defend things as they are, regard them as institutions which it would be disastrous to change on account of the bad blood which revolution would cause; others feel that our own institutions are more comfortable than those of a republic, because they require less personal effort on the part of the individual; very few of us at the present moment are really and actively revolutionary; yet, when these people go away and make a new country for themselves, not one has ever proposed that their new constitution shall be copied from the old.

We have thus seen the beginnings, the development, and the present position of the Anglo-Saxon race. There are six great countries, of which two are fully grown, and four, viz., Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, are practically only in their infancy. We are united by such bonds as I have mentioned; we are disunited, except for sentiment, only by differences in the form of government. As for the seas which roll between us, they are no longer an element of disunion; we are parted by two or three weeks; we pass over to each other without difficulty, almost without danger.

Let us now consider the possible future of our race. What will be the development of the British colonies, for instance, in the matter of government? Will they put off the republican, and assume the monarchical form? I cannot conceive such a change as even possible. I cannot understand that any republican, any man in whom personal equality is part of his very soul, not to be torn out except with his life, could ever desire the election of a king, whose very name means to him hereditary rule, hereditary privilege, hereditary superiority.

With every generation the republican ideas certainly become intensified ; with every generation, then, these great colonies will become more and more separated from the mother country in feeling. There is one event, and only one, which would be able to convert a republic into a monarchy; that would be a life and death struggle, a disastrous war, a term of deep-seated national humiliation, when the country might take shelter under a dictator who might become emperor or king.

What, however, about England? Shall she change her forms in order to fall in line with the other Anglo-Saxon countries? In asking such a question I would not look for a reply to the books and papers and arguments of philosophers. We must

not ask what is philosophically considered best or fittest; we must go straight to the people themselves, and ascertain in which direction their thoughts are tending, whether in the direction of change or in the direction of conservatism. How are we to find. out what they think? We must read the papers which they read; we must listen to the orators and preachers who have found a way to make them listen, and have touched their hearts. When I was a boy I was curious about journals and papers of all sorts. I used to buy, especially, certain papers designed for the working classes. My earliest recollection of politics is that the Queen, the Church, the House of Lords, the capitalists, and all employers of labor were every week attacked with a venom and a virulence which exceeded everything that we could now show. All these institutions were to be pulled down-the day after to-morrow. Now, although such papers as these were exceptional and extreme, the smoke showed the existence of fire; there was a great deal of loose, vague, fierce republicanism in the air; not only working-men, but sober, educated, thinking men were asking whether the time was not come for a republic. The question was not whether a republic is or is not a better form of government than a limited monarchy, but whether the time was come for a republic-which begged the other question, and practically assumed that a republic is the better form. Now I do not suppose that the number of philosophers who would like a republic on abstract principles is less than it was, but I am quite sure that the number of people generally who ardently desire such a change of government in Great Britain is far less in proportion to the population, while the scurrilous and blackguard papers have, so far as I know, entirely disappeared. I lay great stress on this point, because there is, if we come to think of it, this very remarkable relation of the press to the people that one cannot say whether the press leads the people or whether the people leads the press.

Returning to possible changes in England, I think it may be assumed as a matter of general experience that the duty of preserving our institutions, with such modifications as may be necessary from time to time, is at this moment a fixed conviction with the great majority of the English people. Loyalty to the Crown, which has been cultivated, so to speak, by the long reign of a blameless sovereign, is deeper

and truer and established on stronger foundations than ever it has been before, even in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; the Church is no longer reviled and hated by the people; even those who would deprive the Church of her national character regard her with respect, and as regards the House of Lords we hear very little now about the foolishness of believing in hereditary wisdom. The form of government under which the English people live is so firmly established, it rests on such solid foundations of the will, consent, and deliberate choice of the people, that it will not be removed or changed till something happens to change this will and consent. Nor do I think that there will be in the great colonies any approach to English ideas in this respect.

The colonies could not, in fact, adopt the British constitution. The English form of limited sovereignty has grown up slowly and gradually; the people have forgotten the long struggle of centuries by which they did limit at last the power of the Sovereign; the memory of that struggle has departed; it seems as if the thing grew without any struggle; within the memory of living men there has been no revival of the old struggle; it seems a natural thing that the Sovereign should not be able to command anything except the affection and the respect of her people.

