of those aroused to interest in the matter. The second is the educative influence of travel and sojourn of Pan-Angles in each other's countries.

Voluntary associations established by private initiative are among us recognized means of furthering reform. Through public discussion, whether printed or spoken, they have fostered many of the great movements for which we all {219} are now grateful. "Discussion is the greatest of all reformers. It rationalizes everything it touches. It robs principles of all false sanctity and throws them back upon their reasonableness. If they have no reasonableness, it ruthlessly crushes them out of existence and sets up its own conclusions in their stead."[219-1] These associations and their beliefs, if not supplying a public need, wither and die. But if the times call for them, movements are started which pass through a regular growth from insignificance and obscurity to contempt and ridicule, followed by public opposition and finally by success. Such have been the histories of the freedom of conscience, the abolition of slavery, and a host of similar triumphs. Men of like ideals associate themselves together, take a name that proclaims their tenets, and spend their time and energy and money to set forth the truth as they see it. Everyone is given a chance to learn, but no one is compelled to believe. No purpose can be so lofty, no course of action so advantageous, that it does not need expounding. The countless peace societies and the millions spent in that cause bear witness. Meeting places must be hired, literature must be printed and posted, advertising in its many forms must not be neglected. All this means sacrifice of some sort from somebody--obviously from those who have the success of the work at heart. In every Pan-Angle nation can be found plenty of organizations which are doing on a small scale in reference to some local interest just what some non-local, inter-national organization could {220} well do on a large scale for such an ideal as Pan-Angle federation. The organization should be on an inter-Pan-Angle basis, if for no other reason than to make for uniformity in its efforts and to prevent it from slipping into local points of view. As the demand for Pan-Angle federation grows, practical politics will not remain insensible to it. Then will be the time to marshal to its aid forces such as have finally established by law the present nationhood of each of us.

In this labour of education we must work openly in the presence of each other and under the scrutiny of the nations of the world. If we were Germans or Japanese, an international _coup_ might be accomplished by diplomatic work unknown to the voters, and the affair put through with secrecy and despatch. It is vain to wish for such a style of procedure, and we have no desire, in this case, to change from the more laborious and tedious method of popular education and individual action. So to change would demonstrate that we had lost the very essence of our civilization--the initial as well as the final control of our own destinies. We must work openly, because it is one of our inestimable privileges to make up our own minds.

Not only can individual initiative accomplish this work, it can do it better than can any other method. Ideas of state interference under the guise of public ownership are making headway all over the Pan-Angle world. One industry after another, for one reason or another, is removed from the field of private endeavour, and is run for good or ill by governments. It has never been thus with our political undertakings. The spectacle of {221} a Pan-Angle government calling on all good citizens to aid in celebrating a Twenty-first of November, or a Twenty-fourth of May, or a Fourth of July is so unheard of as to be laughable,[221-1] and it is to be hoped that in the matter of Pan-Angle federation the people will be the compelling power forcing their respective governments to action.

Of the promotion of travel and sojourn of Pan-Angles in each other's countries we have one notable example. Cecil John Rhodes, wishing to instil in the minds of Britannic Pan-Angles "the advantage to the Colonies as well as to the United Kingdom of the retention of the unity of the Empire,"[221-2] and desiring "to encourage and foster an appreciation of the advantages which I implicitly believe will result from the union of the English-speaking peoples throughout the world and to encourage in the students from the United States of North America . . . an attachment to the country from which they have sprung but without I hope withdrawing them or their sympathies from the land of their adoption or birth,"[221-3] directed the trustees of his estate to establish scholarships at the University of Oxford. Each year picked men from English-speaking lands travel to England, enrol themselves in this Pan-Angle university, and there measure themselves against representatives of all their race. At the end of three years they return to their respective countries. The book {222} knowledge they have acquired could have been furnished by any one of many universities. But Rhodes' sagacity has given them infinitely more. They have lived and studied and travelled in what is truly the Mother Country of us all. They have become conscious of their fellow Pan-Angles and have made their fellow Pan-Angles conscious of them. Their understanding and sympathy is freed for all time from narrow prejudices.

