A British Cabinet Minister, speaking in Dundee on October 9, 1913, stated: "I am perhaps at an unfortunate age for making a prophecy. I am ceasing to belong to the young men who dream dreams, and I have not yet joined the ranks of the old men who see visions; still I will run the risk of prophecy and tell you that the day will most certainly come—many of you will live to see it—when a federal system will be established in these Islands which will give Wales and Scotland the control within proper limits of their own Welsh and Scottish affairs, which will free the Imperial Parliament from the great congestion of business by which it is now pressed, and which will redound and conduce to the contentment and well-being of all our people."[197-2]
When some such re-formation of government is adopted by the British Isles, it will only be utilizing {198} the fruits of the race's experience in other parts of our civilization.
If the first steps to this "home rule all round" aimed at in the present (1914) legislation regarding Ireland prove defective, in that it concedes what is not needed, and denies what is needed, it is because the British Isles has not taken to heart the inwardness of the federal idea. Lord Dunraven pointed this out when he said that "there were only two principles on which Home Rule could be founded—the Federal system or absolute independence. The present Bill applied to neither and he could recognize in it no basis of settlement."[198-1] In the following resolution, he indicated how the question of "home rule all round" should be attacked: ". . .'The best means of arriving at a settlement by consent of the Irish political question and of the constitutional difficulties connected with it, and of securing the harmonious working of any system of self-government in Ireland and the permanency of friendly relations between the two islands is to be found in a convention, or conference, representative of all nationalities and parties in the United Kingdom, and . . . it is the duty of his Majesty's Government to take the initiative in inviting such convention or conference.'"[198-2] But the fact that a majority of the British Parliament has gone so far as to advocate any form of Home Rule is evidence of a sincere effort to meet the conditions of Pan-Angle individualism where longest suppressed, {199} and thus hasten the harmonious self-government of the British Isles.
Franklin, when he wrote to Shirley[199-1] in 1754 about the need of colonial representation to the British Parliament in London, may or may not have realized how far the gaining of that desire would fail to satisfy. His plan would not have produced a federal government for Pan-Angles. It would have created a larger unitary government than then existed. There would not have been co-ordinated spheres of governmental control. The local affairs of Pennsylvania and England, of Scotland and New York, would together have been in the hands of a Parliament composed of representatives elected from the nation at large. This would have been unacceptable to the people of England, Pennsylvania, Scotland, and New York. They would have asked for something more. A lesson can be drawn from this by those who to-day urge Australian or Canadian representation in the present British Isles Parliament. Such representation would subject Britishers to outside control of their local problems, just as to-day Englanders are affected by Irish representatives voting on local problems of England. Conversely, it would mean a continued interference in Australian and Canadian local problems by the local representatives of the British Isles—the very thing the peoples of the five new nations have already taken appropriate steps to obviate. The Irish question demonstrates that representation alone is not enough for Pan-Angles. The Irish are more than {200} fairly represented in Parliament. Still they clamour for more. That something more desired by all Pan-Angles is local autonomy.
To representation in a central legislature must be added the local control of local questions so dear to Pan-Angle individualism. This is what federalism accomplishes.[200-1] "Our Federal system is the only form of popular government that would be possible in a country like ours, with an enormous territory and 100,000,000 population. . . . But for this safety valve by which people of one State can have such State government as they choose, we would never be able to keep the union of all the people so harmonious as we now have."[200-2] "The growth of the United States has widened political horizons. It has proved that immense territorial extent is not incompatible, under modern conditions, with that representative system of popular government which had its birth and development in England, and its most notable adaptation in America. It has shown that the spread of a nation over vast areas, including widely-separated states with diverse interests, need not prevent it from becoming strongly bound together in a political organism which combines {201} the advantages of national greatness and unity of purpose with jealously guarded freedom of local self-government."[201-1]
The indefinite governmental relationships between the Britannic nations are to-day satisfactory to no one. Britannic closer union forms the thesis of much writing and speech making and the subject of much earnest study.[201-2] That the demands of the situation can be met adequately only by federation seems evident to many. This thought is thus expressed by Milner: "If, as I fervently hope, the present loose association of the self-governing states of the Empire grows in time into a regular partnership, it can only be, as it seems to me, by the development of a new organ of government representative of them all, and dealing exclusively with matters of common interest. It would only heighten confusion to bring representatives of the Dominions into the House of Commons. And if, as I think everyone would admit, it is impracticable to bring them into the House of Commons, they would certainly say, 'Thank you for nothing' if we were to offer them a few seats in the House of Lords."[201-3]
Mr. Winston Churchill continued in his speech at Dundee: "I tell you further that that system when erected and established will in itself be only the forerunner and nucleus of a general scheme of Imperial federation which will gather together in {202} one indissoluble circle the British people here and beyond the seas."[202-1] Rhodes wrote over twenty years ago: "I will frankly add that my interest in the Irish question has been heightened by the fact that in it I see the possibility of the commencement of changes which will eventually mould and weld together all parts of the British Empire.
"The English are a conservative people, and like to move slowly, and, as it were, experimentally. At present there can be no doubt that the time of Parliament is overcrowded with the discussion of trivial and local affairs. Imperial matters have to stand their chance of a hearing alongside of railway and tram bills. Evidently it must be a function of modern legislation to delegate an enormous number of questions which now occupy the time of Parliament, . . .
"But side by side with the tendency of decentralisation for local affairs, there is growing up a feeling for the necessity of greater union in Imperial matters. . . ."[202-2]
Not alone the federation of the Britannic nations, but the federation of the whole Pan-Angle people, {203} is the end to be sought. Behind Rhodes' "greater union in Imperial matters" lay his vision of a common government over all English-speaking people.[203-1] If we are to preserve our civilization and its benefits to our individual citizens, we must avoid frictions among ourselves and take a united stand before the world. Only a common government will ensure this.