Читать книгу A Year in Europe - Walter W. Moore - Страница 13

Increasing Friendliness between America and England.

Speaking by and large, I believe that we like and trust the British people, and that they like and trust us. A marked change has come over the feelings of both peoples within the last quarter of a century. I remember well that when I was a boy, the school histories of the United States had the effect of making all the American boys hate the English. They were not informed that many of the English people, including some of their greatest statesmen, deprecated earnestly the oppressive acts of the British government which led to the American Revolution, and that now the people of Great Britain are practically unanimous in the opinion that their government was wrong, and the Americans right in that great conflict. If any reader doubts this, I beg leave to call his attention to some statements found in a pamphlet called "Pictures from England's Story," which I bought at a London news stand. It belongs to a series of such works called "Books for the Bairns," which are written by English authors for the instruction of English children, and which, though well printed, in clear, bold type, and copiously illustrated, are sold at the almost incredibly small price of one penny apiece.

How the English now View the American Revolution.

"Most of the pictures which you will find in this book are pictures of English victories, but there is one picture, and that one of the most significant of all, of an English defeat. This is the picture of the battle of Bunker's Hill, that was fought in America. I want you to take particular notice of that picture, because, although the English were defeated, it was much better for them to be defeated than it would have been for them to have been victorious. You will often be told that you must always be glad when your country is victorious, but that is not true, for justice and right are greater than your country. When your country fights against justice, and against right, and against liberty, it is fighting against God, and even if it succeeds for the time being, it will always suffer in the long run. In the war which began with the battle of Bunker's Hill, England was in the wrong. Every one admits that now, but at the time when it was fought, the King and his ministers, and most of the people of England, believed that they were in the right, because it was the cause of England, and England was the home of liberty, and it seemed to them quite absurd to think that the American farmers could have right on their side. But the American farmers were in the right. They were few, they were poor, they had no army, they had no king, and they had no parliament, and it seemed quite impossible to our forefathers of those days to think that such a small people could possibly stand up against the armies and the navies of Great Britain. But Great Britain was in the wrong. The Americans were the English people who had gone across the sea to make new homes for themselves in another country, where they could be free to govern themselves in their own way, without interference from the British government. They were good people, honest, hard-working, pious folk, who had carried with them across the sea the English love of liberty and self-government.

A Fair Statement of the Question and the Conflict.

"The English in England had been victorious in their war against France. They were governed by a German king, who was much less in sympathy with English ideas than were the Americans, and he believed, and the majority of the English in England agreed with him at the time that the Americans ought to be content to be governed by governors sent out from England, and should be willing to pay the taxes, which the English Parliament ordered them to pay. Now the English have always maintained that no king or government has a right to compel the people to pay any money for the support of the government unless the people consent to pay it. Taxation without representation is tyranny, and the Americans said, that as they had no voice in the election of the English Parliament, which made the taxes, they were not bound to pay them. The English said, that whether they liked it or not, the Americans must pay them. The Americans said they would not. The English said they would make them, and they sent an army to America to compel the Americans to pay the taxes, and to obey the King and Parliament. In doing this they were sinning against the first principle of English liberty, and the Americans took up arms to defend their liberty against the English soldiers. They met at Bunker's Hill, and, to the astonishment of every one, the undrilled farmers, who knew how to shoot, met and defeated the disciplined troops of England. England sent thousands upon thousands of men across the Atlantic; they defeated the Americans again and again; they burned their houses; they ravaged their country; they captured all their cities; but still the Americans went on fighting, because they were of the true English breed, and they would rather lose their lives than give up the independence of their country. They were not independent at first, they were British colonists; but when they found themselves attacked by the British, they declared their independence, and formed themselves into a republic, without a king, or a House of Lords, or an Established Church.

What England Learned from Fighting against her own Principles.

