"Leaving the question of a common country, the bond of union becomes closer the further we proceed with the other essential influences which make for unity, when once we drop the misleading and wholly illusory ethnological basis of nationality, and take into account the process of real history. We then must acknowledge that the people of Great Britain and of the United States are of one nationality."
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"The Basis of an Anglo-American Understanding," by the Rev.
Lyman Abbott,[15] concludes as follows:
"Thus far I have suggested only 'a good understanding,' because this is immediately practicable, yet I have in my imagination an ideal toward which such a good understanding might tend, but which would far transcend anything suggested by that somewhat vague phrase. Let us suppose, then, that Great Britain and the United States were to enter into an alliance involving these three elements: first, absolute reciprocity of trade; second, a tribunal to which should be referred for settlement, as a matter of course, all questions arising between the two nations, as now all questions arising between the various states of this Union are referred to the Supreme Court of the United States; third, a mutual pledge that an assault on one should be regarded as an assault on both, so that as towards other nations these two would be united as the various states of this Union stand united towards all other states. Such an alliance would include not only our own country and the British Isles, but all the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain—Canada, Australasia, and in time such provinces in Asia and Africa as are under British domination and administration. It would unite in the furtherance of a Christian civilisation all the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and all the peoples acting under the guidance and controlling influence of Anglo-Saxon leaders, it would gradually draw into itself all other peoples of like minds, though of foreign race, such as, in the far east, the people of Japan. It would create a new confederation based on principles and ideas not on tradition, and bounded by the possibilities of human development not by geographical lines. It would give a new significance to the motto E Pluribus Unum, and would create a new United States of the World of which the United States of America would be a component part."
Mr. Julian Ralph ends an article,[16] in which he {224} closely examines the causes of the present prejudice existing between the two countries, with this sentence:
"As a last word upon the subject of the mooted alliance, my own belief is that it is not as practicable or as advisable as the good understanding that seems to have already been brought about without too suspicious a show of anxiety on either side, without elaborate discussion, and without formal agreement, I agree with the wisest American to whom I have spoken on the subject, and who said a year ago, when there was no such roseate outlook as this of to-day, 'It may be delayed, and we may even quarrel with England before it is brought about, but, nevertheless, the certain destiny of the two peoples is to stand together for the maintenance of order, justice, and humanity, and for the extension of a higher form of civilisation than any other nations stand for."
Mr. James K. Hosmer, in an article entitled "The American Evolution: Dependence, Independence, Interdependence,"[17] after presenting a number of contemporaneous English authorities,"1 to show that the American Revolution was inevitable, and in the true interests of the English people themselves, and after quoting a letter which John Bright wrote in 1887 to the Committee for the Celebration of the Centennial of the American Constitution, wherein he states—" As you advance in the second century of your national life, may we not ask that our two nations may become one people?" closes as follows:
"The townships make up the county, the counties the state, the states the United States. What is to hinder a further extension of the federal principle, so that finally we {225} may have a vaster United States, whose members shall be, as empire State, America; then the mother, England; and lastly the great English dependencies, so populous and thoroughly developed that they may justly stand co-ordinate? It cannot be said that this is an unreasonable or Utopian anticipation. Dependence was right in its day; but for English help colonial America would have become a province of France. Independence was and is right. It was well for us, and for Britain too, that we were split apart. Washington, as the main agent in the separation, is justly the most venerated name in our history. But _inter_dependence, too, will in its day be right; and great indeed will be that statesman of the future who shall reconstitute the family bond, conciliate the members into an equal brotherhood, found the vaster union which must be the next great step towards the universal fraternity of man, when patriotism may be merged into a love that will take in all humanity.
"Such suggestions as have just been made are sure to be opposed both in England and America. We on our side cite England's oppression of Ireland, the rapacity with which in all parts of the world she has often enlarged her boundaries, the brutality with which she has trampled upon the rights of weaker men. They cite against America her 'century of dishonour' in the treatment of the Indians, the corruption of her cities, the ruffian's knife and pistol, ready to murder on slight provocation, the prevalence of lynch law over all other law in great districts, her yellow journalism. Indeed, it is a sad tale of shortcoming for both countries. Yet in the case of each the evil is balanced by a thousand things great and good, and the welfare of the world depends upon the growth and prosperity of the English-speaking lands as upon nothing else. The welfare of the world depends upon their accord; and no other circumstance at the present moment is so fraught with hope as that, in the midst of the heavy embarrassments that beset both England and America, the long-sundered kindred slowly gravitate toward alliance."[18]
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