The extent of our progress is shown strikingly by the change in Pan-Angle sentiment between the wars of 1861-1865 and 1899-1902. In South Africa the race was spared any repetition of the humiliating political corruption of the "carpet-bag" era of the American "reconstruction."[172-1] We have learned that whether it is in the United States or South Africa, in Canada[172-2] or in Ireland, white men must be made into self-governing Pan-Angles. Rhodes recognized this when he said even while the war was in progress, ". . . you cannot govern South Africa by trampling on the Dutch."[172-3] The impulses toward local autonomy and those toward a common group unity must be correlated. To favour either at the expense of the other is to court disaster.
The spreading of the Pan-Angles is still going on, though in the multiplicity of affairs arising in {173} the places we already occupy we often overlook the pioneer work of the present. The causes for separating have been understood and extensively removed. The converging tendency is now in the ascendant. The political evolution that accompanies this convergence, though it seems slow to the impatient reformer, may, if understood and assisted by those who shape popular opinion, give Pan-Angles in the fulness of time an entity government.
This converging tendency of the race, Americans have seen with satisfaction in their own land. As far as they have been conversant with it, they have approved of it in Britannic lands. A Canadian wrote in 1892: "Among thinking native Americans I have found, as a rule, a genuine sympathy with the advocates of unity for British people, a sympathy perfectly natural in a nation which has suffered and sacrificed so much as the people of the United States have for a similar object."[173-1] Since our knowledge of each other has grown in twenty odd years this might to-day be expressed even more strongly. Moreover, "English people," the same writer testifies, "now understand and respect the motives which actuated the resolute and successful struggle of the people of the United States against disruption."[173-2]
There is to-day a great drawing together of the whole Pan-Angle race. The desires of Franklin and his supporters are nearing realization. The {174} errors which led to our separations have passed into the race experience. We can all profit by them. We have all profited by them. The tendency to convergence was never wholly in operative. It survived the wrench of the American Revolution. Lord Shelburne, in conducting the British side of the peace negotiations of 1783, held to the ideal of restoring Pan-Angle unity, and thereafter worked for it in Parliament, hoping "that this would have been the beginning of the great Anglo-Saxon federation of which Chatham had dreamed; . . ."[174-1]
The power of this impulse drawing us together is evidenced in the peace that has endured among us. The century closing December 24, 1914, stands as witness. Within our whole civilization, this period has chronicled only two wars of white men on Pan-Angle soil—1861-1865 and 1899-1902. These were devastating and deeply to be regretted. They remind us that peace is not to be taken for granted. Between the two entirely independent sections of the Pan-Angles, and these are at the same time the most populous, no conflict of interests has been allowed to develop into war. Differences of opinion have arisen, as was inevitable. They have been settled through the exercise of forbearance, self-control, and concession, without recourse to arms.
Needless to try to apportion the credit between the two nations. Canadians have sometimes felt {175} that their interests were being sacrificed on the altar of British-American friendship. "Those who study the history of the questions which have arisen from time to time since the Peace of 1813 between this country [British Isles] and the United States, can hardly fail to be struck by a difference in the habitual attitude of the two Powers. Great Britain has always been pliable as to such questions; having indeed every motive, both of sentiment and of interest, for being and remaining on the best terms possible with the United States."[175-1] Another Britannic critic not only denies that the British negotiators have been pliable, but claims that as envoys on Canada-America disputes they have been of a cleverness at least equal to that of the Americans.[175-2]
Whoever may have appreciated it more keenly, the fact is now evident that the community of interests which embraces all Pan-Angles is an affair of transcending importance. Our great men have understood this and given it repeated expression. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said at Toronto in 1897: "But I should think our patriotism was dwarfed and stunted indeed if it did not embrace the Greater Britain beyond the seas; if it did not include the young and vigorous nations carrying throughout the globe the knowledge of the English tongue and the English love of liberty and law; and, gentlemen, with {176} those feelings I refuse to think or speak of the United States of America as a foreign nation. We are all of the same race and blood. I refuse to make any distinction between the interests of Englishmen in England, in Canada, and in the United States."[176-1] An Australian in 1912 wrote: "British interests in India or the East Indies would not be attacked; if there were a large Australian fleet. The problems of defence in Canada, South Africa, Egypt, and United States [sic] would be distinctly easier with such a fleet."[176-2] Note that he makes no distinction which sets the United States aside from other Pan-Angles. Lord Bryce—and no American is more highly esteemed in the United States than he,—[176-3] speaking in London in 1913, said: "Returning hither from America, I have two things to say to the British Pilgrims gathered here as friends of the American people. One is that you must not take too seriously the lurid pictures of American life drawn in some organs of the European press. In Washington I used to be struck by the dark view which the press news from England conveyed of British events and conditions, a view which I knew to be misleading. Here the same thing happens. Cable messages and {177} the vivid pens of correspondents inevitably heighten the colour. My other message is to assure you that the friendship you entertain for the people of the United States is reciprocated by them far more universally and heartily than ever before. There is a friendship of governments and a friendship of nations. The former may shift with the shifting of material interests or be affected by the relations of each power with other powers. But the latter rests on solid and permanent foundations. With our two peoples it is based on a community of speech, of literature, of institutions, of beliefs, of traditions from the past, of ideals for the future. In all these things the British and American peoples are closer than any two other peoples can be. Nature and history have meant them to be friends."[177-1]
Against this spirit of amity not a dissenting voice is raised. We rejoice in the peace of the years behind us and in the good feeling of the era at hand. We seek some means to perpetuate them.
Political good feeling in its different degrees takes, according to Pan-Angle experience, three forms. These so merge, that it is difficult at times to define in terms of them. They may be known for purpose of study as: friendship, alliance, and common government.
The relations between England and its American colonies started in the friendship stage. Later developed a co-operation that can be fairly called {178} alliance. In the French-Pan-Angle struggle for North America, the colonies contributed men and money, as did Great Britain. Together they won much of the territory now the United States and all that is now Canada. Together they did more than this. "The Seven Years War made England what she is. It crippled the commerce of her rival, ruined France in two continents, and blighted her as a colonial power. It gave England the control of the seas and the mastery of North America and India, made her the first of commercial nations, and prepared that vast colonial system that has planted new Englands in every part of the globe."[178-1] Pownall, during his term as governor, saw Massachusetts raise at the requisition of the Crown not the 2300 men asked for, but 7000.[178-2] "Owners of property were paying in taxes two-thirds of their incomes."[178-3] Yet their legislature in 1759 voted funds for a monument to Lord Howe, who had fallen the previous summer at Ticonderoga. It stands in Westminster Abbey[178-4] to-day, a memorial as well of the men whose "affection to the mother country . . . zeal for the service," Pownall knew from experience.[178-5] Speaking in the British House of Commons, of which he was a member 1768-1780, {179} he describes their attitude during the Seven Years War. In case of a French invasion of England at that time, he testifies: "Those New England men would have been ready to come over at their own expense to the assistance of their native country—as they always hold England to be."[179-1]