"The war went on for long years; it cost England a hundred millions of money, and thousands upon thousands of brave soldiers; but the English were fighting against their own English principles, which were defended by George Washington and the Americans with such bravery and heroism that at last the English, notwithstanding all their pride, and their wealth, and their power, had to give in, and own themselves beaten.... Fortunately, we were defeated, and from our defeat we learned a great lesson, which we did not forget for nearly a hundred years. That lesson is that it is impossible to govern a white, freedom-loving people except by their own consent. We took that lesson to heart so much that for nearly a hundred years we never again attempted to compel our colonists to do anything they did not want to do. We gave them freedom, and let them govern themselves upon the true English principles which George Washington fought for, and which George III. fought against. The British Empire, of which we are so proud to-day, exists because the principles of George III. were knocked on the head at the battle of Bunker's Hill, and in the long war which followed it.... The United States of America are now a great nation, which is more numerous and more powerful than Great Britain."

This candid and manly statement, made by an English author and published broadcast for the instruction of English children, is one of the most interesting things I have encountered in England, and I have thought it worth while to quote it here in the interests of a still better understanding between the two great nations of the same stock, and the same speech, and the same political ideals.

A slighter indication of the same English breadth of view in regard to this question was given by the good ladies who have charge of the pleasant boarding house, on Torrington Square, which we have made our home on all our visits to London, and who, on the morning of the Fourth of July, thought of it themselves, and had a tiny firecracker lying by the plate of each young American in our party when we came down to breakfast, besides other indications later in the day of their readiness, though themselves staunchly British, to enter sympathetically into the enthusiasm with which Americans celebrate the natal day of our nation.

A movement has been started in London to erect a statue of George Washington. It was decided that the subscriptions should be confined to British subjects. Archdeacon Sinclair, in submitting the plan to the (Puritan) Society, said:

"Englishmen have at last fully recognized the great qualities of Washington. I feel assured that nothing will be more popular in this country than such a tribute to that great man of English birth, who has done so much for the world's history, not only for the young nation across the sea, but for Great Britain as well."

Archdeacon Sinclair announced that he was authorized to offer a place for the statue in St. Paul's Cathedral.

But now I find that I have become so much interested in the statement of this reversal of British sentiment concerning the American struggle for independence, that I have left myself no space to speak of the burning question in England just now, in regard to which the government has taken a position, extraordinary as this may seem, which violates the same principles of liberty for which the Americans fought, and so I must reserve that for another letter.

P. S.—Since my return to America I have seen an interesting statement by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, of London, in regard to the steady increase of the pro-British feeling in the United States. He says that a book has just been published by an American barrister named Dos Passos, called The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People. This gentleman, although of Spanish origin, is of American birth, and his interest in the future of his own country had led him to examine that of ours. He believes that the twentieth century is to be the Anglo-Saxon century, even more than the nineteenth, and the conditions of an alliance, as advocated by him, are as follows:

1. The Dominion of Canada voluntarily to divide itself into such different States, geographically arranged, as its citizens desire, in proportion to population, and each State to be admitted as a full member of the American Union, in accordance with the conditions of the Constitution of the United States.

2. To establish common citizenship between all citizens of the United States and the British Empire.

3. To establish absolute freedom of commercial intercourse and relations between the countries involved, to the same extent as that which exists between the different States constituting the United States of America.

4. Great Britain and the United States to coin gold, silver, nickel, and copper money, not necessarily displaying the same devices or mottoes, but possessing the same money value, and interchangeable everywhere within the limits covered by the treaty, and to establish a uniform standard of weights and measures.

5. To provide for a proper and satisfactory arbitration tribunal to decide all questions which may arise under the treaty.

Much of this may seem chimerical and unsound, but there is certainly a feeling in this country which is influencing things in the direction of a better understanding, and a consciousness of a common destiny between the British Empire and the United States. In private one is constantly meeting with expressions of it, and I may as well add that nothing has caused me more surprise than this one fact. One frequently hears the hope expressed that a common citizenship may one day be possible without any interference with the constitution of either country. This is a new idea to me, and may be a fruitful one some day.