If, however, the English government remains what it is, and the English colonies become more and more obstinately republican, there will most certainly exist a permanent cleavage between them, growing every year wider and wider. That is true, and it is a danger which can only be met in one way, which I will presently explain.

Apart from the form of government, what line of change awaits our race in the immediate future? The colonies will drop off one after the other, and become independent. Australia, which could not, as yet, defend herself against Japan, must, as she grows stronger, become independent. We shall then-say in fifty years-see six great English-speaking nations; every one will be more populous than France at the present day; filled with people who have absorbed all foreign admixtures; governed by the same laws; inheriting all the Anglo-Saxon qualities, virtues, and weaknesses.

The people of these nations will be unlike each other in peculiarities, due to climate; those of tropical Queensland, for instance, will differ in certain respects from the inhabitants of To

ronto or Quebec. But in mind and in manners they will be all alike.

What will happen in a world which possesses six great nations all united by such bonds as we have already described ?

We stand already at the parting of the ways. By our actions, by our words, of this very time we may affect for good or for evil the whole future of our race.

There are two roads lying before us; two roads well marked -visible for many miles; one road as easy as the other. Which shall we take ?

The one road leads through wars, which must be civil wars for ferocity, for massacres, for prolonged rage, for the bitterness which lasts for generations; for the evil example which leads to other wars; for the ruin and the waste and the destruction of all that the Anglo-Saxon race was sent into the world to achieve. Here is an imaginary page of history: "After the termination of the long and disastrous war between Great Britain and the United States, in which so many fleets were destroyed with practically all the trained sailors on both sides, and when both countries were exhausted, the Dominion of Canada declared war against the Australian Federation, and another sea war was commenced which lasted five years and so on. "Between one state and another there were commercial rivalries, protective and prohibitive tariffs; the bitterness of old quarrels ; a constant readiness to rush into new quarrels; the Anglo-Saxon race, of which so much had once been expected and prophesied, fell during these centuries into a family at enmity with itself; al- ́ ways at war one with another," and so on. Is this kind of thing possible? It is more than possible; it is quite probable. When brothers begin to fight, they never cease fighting; they can never be reconciled; and each battle only makes the former hatred Therefore, for these English-speaking nations we must make war impossible; and since at present four of these nations have not yet become independent, we must make war impossible between the two which represent them all. The late scare, from which we are not yet quite free, has shown us some of the dangers that lie in our way; one word more of arrogance or insolence from one side or the other, and we should have been plunged into such a war as would serve for an example for these younger nations; nay, they would themselves have been dragged

worse.

into the struggle, and so the seeds of hatred would have been sown in their hearts, too, to bear harvest in the years to come. We must make it impossible for any war at any time to happen between these nations. How can we do this? It will not be sufficient to trust to the good sense, the moderation, the wisdom of leaders and ministers. All the wisdom in the world will not avail against personal ambition.

There is another danger. We talked at the outset of the restlessness of our race. This restlessness in modern life is generally cured by travel, by the struggle for wealth, by intellectual effort; but there is a great mass of the people who do not travel, are not engrossed in work, do not work with the brain. The danger of a simultaneous movement, an unanimous cry for war, such a rush as that of Wat Tyler's men, is one ever present and much greater in a republic than in a monarchy. We must guard against the ambition of statesmen and against the madness of the people. For my Own part I can see no way open to us except a Court of Arbitration, before which all cases of difference shall be brought. The mere existence of such a Board will prevent cases from arising, while the knowledge that there can never be war between the two nations will at once alter the tone of the press in every AngloSaxon country to that of permanent alliance.

Now suppose such a Board of Arbitration to be established. What do we see in the future? The six nations will be separate, yet united; each will be free to work out its own development in its own way; it will be impossible for them to quarrel; they will understand that free trade between themselves will be the best in their own interests; their press will be courteous, each to each; they will be rivals only in art, science, and literature. Above all, they will form a firm alliance, offensive and defensive, with such a navy that all the world united in arms would be powerless against them. And, as an example for all the world to see, there will be the great federation of our race, an immense federation, free, law-abiding, peaceful, yet ready to fight; tenacious of old customs; dwelling continually with the same ideas; keeping, as their ancestors from Friesland did before them, each family as the unit; every home the centre of the earth; every township of a dozen men the centre of the government.

WALTER BESANT.