72 QUEEN'S QUARTERLY. 



fraternal relations with the essentially English Republic. That they 

 would do so — Great Britain newly, Australia newly, Canada newly — 

 seems to me as plain as anything in the imagined future can be. The 

 Republic, finding itself newly and fraternally looked to by each of 

 the British English countries, would be essentially in the pan-Angli- 

 can Union. 



On the other hand, if we monarchial English (and I am as con- 

 vinced as you can be of the merits of the British sort of monarchy), 

 take a centralizationist turn backward, we shall be clamped together 

 (temporarily) in a very clumsy political machine, one vastly more 

 clumsy than we have now evolved, and one unsuitable for dealing 

 with the Republic. The imagined centralized empire would be em- 

 barrassed, in all manner of dealing with foreign powers, not by the 

 dominance of the single-hearted London Government — one very 

 complaisant to the separate, individual wishes and interests of " the 

 overseas Dominions " — but by the dominance of a distracted govern- 

 ment, one bound to try to represent each and every constituent, one 

 most unlikely to be enabled to represent any of them satisfactorily. 

 Fancy Canada having a " say " and vote on Australia's obvious de- 

 sire to be on fraternal terms with the United States ! Or Australia 

 in a position to " buck " against some proposed Canadian arrange- 

 ment with Washington ! Canada is now badly " out " with New- 

 foundland — why? Because Canada meddled injuriously against 

 Newfoundland's proper liberty to make special trade and fishery 

 arrangements with the United States. Similarly all the countries of 

 any federated British Union might fall out. 



The federated machine could not work. If it did not speedily 

 break down by deadlock or paralysis, its effect would probably be to 

 bring us all into loggerheads with other powers, and especially into 

 quarrel with the Republic. For the " central truth " of the pan- 

 Anglican situation is that the British English communities, including 

 the United Kingdom, simply have to, and in fact do now, look indi- 

 vidually to the American-English community, the Republic, for 

 countenance, friendship, backing, profit, alliance. They should get 

 freedom to bargain and deal separately with the Republic, even as 

 they are now almost absolutely free to bargain and deal separately 

 with the United Kingdom and with one another. They can never 

 well deal collectively with the Republic because their individual in- 

 terests are widely diverse. 



In short, the Republic is a leading English country. This comes 

 not only because the bulk of the Englishry of the world are already 



