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 iH}t pr^aaur^ nf Asia 
 
 and 
 The Unification of the English-speaking People 
 
 Address delivered at a dinner of the Canadian Club 
 
 of New York at the Hotel Flanders, 
 
 January 14, 1908 
 
 by 
 
 William M. Coleman 
 
 THE LASKER PRESS 
 92 Fulton Street, New York 
 

 A)-^' 
 
 TubKARY of O0M<a'fiESS.'i 
 i swo Copies Kectfiv*^ 
 
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 ' 'COPY »' 
 
 Copyright, 1908 
 
 BY 
 
 William M. Coleman 
 
Mr. T^resident and members of the Canadian Club of New York •' 
 
 It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity of addressing- 
 you upon a topic so interesting and important as the relations 
 between the two great branches of the English-speaking people. 
 
 You have undoubtedly noticed that Mr. Hearst and his chain 
 of newspapers, which are read b}- five million Americans daily, 
 are openly advocating an alliance between the United States and 
 Germany on the basis of a common animosity to England. 
 Back of this newspaper agitation is the National German- 
 American Alliance, which binds together for united action the 
 German societies in this country representing over two millions 
 of German-Americans. To these two elements must be added 
 the powerful scholastic influence of Professor Burgess, described 
 by the New York American as the ' ' Roosevelt exchange pro- 
 fessor to Germany," who is delivering a series of addresses to 
 German societies, in which he takes the position that the Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance makes a counter-alliance between Germany 
 and the United States a matter of necessity. The movement is 
 represented upon the floors of Congress by representative 
 Richard Bartholdt of Missouri, of International Peace Con- 
 ference fame, who has apparentlj^ abandoned his fondly- 
 cherished dream of peace for a policy which would lead straight 
 to Armageddon. 
 
 Whether these various elements will be of sufficient strength 
 to induce the United States to abandon its historic opposition to 
 entangling alliances it is not necessary for us to determine. It 
 is sufficient for us to observe the evidence of a powerful 
 organized movement which, availing of an assumed historical 
 animosity in this country toward Great Britain, endeavors to 
 throw the controlling weight of the United States into a com- 
 bination against her. That such an alliance, if formed, would 
 vastly accentuate the schism of the English-speaking people 
 goes without saying, and it is therefore a matter as to which all 
 Americans of British descent must be consulted. To the 
 
Canadians the question is of even greater importance. We are 
 standing in one of those great moments of history in which the 
 primacy of an old-established nation is being seriously 
 challenged by younger rivals. If the ambition of Mr. Hearst, 
 Professor Burgess and Mr. Bartholdt is realized, Canada may be 
 placed between two mighty contesting forces and her people 
 may readily become the principal actors in one of the great 
 tragedies of history. 
 
 I believe in the unity of the English-speaking people ; and 
 my appeal to you to-night will be to use the great and growing 
 influence of Canada to heal the breach between the British and 
 American nations, to the end that the English-speaking people 
 may once more stand before the world as a united and 
 harmonious whole. 
 
 The question whether there shall be a federation of all the 
 English-speaking nations involves similar problems to those 
 which are met in the projected federation of the British nations, 
 and I shall ask your indulgence for a moment to consider the 
 present situation of the British empire. 
 
 The opening of the twentieth century finds that ancient 
 empire in a situation strikingly like that which preceded the 
 American Revolution. At that time Great Britain was contest- 
 ing with France the primacy of the world, and the people of the 
 British islands felt sorely the burden of that mighty conflict. 
 They numbered less than ten millions, and as they looked across 
 the Atlantic to the colonies upon this side with a population of 
 two millions, increasing rapidly in numbers and wealth, they 
 thought and thought justly that, as the colonies formed an 
 important portion of a great empire, the«y should bear their 
 proportion of the burdens. Unfortunately, however, the 
 British statesmen attempted to impose the burdens of empire 
 without sharing also its privileges. This error was the direct 
 cause of the civil war which ended in dividing the English- 
 speaking people. 
 
