THE KEY OF THE WORLD Upon the degree to which the two peoples may be at one or at odds the future of mankind evidently will depend more than upon any other political influence for generations to come. Since the days of the old exclusive "Anglo-Saxon" fallacy, suggesting a unity of race such as long since ceased to exist, exaggeration in the usual way has swung over to the other extreme. Of late years, it has become a fashion to emphasize and overcolour the modern contrasts between the mother-island and the United States.
It is fre quently said indeed that the American and British nations have become permanently "foreign" to each other. This vivacious para dox will not last. Not only is it as we have seen a sweeping falsi fication of history; but it is a distortion of relative values; and makes a part of the facts greater than the whole. You might as justly say that the German Reich and German Austria are foreign to each other. The essential characteristic of "foreignness" as between two peoples is that they are in the mass mutually unintel ligible. In the far end, a common language, whatever the original racial varieties of those who speak it, makes for common sympa thies. This very process made Great Britain itself. Those, for example, of German or Italian descent amongst the citizens of the United States have every claim to be proud of their derivation and to feel with their races on the other side. But those mainly of British descent, the largest and strongest element in North America, are assuredly not less qualified to be proud of their names and origin ; and to say with Wordsworth : ". . . we are sprung Of earth's best blood, have titles manifold." Theirs is the main blood of the makers of America. From them came the foundations, the framework, the Constitution and the laws, no less than the very language, without which, and its absorb ing influences, the unity of the American nation itself, despite all its modern mingling of nations, could by no possibility have been preserved.
In America as in Britain, English will continue to be the language of life, of publication, of educa tion. Numberless little usages of words and phrases, peculiar to one side or the other cannot alter this movement. An English artisan picks it all up very rapidly after landing in the United States. To-day as formerly, American literature at its best often prefers to show an English style of fastidious purity, yet vital, untouched by imitative pedantry. The English-speakers of any of I the sea-spread communities can enter anywhere into full private intercourse at once. They can read at once each others' books and newspapers. Between the masses of any truly "foreign" nations none of this is possible. There is far more community than "for eignness" in the English-speaking world. Modern invention as it increases all the facilities for intercourse and knits new practical ties of all kinds tends to increase that community. Despite the breadth of the ocean there are countless private friendships be tween American and British individuals. Between many of them indeed, it is "the genius of friendship." This Hope, or None.—For over a hundred years all pessimistic or interested expectations of a breach between the two peoples have been frustrated. They have eliminated many worse causes of friction than any recently arisen. They have settled amicably maritime broils, fishery disputes, boundary disputes. The poison has been extracted from the old sting of the Irish question. Now, their further and lasting agreement is indispensable to the other great hopes of mankind. If Britain and America with the same great mother-tongue in common, with so many similarities in democratic institutions and social ideas, with all their practical ties and human intimacies—if these two proved unable to set an unbreakable example of good understanding, there could be no rational hope that other nations truly and completely "foreign" to each other would appease their feuds and learn instead to live in creative harmony. With their numbers, their prospects of fur ther growth, their command in effect of nearly half the earth's surface and more than half its resources at present available, with their power over all the seas—the English-speaking peoples, and these alone, have in their hands for good or evil the key of the world's destinies. By discord pushed to the worst they could bring about universal chaos followed by a new Dark Age such as some thinkers in continental Europe imagine. By concord they can ensure by degrees disarmament, mediated settlements, and peace for long generations, perhaps for ever. Their past has been very great, but if—as the signs on the whole strongly promise—they are true to the duties of their opportunities the greatest epochs of their history are yet to come. (J. L. G.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-See references at end of articles on GREAT BRITAIN, Bibliography.-See references at end of articles on GREAT BRITAIN, BRITISH EMPIRE, the different British Dominions, and the UNITED STATES. See also John Fiske, Beginnings of New England 0889), The American Revolution (2 vols., 1891), Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America (1899) and New France and New England (1902) ; C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies (end ed., R. E. Stubbs, 1925) ; G. A. T. O'Brien, Economic History of Ireland in the r8th Century (1918) ; J. O'Connor, History of Ireland, 1798-1924 (1925) ; C. A. Beard and M. R. Beard, The Rise of American Civiliza tion (1927) ; also The Cambridge Modern History, especially vol. vii.; and articles "Auswanderung" and "Bevolkerungswesen" in Hand worterbuch der StaatswisseWschaften (8 vols., Jena, 1924)•
