2 Old thoughts, old memories of days gone Suppose that it were told some summer's by, Lift their dead faces from the shroud of years, eve, Told in some town that looks upon the sea, And crowd my path, to-night-I know Told by sure token all men must be From The Contemporary Review. 1920. Intelligent foreign critics think that a leading characteristic of our race-including the various branches of the widespread British Empire, and our great offshoot the United States-is an undue absorption in the concrete realities of the present and an indifference to the ideal and the future. This, if true, seems to be due to the predominance of the heavy Saxon element in our blood, with its devotion to the material and the practical. Under modern conditions, wherein the energies of the whole race are so largely devoted to the pursuit of wealth, this factor seems to be steadily gaining ground on the more enthusiastic and ideal elements inspired into our forefathers by their infusion of Celtic and Scandinavian or Norman blood. However this may be, our statesmen and politicians have undoubtedly a tendency to a somewhat narrow and time-serving dealing with the pressing questions of the moment, and to the postponement of all questions not immediately pressing. real account in the world, two worldrulers of the future, namely, the Anglians or Anglo-Saxons and the Slavs. The natural and apparently inevitable progress of these two races seems bound to dwarf all the other races into comparative insignificance. The British Empire comprises at present about eleven and a half millions of square miles of territory, or more than one-fifth of the total land surface of the globe. If the Polar regions be omitted, we claim about one quarter of the habitable land surface of the globe. The only power which can compare with us is Russia, with her eight million six hundred and sixty thousand square miles, or abou another one-sixth of the land surface of the globe. Adding together the territories of the British Empire and United States, we arrive at a total for the English-speaking race of fifteen millions of square miles. If we again exclude the Polar regions as a Noman's land, then the Anglo-Saxon race owns about one-third of all the rest. In this, the lion's share of the world, is also comprised a very liberal corresponding proportion of the world's riches, including every element of potential power. Turning next to the all-important question of population, and confining our view to a few leading races, the Anglian or English-speaking race with their subjects, if anything like the present rate of progress is to be maintained, will lead in less than thirty It seems, therefore, very desirable that we should from time to time fall back upon first principles, and look at our present position, not in the light of the transitory political exigencies of the moment, but in that of the broad facts and fixed landmarks of modern progress, as guiding us to a reasonable forecast of the future. It is proposed here to review a few of the fundamental conditions and manifest ten-years' time with a probable populadencies of our present position with the conclusions directly deducible from them. The most important fact of the present situation, which should apparently largely guide us in shaping our general line of policy for a generation to come, is, that as things are now steadily tending, and barring extraordinary contingencies, in less than thirty years' time, that is not in some remote and intangible future, but well within the lifetime of the younger members of the present generation, there will be only two races left of any tion of between six hundred and seven hundred millions. Of these, about one hundred and eighty millions, if our estimates should prove near the mark, or allowing a very wide margin for possible error, say between one hundred and fifty and two hundred millions will be white or Anglo-American. Herein are included a large number of naturalized Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Austrians, and other European races. These will probably have melted down with, and be nationally undistinguishable from, the English or American born citizens. |