Work out your own salvation; The outer world is rife Work out your own salvation; Within your Temple door With jaws hard-set and snarl of teeth, See money-changers drunk with greed, In biting lust of strife; For you the lowlier, higher aim, To raise the prostrate Life. Work out your own salvation; Away with childish toys, The baubles of a blighted past- The mimicry of boys; With thirst of hell-for more; Of old, the Master scourged their kind— Work out your own salvation; Would ye the words "Well done?" Choose ye, and soon, if bloodless be The Strife ere now begun ; Sound ye, and high, the Human note, When Right shall reign and Manbe free, Above this jangling noise. Work out your own salvation; Would ye your aim be true? To make Him free and free indeed, Work out your own salvation;' See that your slaves be freed; Be turned not from your lead. Work out your own salvation; The suffering ones-from greed; Then will your goal be won. Work out your own salvation, With fellowship and cheer, Greet ye, and hold it dear; Work out your own salvation; Too boastfully denied; Work out your own salvation Ye, in the van alone, Work out your own salvation, Your duty of the hour; Feed your own soil that it foreguard D THE UNITED NATIONS AN IDEAL WORTH LABORING FOR BY J. BRAILSFORD BRIGHT URING the last few years the two great English-speaking nations have made a grand discovery. They have discovered that they can't do without each other, that their future destinies are of necessity bound up together. The process of this discovery may not have commencedpractically speaking, it hardly did commence-before the opening of the new Far Eastern question by German and Russian annexation; but since then it has made very rapid progress, and may now be regarded as an achieved fact. The artificial Anglophobic fury into which Mr. Bryan and some of his party recently lashed themselves, is one of those exceptions which prove the rule. Had not President McKinley's outgoing Government earned the almost universal respect and moral support of the British nation, and thus brought into evidence the entente fraternelle subsisting between two great branches of the same general race, there would assuredly have been no attempt on the part of the Bryanites to work up an anti-British boom. Putting sentiment due to kinship aside (although this exists in abundance, of sterling quality to oil the wheels), America has come to the conclusion that friendly relations with the old country do pay, and that some of her largest interests, in the East especially, are promoted by hearty cooperation with her. This opinion and this good feeling are thoroughly reciprocated on the British side. Uncle Sam's first friendly advances may be said to have been returned with interest when Cousin John put his foot down upon the European movement for intervention in favor of Spain. Moreover, in the warm assurances of sympathy and good will -aye, if and when necessary, of still more active and material support-which Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen kept pouring in upon their American kinsfolk during that campaign, they were joined and supported by members of the younger broods, Canadians, Australians, and other colonials. During the South African trouble, not yet ended, Americans have in many instances given substantial proof of the famous saying that "blood is thicker than water," although, perhaps, there was not such strong reason to expect it in this case, a good deal of Dutch blood also running in North American veins-it may be added, in those of many British families, also! As to the Fenian gang, well, really, their peculiar little manœuvres don't count for much either way. That this growth of friendly feeling tends toward the establishment of still closer ties in the future, few will be inclined to doubt. For, indeed, neither nation could afford to see the power of the other crushed, or even greatly diminished. Besides community of language and institutions, and partial community of race, they have other important features in common. Since their last little "brush" together in 1812, they have been pursuing toward the rest of the world (and especially during this latter half of the century) a very similar policy-exclusive, self-isolating, sometimes perhaps repellent. Both have become objects of foreign jealousy from their very prosperity. In Continental Europe each has to face the animosity, which may any day be converted into active hostility, of powerful opponents, while neither has any really powerful ally but the other to count upon in the event of two or more of these opponents combining against her. Japan is a possible exception, but available only, or chiefly, in Far Eastern campaigns. Germany, whose temporary political liaisons must still be considered to be based upon the strict old Bismarckian principle of do ut des, is not a reliable quantity: she is a somewhat expensive ally at the best, with "no damned sentiment" about her. The newly-born consciousness, on both sides of the Atlantic, of these serious facts, this common danger, is, probably, even more than a newly warmed-up family feeling or anything else, the true cause of those welcome symptoms of rapprochement between the two nations which we note at the opening of a new century. In what way, then, and by what means can the present tendency to closer relationship between the two countries be turned to the best account? For the present, surely, our chief aim should be to revive for both nations all those advantages of the old colonial ties which were lost by the political severance that took place at the end of the eighteenth century, while retaining for both-pooling, in other words, so far as possible-all those other advantages which have accrued to each of them during their subsequent careers as independent nations. Thus, in their relations with each other a permanent Court of Arbitration should for the future render diplomatic or armed conflicts utterly impossible, while in their relations with the outside world they should henceforth, by means of a well-concerted foreign policy, show themselves on all occasions solidaires. The privileges of citizenship in either empire should be more quickly and readily exchanged than is possible under the present naturalization laws. Thus, so long as British India, Burmah, and the Crown colonies continue to be administered chiefly by men of our race, Americans should find no more difficulty than Britons or Colonials in entering the civil and military services there. For Briton and British Colonials there should be reciprocal openings in the United States, Alaska, Cuba, and all the present and future American possessions. As soon as inconsistent commercial treaties with other countries expire, or can be modified or abrogated, the two nations, the Indian Empire, and the colonial groups should be commercially federated in a Zollverein, or Customs Union; such a Union, as the tables of imports and exports indicate, would be practically a self-sufficient economic world. (This cannot be said of the British Empire alone.) Other elements of political and economic unification, or copartnership, would be added one after another, such as the assimilation of the currencies of the three empires, a joint committee, followed by joint legislation, for the control of emigration, immigration, and intermigration, and perhaps experiments in the joint administration of the Arctic territories (including the Alaskan and contiguous Canadian districts, which are now causing such a lot of pother), of the American and British West Indies, of the Nicaraguan Canal, if constructed, and of any other possessions or interests in which both nationalities are much concerned. It is not intended, however, in this article to lay much stress upon the order or importance of each particular element of the problem or to lay down the law in any way. The hardest nuts to crack will probably be those which concern questions of joint military and naval organization, questions of diplomatic relations with other countries, and, finally, questions of "allegiance" and "suzerainty." The first and most necessary object, which, when secured, will provide a secure foundation upon which to build the others, is undoubtedly the treaty of arbitration and the constitu-. tion of a permanent tribunal. To work effectively for this and all that should follow it, it would be well for all persons on both sides of the Atlantic who have the cause of AngloAmerican peace and closer relationship sincerely at heart to band themselves together into a comprehensive organization. Such organization might be named the Pan-Anglican, Pan Britannic, or, better, perhaps, the United Nations League. The following might be a statement of its broad and general objects: |