The work so generously begun should be extended. Not only in the British Isles but in North America, in South Africa, and in Australasia young Pan-Angles should be brought in touch with the other portions of our race, and should see at first hand what problems require solving by us throughout the world. Not a Pan-Angle university from McGill to Dunedin, from Ann Arbor to Stellenbosch, but would welcome some exchange of students similar to the growing system of exchange professors. Not one, if it could offer scholarships to the youth of the other nations, but would have enlarged the scope of its usefulness and have grown from local to inter-national importance. Patriotic Pan-Angles by endowing such scholarships could hasten the accomplishment of the Pan-Angle federation, and thus share in ensuring the safety of every Pan-Angle nation, and in securing our civilization for the benefit of ourselves and for the peace of the world.

Meanwhile no vision of future Pan-Angle safety should blind anyone of us to his country's present needs. In the interim before federation, we must so strengthen each of our respective nations as best to weather the storm of adversity should it {223} burst upon us before co-operation is secured. Simultaneously with the recession to home waters of the British Isles fleet, the younger Britannic nations are taking appropriate steps to ensure their separate interests. This is an evidence that each recognizes danger. Each assumes that these defensive efforts are not induced by the fear of other Pan-Angles. This is no place to discuss the compulsory military service already established in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, nor to suggest that it would not be needed were Pan-Angle federation already an accomplished fact. Nor is this a suitable occasion to discuss the policies, strengths, or weaknesses of separate Britannic or Pan-Angle navies. America must be equal to the emergency of defending all Pan-Angles who would seek its protection if the British Isles fleet were to suffer a serious setback. Wisely, America and Canada waste no Pan-Angle funds in fortifications on their long boundary or in war vessels on the Great Lakes. But they should both maintain on salt water navies, which they can use for the joint interests of Pan-Angles. Canada and America may soon need to co-operate with Australasia in solving the problems of the Pacific.[223-1] Pan-Angle nations may severally make alliances with foreign powers for the purpose of protecting us all. One of them has already done so.[223-2] But peoples who are strong enough make no foreign alliances.

As we work towards federation we must not be {224} discouraged at our slow rate of visible progress. For "slow thought is the ballast of a self-governing state."[224-1] The growth of the federal idea may be none the less vigorous because its fruitage appears long delayed. These pages abound with examples of the fact that we are slow to move politically. Were it otherwise, the autonomous nations of the Britannic world would long since have had representation in some common parliament, would have established a single final court of appeal, and a common citizenship; an overburdened British Parliament would no longer legislate on English municipal drainage, affairs of the dependencies, and questions of inter-Pan-Angle concern. As it is, the five younger Britannic nations, realizing tardily that the British navy no longer adequately protects them, have not as yet bestirred themselves to effect more cohesive and coherent political relations with each other, and between themselves and the British Isles. America, astride the Western Hemisphere, in her own estimation secure against invasion, is taken up with internal development, and but seldom, even since the last Pan-Angle war with Spain, looks out at the increasing pressure beyond her borders.

We move slowly. Pan-Angle federation is still a dream. But no one can foresee how rapidly external pressure may turn dreams into practical politics. The federation of the Pan-Angles may be forced upon us--ready or not. Or we may find some day that it is too late to federate.

Our method of combining, the distribution of powers between the existing governments and the {225} new government, it is not here necessary or appropriate to discuss, other than to acknowledge that our history confesses that federation is the present ideal of government of this civilization. In other instances of suggested closer union, "The advocates of national consolidation have been constantly subjected, as everyone familiar with current discussion knows, to two diametrically opposite forms of criticism. They are vigorously reproached . . . for not stating in detail the method by which their purposes are to be accomplished; they are ridiculed . . . as people who aim at binding together by means of a 'cut and dried plan' an Empire which has hitherto depended upon slow processes of growth for its constitutional development."[225-1] Enough that in our previous separate histories we have had constitutional conventions to draw up both national and state constitutions. Many men who have taken part in such conventions are now living. What we have acquired a habit of doing on a large scale, we can do again on a larger scale. Such representatives can construct, for submission to our voters, a framework of federal Pan-Angle government.