 To-day, the struggle for world supremacy in which the 
 mother country is engaged is chiefly economic ; but the 
 enormous size of her armaments and the willingness with which 
 Parliament votes colossal sums for further extensions, show that 
 
her statesmen do not consider the possibiHty of an armed struggle 
 as remote. On the one hand, she witnesses the growth of rival 
 nations in numbers, wealth and sea-power, and on the other, she 
 regards with anxiety the enormous and constantly increasing 
 burden which is imposed upon her people in the effort to main- 
 tain that glorious supremacy which she has maintained since the 
 close of the Napoleonic wars. In this situation, the eyes of her 
 statesmen have again turned to the members of her family 
 across the seas. During the last fifteen years, there has been 
 much discussion of the perplexing problem how the co- 
 operation of the great self-governing colonies in imperial affairs 
 can be most advantageously obtained. 
 
 Looking at the matter from the standpoint of an American, 
 it would seem that the only possible method of treating the 
 problem would be to establish a federal parliament in which the 
 people of Great Britain, Canada and Australia would be repre- 
 sented and which would have control over imperial affairs. 
 This suggestion has been made by many prominent Englishmen, 
 notably by I^ord Brassey. It has not, however, obtained any 
 great amount of support in either Canada or Australia and the 
 reason for this lack of support is important in our present 
 investigation. If such a parliament were created, it would 
 have the war power and necessarily .would have the power of 
 taxation which the possession of the war power carries with it. 
 The representatives from the British islands would outnumber 
 the representatives from Canada and Australia in the ratio of 
 about four to one, and therefore these two colonies would be in 
 the position of giving to the British a practically unlimited 
 power of taxation over them. There would, in fact, be little 
 difference between giving the right of taxation to such an 
 imperial body and giving it to the British parliament as at 
 present constituted. 
 
 Nor have the British statesmen been able to find any 
 escape from this deadlock. The English cannot be expected to 
 give to the Canadians and Australians representation in an 
 imperial body unless they bear their share of imperial expenses, 
 and there seems to be very little probability that either the 
 Canadians or the Australians will ever consent to share that 
 
burden pro rata. Whether their position be or be not just, it 
 is not for an American to say, as it is ahnost identical with that 
 of the Americans of the pre-revolutionary period. The funda- 
 mental difficulty, however, is simply a question of money. 
 
 But if federation is impossible, what is the alterna- 
 tive ? Apparently the alternative is nothing less than disinteg- 
 ration. The tendency is clearly marked. Almost every year 
 some strand which connects the mother country with Canada is 
 cut. The power of Parliament to legislate for either Canada or 
 Australia is a mere form. The red-coats have gone and the 
 military defence of Canada is practically in the hands of its own 
 people. Canadian and Australian navies seem to be a possibility 
 of the near future. The treaty making power has been demanded 
 by the Canadians and apparently is being gradually acquired. 
 Canadian representatives have just completed tariff negotiations 
 with the French government under an authorization from the 
 Crown. A representative of Canada has recently been to Tokio 
 to take up directly with the Japanese government the matter of 
 Japanese immigration. Treaties of alliance with the mother 
 country are being seriously proposed. Practical independence 
 has already been acquired, and any untoward accident might 
 add the form to the substance. 
 
 Now, I suppose that, as I am an American, I am expected 
 to view this result with complacency, if not with satisfaction. 
 In each individual step, the Canadians are clearly right. Yet 
 when one who is proud of the achievements of his race reflects 
 upon the ultimate result, he is forced to ask himself whether 
 the English-speaking people are not standing on the verge of a 
 disruption similar to that of the Spanish-speaking people who 
 once constituted one of the world's greatest empires, but at the 
 present time, although they are represented on three continents, 
 and number nearly fifty millions, are of inconsiderable import- 
 ance. I certainly am not one to look upon such a result with 
 equanimity, especially as the problem now confronting the 
 English-speaking people admits of a natural and complete 
 solution. 
 
