By these means a real and permanent consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon peoples will be accomplished, without the destruction or impairment in the least degree of the political autonomy of the individual governments of the United States or of the British Empire, and without departing from any maxims of the international policy of either.
I do not advocate, but deprecate, in common with those who have given the subject serious study, a defensive and offensive alliance, as this term is now used.
The events revealed in the history of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and the conclusions logically deducible {xi} therefrom, amply justify the unification of the whole English-speaking family as a wise and necessary step in their destiny and progress.
I hereafter endeavour to show that such an alliance is natural; that, growing out of our mutual interests, it is necessary; and that a true analysis of our duty to ourselves and our relations to the outside world impresses it upon us as a sacred mission.
Upon these foundations I have built the structure of an enduring Anglo-Saxon league. If I am wrong in the premises, the international mansion which I have endeavoured to construct must fall to the ground. If, on the other hand, I am correct, then the two powerful motives which underlie all individual and national action are present, for sentiment and selfishness alike demand its consummation.
The general subject of an alliance of some kind has already been largely discussed in both countries, but it has taken no tangible shape beyond the formation of a few societies whose end has been to develop closer relations between the two peoples, and whose success has been, alas! most indifferent.
The opening of the twentieth century reveals two great conditions which must deeply and powerfully affect the acts of individuals and nations, and compress events, which ordinarily would take ages to mature, into a few years. First, there are no more worlds to discover, and territorial absorption by purchase or force of arms is the sole means by which the most powerful nations can add to their {xii} possessions. Diplomatic eyes now look inward and not outward. Second, all nations have become near neighbours to each other; and the achievements of science, conquering space and time, enable the newspapers, among other things, to present each morning a full picture of the doings of the whole world on the preceding day. The important acts of a nation's life are laid bare daily, and the profoundest secret of state can no longer be withheld from the lynx-eyed newsgatherer. The motives, ambitions, and actions, of the nations are thus constantly revealed to all who wish to read them in the journals, for the price of a few pennies. Marvellous! Most marvellous!
"High placed are we, the times are dangerous,
Grave things and fateful hang upon the least
In nice conjunctures."[1]
Obeying the course of general progress, political and diplomatic events in this age must "therefore, take root and ripen quickly. Each nation is armed to the teeth, or is ready so to arm, and the expenditure of money for soldiers and sailors and the equipment for war will not stop on this side of national solvency and extermination. A complete justification of Anglo-Saxon aggregation grows out of the fact that it can arrest and destroy this dreadful modern tendency. But even if angels advocated it, a step of such profound importance would necessarily be preceded by much private and public argument, in which the outside world would largely {xiii} participate, and from whom, perhaps, much opposition might arise; yet it may mature, forsooth, over night.
The suggestion of an Anglo-Saxon union will be looked upon with disfavour by foreign nations, and the narrow view will be urged, that by means of it, disproportioned power will be lodged in our hands to their detriment. There is no weight, however, in the objection: power lodged in the proper hands hurts no one. Mistakes there may be here and there, but the course of this great race cannot be retarded. It must go on. It must move forward in the mission to spread Christianity and civilisation everywhere, and to open up the undeveloped part of the world to the expanding demands of commerce, and of all that commerce, liberally conducted, implies.