Separate political existences of seven Pan-Angle nations do not make for peace. If for us is coming the great millennium, so sweetly dreamed of by so many, it will not come the sooner by perpetuating opportunities for discord. A common government over Pan-Angles would be copying what we have already done successfully in smaller "closer unions." Before the formation of one of these, it was stated: "Three choices therefore lie before the people of South Africa. The make-shift regime of the High Commissioner, the jarring separation of the States of South America, the noble union of the States of {130} North America."[130-1] This might be paraphrased. Three choices lie before the Pan-Angles: the make-shift regime of Downing Street and the gambling uncertainties of arbitration boards, the jarring separation we have known in our past, the noble method of union which our race has evolved, tested, and in four separate nations adopted. By solving our international differences of opinion in a federal government we can husband our strength for self-defence as a united power against other civilizations.

Despite our self-esteem we are not the only civilization in the world. There are others who need land for their children, as much or more than we do. These others wish to see the world "bettered" by their ideas. If we are wise we shall recognize these foreign aspirations to be as normal as our own. As we have progressed other civilizations have progressed, even though differently. And difference does not mean inferiority. Once we could believe that our rivals, personal, national, or racial, were bad because different; but nowadays we cannot call it wrong when others, less favourably situated than we in the sunshine of this world, strive like ourselves for comfort. "The tragedy of history is not the conflict between right and wrong, but the conflict between right and right." Each civilization knows it is right. Each is right {131} till another civilization is proved to be not only right, but better. A civilization is better than ours if it shall prove its people able to conquer our people—through cutting off our food by more resourceful trading, thriftier living, or war. As it has always been since the Pan-Angles were a people, the world is now an inter-civilization competition selecting the fittest to survive.

Four nations of men, white like ourselves and holding some of the same ideals, have been in the past our life and death rivals. Spain, Portugal, Holland, and France all were great before we were. They discovered and pre-empted a large part of the world. To the shores of almost everyone of the seven Pan-Angle nations their keels have come with intent to seize land. Our rivals often succeeded and held the land for a time until we grew strong enough to take it from them. Our struggles against these out-run powers make thrilling stories, for they tested the courage, the resources, and the tenacity of the Pan-Angle victors.

Portugal and Spain once shared between them the seas of the world—according to a Pope's decree. They raced in opposite directions to see which first should reach the Antipodes. Macao and Manila, lying opposite each other, show where the two routes terminated. To-day Spain holds no land outside of Europe except the Canaries and odd inconsequential bits of Africa. From before the days of the Armada to the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, Pan-Angles have been plundering Spain. Some of the spoils they kept for themselves, some they gave away. The Ladrones in a recent division were allotted to {132} Germany. Portugal holds more extensive reminders of its former empire. The Azores, the Cape Verdes, Timor and Goa, and strips of East and West Africa show where that nation was once supreme. Both the African areas are bordered by Pan-Angle and German holdings, and it requires no shrewd forecasting to predict their future.[132-1]

Holland holds the Dutch East Indies—a dependency huge in extent and population as compared to the tiny European state,[132-2] but small "compared to the lands adapted for true colonization, long ago relinquished. Holland holds also certain remnants in the Western Hemisphere, as Spain and Portugal do not. But like Spain and Portugal, Holland holds these dependencies not by virtue of its own strength, but by virtue of the matched strength of others, the balance of power leaving Holland for the present undisturbed.

France, the most recent of these four rivals of the Pan-Angles, to-day holds dependencies of {133} greater area than those of the three other rivals combined.[133-1] Over lands on, or islands near, every continent, the French flag flies. Only the flags of the British Isles and of Russia are to-day further flung. No one feels confident of despoiling France at will, and the British Isles regards its late rival as an effective ally. Yet the French hold no true colonies, lands in which France grows again in a new life. Canada and Louisiana are now the nurseries of a vigorous Pan-Angle stock.

Towards these four out-run powers we harbour no unfriendly sentiments. They, alone or combined, can no longer hurt us. We have grown so large and control so vast an area and population that we forget that these rivals once threatened our existence. The place-names they gave and many of their words, now part of the English language, hardly recall the old struggles. So thoroughly have we taken the lands they claimed, that with our own history we associate such names as Columbus, Da Gama, Magellan, Van Diemen, Tasman, Champlain, and La Salle. With our former competitors we can make alliances, if we wish, for the sake of guarding them and ourselves from the powers that loom out of the future.

But because of such friendly alliances we must not lose sight of the truth. Our present supremacy we hold not by the courtesy of these our former rivals, but by the might of our forefathers, who by their strength procured lands for us. The past secured to us the present. The visible method was war. "Between the [English] Revolution and {134} the Battle of Waterloo, it may be reckoned that we waged seven great wars, of which the shortest lasted seven years and the longest about twelve. Out of a hundred and twenty-six years, sixty-four years, or more than half, were spent in war."[134-1] At the end of these wars the Pan-Angles had outrun their rivals.[134-2] That century and a quarter witnessed the steady extension of the Pan-Angle control in North America."The struggle was literally worldwide. Red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America, and black men fought in Senegal in Africa; while Frenchmen and Englishmen grappled in India as well as in Germany, and their fleets engaged on every sea. The most tremendous and showy battles took place in Germany; and, though the real importance of the struggle lay outside Europe, still the European conflict in the main decided the wider results. William Pitt, the English minister, who was working to build up the great British empire, declared that in Germany he would conquer America from France. He did so."[134-3] Taxation in Massachusetts during one of the years of this war was equivalent to an income tax of 66 per cent.[134-4] After Waterloo for over half a century this extension continued. In this struggle for our world domination, in which American and Britannic Pan-Angles each did their share, we showed we were fighters. We fought to win. We won.

{135}

During and after our struggles with these four white nations, we have had lesser struggles with peoples of other colours. Our successes in these struggles have added to our self-satisfaction. Thus far our efforts against the red, brown, and black have not been too great for us. In America the red man had land we needed; we drove him out. In New Zealand the brown man's country was one we could thrive in; we installed ourselves there. In India and through the East the brown man had rich territories; we subdued him, we helped him to increase in numbers, we sold him more of our goods. The same can be said of the blacks in various tropical regions. In Australia the black man had lands suitable for whites, and we occupied them. In South Africa we have done the same, and, though the possession of the whites is hardly as yet undisputed, we bear there as elsewhere a mien of self-reliant superiority.