 Eet me point out that if, in addition to Great Britain, 
 Canada and Australia, we include the United States in the 
 
scheme of federation, the fundamental difficulty in federating- 
 the British nations entirely disappears. The wealth and popula- 
 tion of the United States are so vast that its proportion of the 
 debt burden and of the military expenses of the reunited nations 
 would be assumed not only without effort but without notice, 
 and after the United States and Great Britain had each assumed 
 its proportion, the amount to be taken up by Canada and 
 Australia would be trivial. Certainly it would not be more 
 than a fair equivalent for the additional privileges and oppor- 
 tunities conferred. Thus the mother country would be relieved 
 of a large portion of its burden, which in right and justice be- 
 long to the whole of the race and should not be imposed upon 
 her alone. 
 
 Can the United States be brought in ? Has the English- 
 speaking people as a whole that sense of racial unity, that 
 inward sense of a common interest and a common destiny which 
 will impel them to overlook minor points of variance, to sink 
 minor differences of opinion, in order that all the several parts 
 may act as one ? 
 
 If that question had been asked five years ago, it would 
 have had to be answered in the negative. Prior to the Russo- 
 Japanese war, the forces of disintegration in the English-speaking 
 world had attained their maximum. But since that war the 
 centrifugal forces have been combated bj^ a force centripetal in 
 its nature, and that is the renewal of the ancient and eternal 
 conflict between the European and the Asiatic. Since Charles 
 Martel in the eighth century hammered the army of the Saracens 
 and drove it southward into Spain; since Ghengis Khan and his 
 Tartar- Mongol horde in the thirteenth century ravaged eastern 
 Europe as far as the Volga, and in all western Europe, even in 
 Britain, the people gave themselves to fasting and appealed to 
 God as their only salvation from the scourge against which all 
 human means seemed powerless; since Sobieski and his Poles in 
 the seventeenth century hurled back across the Danube the ad- 
 vancing Turkish host, men of European race have never been 
 called upon until now to face the possibility of racial conflict 
 with a highly organized and efficient Asiatic empire. The 
 boundary between the white European and the yellow Asiatic 
 
seemed fixed. The Ottoman empire, which bore the brunt of 
 the conflict, worn by the incessant warfare of the Crusades and 
 temperamentally unfit to wield the mechanical devices of modern 
 war, no longer inspired terror. After centuries of struggle, the 
 races had apparently reached an equilibrium. Now, however, 
 the European, having crossed the Atlantic and populated the 
 seaboard of the North American continent, having swarmed over 
 the Appalachians and up the St. lyawrence, across the 
 fertile basins of the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Saskatche- 
 wan, stands upon the loftiest pinnacles of the Rockies, and gaz- 
 ing across that vast expanse M^hich stretches to the setting 
 sun, contemplates wdth instinctive apprehension the seething 
 multitudes of Asia. Time was when the European comforted 
 himself with the idea that the yellow and brown men were 
 inherently incapable of contending with the white man in battle ; 
 but that idea has been forever dispelled by the Russo-Japanese 
 war. Nor is the awakening of the Orient confined to the Japan- 
 ese. The Chinese also have awakened from their sleep of 
 centuries. The warlike races of India are asking themselves 
 whether the continuance of the British raj is wholly a matter of 
 destiny; and as we today face forty millions of Japs whose mili- 
 tary prowess twenty-five years ago was despised, so twenty-five 
 years from now our statesmen may be called upon to deal with 
 four hundred million Chinamen who have been likewise trans- 
 formed. Already the economic struggle becomes acute. When' 
 the anti-Japanese riots first occurred in San Francisco, they were 
 condemned, especially by the British press, as the acts of a tur- 
 bulent mob inflamed by an unworthy race hatred. The subse- 
 quent riots at Vancouver were explained in the same way; but 
 the obvious danger to the British empire arising from racial 
 difliculties not only in British Columbia where they exist in 
 acute form but also in Australia and the South African colonies, 
 has forced the critics to discard this superficial estimate and to 
 accord to these riots their philosophical and historical importance. 
 They are not merely the acts of a turbulent mob. They are the 
 symptoms of racial contest, as yet a contest only economic in its 
 nature, but which may at any moment necessitate a recourse to 
 the arbitrament of arms. It is the obvious determination of the 
 