With the voters of the seven Pan-Angle nations rest the decisions of when and how our co-operation is to be accomplished. That it is to be accomplished many now earnestly believe. And of it many can now say, as did Washington in the American Constitutional Convention: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair." Before that future constitutional convention can have been accomplished, men will have {226} gathered together the wisdom of the race, and will have drawn up a constitution better than any now in use. Voters from the ends of the earth will discuss what our governmental framework should be, and, although our statesmen will act the major parts, we may agree with Burke: "I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business."[226-1]

What is desirable in this federation to preserve ourselves from the menace of other civilizations? How shall we balance our powers to ensure freedom to the individual and freedom to local groups to follow their individual yearnings with safety to them and to us all? How shall we bind ourselves for that all-time, the indefinite future, so that we shall be gladly bound, and yet be freemen still? "If, . . . in the famous words of Lincoln, we as a body in our minds and hearts 'highly resolve' to work for the general recognition: by society of the binding character of international duties and rights as they arise within the Anglo-Saxon group, we shall not resolve in vain. A mere common desire may seem an intangible instrument, and yet, intangible as it is, it may be enough to form the beginning of what in the end can make the whole difference."[226-2]

[207-1] A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 86.

[209-1] A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 125.

[210-1] Richard Jebb, _Colonial Nationalism_, London, 1905, p. 336: "The imperial city shall lose her pride of place. In another seagirt isle, by the margin of the Pacific. . . . sleeps a fair city." According to Mrs. Henshaw, F.R.G.S., in _United Empire_, London, January 1914, p. 80, Vancouver Island was named by Sir Francis Drake, 1579, New Albion.

[210-2] A _résumé_ of projects for Britannic federation is given in A. L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, pp. 152-195; the necessity of, and possible transitional stages on the way towards, federation are discussed, _ibid._, pp. 196-225.

[210-3] Richard Jebb, _Studies in Colonial Nationalism_, London, 1905; and _The Britannic Question_, London, 1913.

[210-4] A.L. Burt, _Imperial Architects_, Oxford, 1913, p. 147.

[211-1] _Ibid_., Introduction by H. E. Egerton, p. vi.

[212-1] Arthur Murphy, _The Works of Cornelius Tacitus_, London, 1793, vol. iv. p. 17.

[213-1] H. E. Egerton, _Federations and Union within the British Empire_, Oxford, 1911, p. 183.

[213-2] W. B. Worsfold, _The Union of South Africa_, London, 1912, p. 104.

[213-3] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxv. p. 475.

[214-1] _A Review of the Present Mutual Relations of the British South African Colonies, to which is appended a Memorandum on South African Railway Unification_, "Printed by Authority" [Johannesburg, 1907], p. 5.

[215-1] Quoted in Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston, 1900, p. 149.

[215-2] Cf. _ante_, p. 121.

[216-1] The growth of inter-cantonal arbitration in Switzerland, leading to present federal court, is alluded to in Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1898, rev. ed., Boston, 1911, p. 328.

[216-2] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxvii. p. 685.

[216-3] _Ibid._, vol. xxv. p. 482.

[216-4] _Britannica Year Book_, London, 1913, p. 664.

[217-1] _The Times_ Weekly Edition, London, January 9, 1914.

[218-1] _The Times_ Weekly Edition, London, December 19, 1913. Account of Speech of American Ambassador at dinner of the Institute of Journalists, London, December 13, 1913.

[218-2] _United Empire_, London, January 1914, p. 13.

[219-1] Woodrow Wilson, _The State_, 1898, Boston, rev. ed., 191, p. 139.

[221-1] The French Government Proclamations posted in Paris (in 1909) concerning the 14th of July called on all good citizens to help the government celebrate the day.

[221-2] W.T. Stead, _The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes_, London, 1902, p. 28.

[221-3] _Ibid_., pp. 24-29.

[223-1] _Cf_. R.M. Johnston in the _New York Times_, November 16, 1913, p. 5; and _Round Table_, London, June 1913, pp. 572-583.

[223-2] British-Japanese treaty and French understanding.

[224-1] Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston, 1900, p. 98.

[225-1] G.R. Parkin, _Imperial Federation_, London, 1892, p. 296.

[226-1] Quoted in Woodrow Wilson, _Mere Literature_, Boston, 1900, p. 152.

[226-2] Rt. Hon. Richard Burdon Haldane, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, before the American Bar Association, Montreal, September 1, 1913, _Report of Thirty-Sixth Meeting of the Association_, Baltimore, 1913, p. 416.

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