"To us who believe in the superior power of the two English-speaking nations in comparison with other races taken together, the question may be put whether such a condition is morally and intellectually beneficial to us. I am not concerned, however, here to attempt any answer to such a question, which is wholly a matter of opinion. This article relates not at all to opinion, but only to facts.
"I will conclude the Anglo-American case with a metaphor. Britain is like a Grand Old Dame, well preserved and still maintaining the vigour and activity of her youth. Her eye is not dimmed by age; her strong hand is not weakened by the lapse of centuries. She has been the mother of many children, and has sometimes had troubles in her family. But in recent times she has been on good terms with all her offspring, all over the world. She would not suffer them to be beaten in the race of nations. If any of them were to fall into danger, she would bring out her stores, collected through many generations, in their support. If, on the other hand, she were to be hard pressed by any hostile combination, then her stalwart sons would gather round her."
Hon. David Mills, Canadian Minister of Justice,[9] under the title of "Which Shall Dominate—Saxon or Slav?", makes a very intelligent analysis of the question of the relative position of the Anglo-Saxon race against the continental powers of Europe. He says:
"In the highest sense the United States has not, and cannot have, an independent existence. Her fortune is inseparably associated with the race to which she belongs, in which her future is wrapt up, and in which she lives and moves and has her being. The unity between the United States and the {219} British Empire is a matter both of race and growth. They touch each other, and as peoples unite and great states rise, they must be, for all great international purposes, one people. They are parts of the same race, whose extension is being pushed more and more rapidly forward by the sleepless energy of individual men, under the protection of the United Kingdom, into barbarous regions where they are acquiring new standing-room for the formation of new states. In science, in literature, in government, in religion, in industrial pursuits, and in the conception of human rights and of human duties, they are one people, having common aims, a common origin, and from their necessary relations a common destiny. . . .
"The interests of the world call for Anglo-Saxon alliance. Let not the British Empire and the United States revive, after the lapse of centuries, the old contest of Judah and Ephraim; but, remembering that their interests are one, as the race is one, let them stand together, to maintain the ascendency which they will hold as long as Providence fits them to lead; which will be as long as, in their dealings with those beneath them, they are actuated by principles of justice and truth."
Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, in an article entitled "An
Anglo-American Alliance,"[10] exclaims:
"Much has been said for an Anglo-American alliance. Perhaps 'alliance' is not the right word. We are already of the same blood, the same feeling, the same religion, and the same language. Now all that is necessary is to know each other better. England and America could form the most powerful alliance possible, because they are the two most patriotic countries in the world; because they alone, of all the nations, have an army and navy without conscription. . . . With the United States and England combined, we could well afford to smile at our enemies."
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An article which deserves to be carefully read is that by Prof.
George Burton Adams[11] entitled "A Century of Anglo-Saxon
Expansion."
"The simple truth is," says this writer, "that, great as have been the demands upon the race to create the history of the past in which we rejoice, the demands of the future will be even greater. It is the result of this history, the proper and fitting result, that we are now brought to the supreme test of racial ability. The nineteenth century, truly considered, is but an age of preliminary and introductory expansion. If the genius of the race fail not; if calm submission to the law, unwavering devotion to the task in hand, steady refusal to follow glittering allurements or hasty choices, may still be our leading traits; if we may trust our sons to equal our fathers' deeds of self-devotion without the hope of fame, then is the achievement of the nineteenth century but a preparing of the way for the vaster expansion of the twentieth,—for the founding, not of the empire of the race, but of the united commonwealth of all nations.