Of the men who failed to make good, who could not take what they wanted, we hear little. Their dreaming and daring, their judgment and fortitude, are their own affair; they are part of the unenlisted legion our individualism has produced. A sympathetic editor in America writes as follows of a young English individualist in Somaliland: "Richard Conyngham Corfield . . . was stationed in one of the most inaccessible and undesirable of Britain's many wild lands. He hoped to make a name for himself, to conquer a little empire of his own and restore it to his country, to humiliate the Mad Mullah who had humiliated England, and to earn promotion. So, on his own responsibility, he {50} led his little army against the fanatic horde of the Mullah. The spirit of adventure moved him as it moved the heroes of the early days of British empire building. He lost, as many another adventurer has lost; had he won he would have been remembered for some time. But, having lost all, even his name will be forgotten within a twelvemonth."[50-1]
Extended holdings in personal liberty have been won for us by this same individualism. A cargo of tea was stolen and maliciously destroyed, and now Pan-Angles feel certain they have the right to vote their own taxes. The city of Birmingham, England, in 1819, elected a representative to the Parliament of the British Isles, in which it was allowed no representation.[50-2] In 1832 a Reform Bill gave them and all their neighbours a share in parliamentary legislation. John Brown was hanged for "treason, and conspiring and advising with slaves and other rebels, and murder in the first degree."[50-3] But within four years slavery had been abolished in the United States, and every school child in America for years gave vocal testimony that, while their hero's body lay "a-mouldering in the grave," his soul went "marching on."
With individualism goes self-reliance—having these we are also self-sufficient. We want our ways of doing things, and are ready to sacrifice a great deal to get them, for we know our ways are right. We want room in which to express ourselves. Daniel Boone left his Kentucky home {51} when a neighbour moved to within twenty miles of him, because the country was becoming too thickly settled. Others like him trudged mile by mile across the whole North American continent.[51-1] With them went Pan-Angle women.[51-2] In the conflict for the possession of North America, the Pan-Angles won. They were still of true British blood, while the French were largely Indian.[51-3] The French had adapted themselves to the country, while the Pan-Angles had adapted the country to themselves. Arrived after successive generations at the Pacific Coast they were still Pan-Angles with their essential characteristics unchanged. In the back-blocks of New Zealand and Australia, and the table-lands of Rhodesia, men of the same type are living to-day. If their individualism is intensified and in their own opinion improved, it is because they have plenty of room. The pushing American is but the individual Britisher let loose in a larger field. These men may be described in the words Pownall used of the Americans: "An unabated application of the powers of individuals and a perpetual struggle of their spirits sharpens their wits and gives constant training to the mind. . . . This turn of character, which in the ordinary {52} occurrences of life is called inquisitiveness, and which, when exerted about trifles goes even to a degree of ridicule in many instances, is yet, in matters of business and commerce, a most useful and efficient talent."[52-1] An Australian, as he describes himself, in his roomiest of our nations, "is little other than a transplanted Briton, with the essential characteristics of his British forbears, the desire for freedom from restraint, however, being perhaps more strongly accentuated."[52-2]
With all his individualism the Pan-Angle has a gift for combining. He would rather act alone. But when desirous of results he cannot obtain by himself, he is not afraid of uniting with his fellows. In order to combine effectively, mutual confidence is necessary. We have that trust ability. Indeed, we use the very word "trust" to designate in popular parlance certain combinations: "the money trust," "the labour trust," and the multitudinous other smaller and lesser combinations, down to the facetiously referred to "plumbers' trust," which all appear huge in direct proportion to the distance of the spectator. Viewed with the eye of the insider, such aggregations of capital and power are merely the co-operations of many individuals to produce results—it may be the building of a railroad or the distribution of a food—that no one could accomplish alone. It has been the outsider who objected to their power. To our combinations in the matter of government few of us object, {53} because we all are insiders. Much of our progress in the path of individual freedom has come through combining.
The barons combined to secure Magna Carta. New Zealanders use their government (the combination at their disposal) to remedy injustices against their individual members.[53-1] The thirteen American states, each bristling with a sense of individualism, recognized that they could secure this precious possession only through joining together. Benjamin Franklin had voiced their situation earlier, when he said: "If we do not hang together, we shall hang separate." Their first attempt at combination had to be discarded because they were not hanging together firmly enough. But from 1789 to 1914, their second effort has exhibited to the world the largest voluntary political association as yet seen, proving a new method of adjusting local needs and differences. It has succeeded in so much that it has bound together a nation, or an assemblage of nations {54} now numbering forty-eight, in security and prosperity, while retaining to each individual locality and to each citizen a fair share of the liberties for which the race has long been striving.
While these political combinations are guarding our individualism they are at the same time dependent upon it. "England expects her navy will do its duty," was not the signal Nelson hoisted on the Victory. His appeal was to "every man." "Keep cool and obey orders," admonished Dewey at Manila, recognizing that in the intelligent self-subordination of each member of each crew lay the strength of his fleet.
The individualism of the Pan-Angle forms the keynote of all his theories and practices as to government. He wants to attend to his own affairs. He prefers to give personal attention to the making and administering of laws. In so far as it seems impossible or impracticable to do this, he has recourse to the best alternative, and wishes someone representing him to attend in his stead to those matters. This representative is often limited in power by written instructions from his principal, and provision is made in some cases for the revision of the agent's acts by the same ultimate power. And to whatever extent changing circumstances make again feasible the personal participation of the individual, to that extent he dispenses with the services of his deputy. Here is the whole story of government among the Pan-Angles.
Early accounts of the Germanic tribes tell us {55} that the freemen assembled to determine matters of public concern, and there each in person gave his opinion and assented or dissented to the opinions of others. This was a simple presentative government: each man presenting himself at the meeting or moot, and speaking in his own interests. Laws were made, and leaders or kings chosen and deposed. Only lesser questions were for the chiefs, the important questions were for the community.[55-1]
As the areas having common interests widened, not all the men who had the right found it convenient to attend the assembly. They might still present themselves at some local gathering, a town meeting, or a burgh meeting, within range of their travelling powers, but to the more general assembly only the great and strong were able to go. There grew up the practice, too, that summons should be sent out, inviting to the assembly. This worked to discourage the full attendance of all who formerly had the right to come. The Witenagamot or Witan, gathering of wise men, is the name by which this early legislative body was known.
In 1068 all the landowners of England repaired to a great assembly at Salisbury to swear fealty to William the Conqueror. Part of them were summoned personally, and in time came to claim a right to a summons to succeeding assemblies. In these they were more or less powerful according to the nature of the king, and more than once extorted from him charters of rights, re-establishing or enlarging their ancient privileges. For two centuries {56} they participated in the form of electing kings. The vast multitude, however, the "land-sitting men," were summoned to Salisbury in a body, and for that occasion only, and gradually lost all right of personal attendance at later assemblies.[56-1]