The first article that came under my notice is, strangely enough, the most definite in its purpose {212} and conclusion, and was published in April, 1897, by Professor Dicey, under the title of "A Common Citizenship for the English Races."[1]
Professor Dicey states that his "aim is to establish the possibility and advocate the policy of instituting a common citizenship for all Englishmen and Americans." He says:
"My proposal is summarily this: That England and the United States should, by concurrent and appropriate legislation, create such a common citizenship, or, to put the matter in a more concrete and therefore in a more intelligible form, that an act of the Imperial Parliament should make every citizen of the United States, during the continuance of peace between England and America, a British subject, and that simultaneously an act of Congress should make every British subject, during the continuance of such peace, a citizen of the United States. . . .
"Common citizenship, or isopolity, has no necessary connection whatever with national or political unity. My proposal is not designed to limit the complete national independence either of England or of the United States. It would be not only an absurdity, but almost an act of lunacy, to devise or defend a scheme for turning England and America into one state. It is as impossible, as, were it possible, it would be undesirable, that Washington should be ruled by a government in London, or that London should be ruled by a government in Washington.
". . . What my proposal does aim at is, in short, not political unity, but, in strictness, common citizenship. Were it carried into effect, the net result would be that every American citizen would, on landing at Liverpool, possess the same civil and political rights as would, say, an inhabitant of Victoria who landed at the same moment from the same boat; and that an Englishman who stepped for the first time on American soil would possess there all the civil and political rights which would necessarily belong to an American citizen who, having been born abroad, had for the first time entered the United States."
{213}
Mr. James Bryce, in an article favouring any proper means to establish an alliance between the two countries, says[2]:
"Meantime there are things which may be done at once to cement and perpetuate the good relations which happily prevail. One is the conclusion of a general arbitration treaty providing for the amicable settlement of all differences which may hereafter arise between the nations. Another is the agreement to render services to each other; such, for instance, as giving to a citizen of either nation the right to invoke the good offices of the diplomatic or consular representatives of the other in a place where his own government has no representative; or [following the proposition of Professor Dicey, heretofore referred to] such as the recognition of a common citizenship, securing to the citizens of each in the country of the other, certain rights not enjoyed by other foreigners."
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, England's Secretary for the Colonies,[3] states his views upon the subject as follows:
"So far as the United Kingdom is concerned, it may be taken as a fact that the British nation would welcome any approach to this conclusion, that there is hardly any length to which they would not go in response to American advances, and that they would not shrink even from an alliance contra mundum, if the need should ever arise, in defence of the ideals of the Anglo-Saxon race—of humanity, justice, freedom, and equality of opportunity.