قراءة كتاب The Pan-Angles A Consideration of the Federation of the Seven English-Speaking Nations

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The Pan-Angles
A Consideration of the Federation of the Seven English-Speaking Nations

The Pan-Angles A Consideration of the Federation of the Seven English-Speaking Nations

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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not too strongly emphasize the word 'kindly' since he had come to England—how they were getting on in the United States assimilating the endless hordes of people from all lands who came to their shores. He did not wish {37} to boast. He was a humble man from the humblest of countries. (Laughter.) But he was delighted to assure them that the Anglo-Saxon, or British, race, who settled the United States first, shaped its destinies, directed its energies, according to their conscience, against their own Motherland, and developed themselves and the great territory which they subdued, to this day, no matter how many men came from how many lands, still ruled it and led it. (Cheers.) And there was no time in sight when that would have changed. Every President of the United States had been of English or Scottish blood dominantly. Out of 121 mayors of cities only 11 per cent. had names which showed that they or their predecessors came from countries other than the United Kingdom. Only 14 per cent. of the representative men who took part in the government of the United States in the House of Representatives or the Senate bore foreign names, which left 86 per cent. who came from the United Kingdom. The Anglo-Saxon was quite as much the leader of men in the great Republic as he was in the great United Kingdom. That was not a boast; it was a natural phenomenon. It was destiny, and they could not help it if they would. Americans deserved no particular praise for it. They believed, just as Englishmen believed, that they were born to rule the world."[37-1] "That complacency which never deserts a true-born Englishman"[37-2] speaks wherever a Pan-Angle voice is raised. {38} Foreign testimony on this point in our character is unanimous, but no foreigner can demonstrate so vividly the arrogance of our self-satisfaction as do we in our every act and attitude. Moreover, what do most of us care about what foreigners think? Was it not Dr. Johnson who said, "All foreigners are mostly fools"?[38-1]

As Pan-Angles we are, in short, the cream of the earth. As Britishers, Americans or Australians we are the cream of the cream. As Englanders, Missourians, or Queenslanders we are something even more superlative. As Londoners, St. Louisans, or Brisbanians,—words fail to express the height of our self-approval. The Englander says little on the subject but, like the calm ungainsayable fog of his habitat, simply is. If called from his high estate to pass judgment, he characterizes the rest of the world as "beastly peculiar." "Colonials," in this term he lumps also the inhabitants of the United States, are to him unfortunates, having "jolly rotten luck to live way off out there." The American, more nervously pitched, raises his voice and talks long about his bigness. "You call that a river?" he indicates the Thames. "Why, if we had a damp streak like that in one of our fields in Iowa, we'd tile it just to keep from getting our feet wet crossing." The Australian, conscious that little attention has been paid him as yet, and conscious too that his "potentialities" are really great, {39} aggressively balances a chip for the inspection of critics. His sheep, his harbour, his apples, his stars—woe to anyone who fails to acquiesce in their paramount excellence! "And after all," he sighs, returned from the other fair places of the earth, "after all, there is only one Sydney."

Such are our local prides, or such at least do they appear in their most blatant types. "The habit of brag runs through all classes"[39-1] wherever we live. Those of us who observe the good form of appearing tolerably meek-minded, are perhaps at heart no more so. Why, then, do we smile tolerantly at all the world and take no offence at each other. Because each is confident of his own place in the sun, and confident too that the Pan-Angles, although he may not use that term, by virtue of these very local prides, are one in their desire and determination to maintain their civilization against all others who are not of our language and our ways.

An American was one day asked by a cutlery salesman from Birmingham (England), "Are you not humiliated by having no national language?" "We have one," was the prompt reply; "it is English." So would have spoken a Canadian or a Newfoundlander, a South African, a New Zealander, or an Australian. That is one of our prides. Our language is ours. It reflects our many-rooted origins, our varied and severally branched histories, our constantly converging growths. It binds us to the ideals of our kind. Its very name takes us in imagination to the infancy of our race, where {40} from subservience to the wills of others the individual emerged. "The English have given importance to individuals, a principal end and fruit of every society. Every man is allowed and encouraged to be what he is, and is guarded in the indulgence of his whim. 'Magna Charta,' said Rushworth, 'is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.' By this general activity and by this sacredness of individuals, they have in seven hundred years evolved the principles of freedom. It is the land of patriots, martyrs, sages and bards, and if the ocean out of which it emerged should wash it away, it will be remembered as an island famous for immortal laws, for the announcement of original right which make the stone tables of liberty."[40-1] To acknowledge the relation of America to the land of these struggles and their earliest successes can never be humiliating. England's past belongs to us all, and to-day England is one of us. There, was cradled the individualism of our Teuton forbears that has grown into a civilizing world-wide domination. We all have helped to nurture and shield it. We are as seven guardians whose harmony is secured not only because they are one in aim and method but because being one in language they are bound into understanding.

The Pan-Angle enjoys the highest standard of living known to any comparable number of people in the world, either formerly or to-day. If civilization depends on the margin of wealth above mere {41} means of existence, Pan-Angles are the most civilized of the races.

Given a hypothetical community possessed only of such material resources that all the energies of every member must be used to provide food and protection from the elements, and there is presented the lowest possible standard of living. Anything lower would mean starvation, exposure, and death. Add but ever so little to those resources, so that some few, still fed and sheltered, may employ their energies in other ways, and they may become scientists and prolong the lives of their fellows and teach them more productive methods of food getting; they may become artists and poets for the delight and recreation of the rest; they may devise laws and systems of government to regulate labour and control wealth; and may develop certain instinctive cravings into hopeful religions. The community has now taken its first steps toward what we call civilization. Add further to the resources, increase the amount of energy that can be spent in channels other than the maintenance of life, and there is developed a complex organism, with churches and schools, music and literature, steam transportation, electric machinery, and contrivances of many other sorts to make life comfortable, enjoyable, and inspiring. Between this hypothetical primitive community and civilization as the Pan-Angles understand it are many stages, some of them occupied to-day by our neighbours whose material resources have not increased to the extent of ours. Now, of all the world, the people having most time and strength {42} after their physical necessities are secured are the Pan-Angles.

The per capita wealth and the per capita land holdings of the Pan-Angles are greater than those of any other comparable number of people. Their diet is more generous, more costly, and more varied. Their apparel is more expensive, and their housing more capacious and more comfortable. They are able to support a greater

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