Americans, whether north or south of the line, whether justly 
 or unjustl}^, to preserve the North American continent for the 
 white man ; but we are forced to contemplate the time in the 
 near future when their right to exclude the yellow and brown 
 men from one of the most fertile portions of the earth's surface 
 will be challenged by a united Asia. 
 
 Such a result will not be wholly a misfortune. It is said 
 by historians that the American Revolution would never have 
 taken place if it had not been for the conquest of Canada by the 
 British, the reason being that the fear of France would have 
 kept the colonists loyal and made them seek redress of their 
 grievances by peaceful means instead of by force of arms. If 
 that be so, then the unity which was destroyed by removing the 
 pressure of France may be restored by the pressure of Asia. 
 
 I think there can be no difference of opinion as to the 
 abstract question of reuniting the English-speaking people. Is 
 the*e^'n fact, however, any practicable basis upon which such a 
 reunion could be founded ? It is certainly a large problem ; 
 but 'it could be readily solved by a further extension of the 
 federal principle which has worked so successfully in the 
 United States. As is well ]j;tiQwn;vfeach state in the Union is in 
 theory sovereign withiii ils sphere* having entire control of its 
 own local affairs, and the national government has jurisdiction 
 only of those subjects which are national in their nature. If a 
 similar plan were applied to a federation of all the English- 
 speaking nations, a new imperial government could be created 
 with Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia as 
 states. The powers which would be given to the central 
 government could be reduced to four : First, the war power, in- 
 cluding the control of the army and navy ; second, the control 
 of foreign relations ; third, jurisdiction over commerce with 
 foreign nations and between the various grand divisions of the 
 empire, and fourth, jurisdiction over dependencies such as 
 India, the Philippines, Egypt, the South African colonies and 
 all other possessions. With the exception of the enumerated 
 powers, each of these nations would have entire control over its 
 own local concerns. The United Kingdom would remain a 
 monarchy with an established church. The United States 
 
8 
 
 would remain a republic with no church establishment. Canada 
 and Australia could adopt any form of local government they 
 desired. There would be only one sine qua non, and that is, 
 that the new government should be republican in form. 
 
 So far as the Canadians are concerned, at present they have 
 nothing to say about the war power or the government of 
 dependencies and their participation in foreign affairs is 
 limited to such matters as concern Canada. Under the pro- 
 posed plan, they would have participation in all of these matters; 
 and while it might be argued that the representation would be 
 too small to' be of weight, it should be noticed that the popula- 
 tion of Canada may be expected to grow very rapidly, and also 
 that the position of each individual man and his opportunity for 
 a great career would be identical with that of every other man 
 in the empire. 
 
 If such an empire were formed, the achievements 3f the 
 Romans would be surpassed. There would be gathered under 
 one flag moie than five hundred million peorli, or about one- 
 thi d of the entire population of the globe. The territory would 
 comprise over sixteen million square miles, or nearly one-third 
 of the total land area. The federation would spread to the utter- 
 most ends of the earth the civilization and the standards in 
 which we believe. It would place the English-speaking empire 
 for all time upon a plane higher than the mightiest empires of 
 the ancient world. It would assure the triumph of law and the 
 reign of peace for generations to come. Let us then cherish the 
 hope that the two great English-speaking nations will bury the 
 feud which has divided them for more than a century ; that they 
 will recognize not only the advisability but the necessity for 
 united action, and that in the near future, while many of us in 
 this room are still young, the banners of a reunited nation may 
 float from the towers of Westminster. 
 
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