Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1881-10-27
ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
A Tender Tribute to the Common.
wealth OF English-Speaking Peo-

NNyb "HCu L<uBlduu duu AIu6TlCd
stand as moWners by the grave of
President Garfield, we may venture to
hope that the bitter memories and the
dividing animosities engendered by the
Revolutionary war of last century
have finally died away. Never since
the Declaration of Independence have
the two great English speaking na-
tons been so united in sentiment as
they are today; never in the history of
the world has an event apparently so
slight served to demonstrate a SYM
pathy and an affection so deep as that
which has been revealed by the presi-
dents death. For a hundred years
England has had to pay the penalty of
the folly of her obstinate monarch ; but
at last it would appear that the expia.
ton is complete, and in sentiment the
old country and the new are united by
ties as deep, as tender, and as strong,
as If the tea had never been thrown in
to Boston harbor, and the echoes of
the Concord fight had never reverberat-
ed round the world. The time there
fore seems to have fully come when
both nations will do well to consider
whether it would not be right and ex-
pedient that the reapproachments so
happily accomplished between the peo-
pies should now be accompanies by a
corresponding change in the re lions
or the governments, and that En- md
and America, already one in 81. it,
should be united more closely in -
litical sense. There is United King
dom and the United States; but The
union of English-speaking people, vast
enough to include both the mother
country and all the commonwealth
with which she has strewn the world,
has still to be achieved.
No sane man on this side the Allan
tic desires to undo the work of Wash.
ington and the other heroes of the
Revolutionary war. Even those in
whom imperial instincts" swell most
largely would resolutely refuse, even if
it were urgently rendered, the sover-
eighty of the United States. The
grown man does not return to his
cradle, and America has long since at
tanned maturity which would render
grotesque the idea of a return to the
nursery of nations. 1t would be Just
as reasonable that the United King
dom should seek admission into the
federal union of the American states
as that the United States should be
subordinated in any way, no matter
how nominal, to the sceptre of our
sovereign. Nor would any wise man
seek to multiply the points of friction
between two nations. Gobden's say
ing that international good feeling was
best secured by a maximum of inter-
course between the peoples and mini
mum of communications between their
rulers, contains much sound sense; and
any political union that involved the
slightest interference on the part of
one government in the affairs of the
other should be ipso facto ruled out of
court. But it may not be impossible
to give some visible and tangible
shape to the real but invisible union
between England and America, the
evidence of which this day ir-
radiates with new hope the hearts
of the mourners, who in two continents
attend in spirit the funeral of the
murdered president. If James Gar
field had been ruler of the British em-
pire, he could not have been more sim
] cerely mourned by Englishmen, and
there have been many rulers of the
British empire whose decease has
failed to awaken ene-tenth part of the
keen and lively sympathy which has
found expression on this occasion.
Nor is it true. to say that the impulse
which closes our exchanges this after.
noon is mere sentimentalism which
is certain to disappear like the mist of
the morning. The stock exchange is
not exactly the chosen home of senti.
ment, nor could any mere passing gust
have stirred to the depths people SC
reserved as ours. This outburst of
brotherly feeling-no one calls the
Americans cousins" now-is but the
outcome of long process which is now
nearly complete. The death of Abra.
ham Lincoln began the work; the death
of James Garfield crowns it. Year by
year the ties between the two peoples
have been silently multiplying before
our eyes. The great ocean ferry ha:
so bridged the Atlantic with its innu
merable steamers that a ceaseless
stream of passengers cross and recros:
between the sides of "the ditch" anC
feel equally at home on both. English
looms were always supplied from
America; but it is only within the las
few years that England has began +,
! be fed from the prairies of the west
Our home farm is but of small exten
compared with the broad acres whicl
are cultivated for us by men of Englisl
r birth across the Atlantic. Never il
) the history of mankind have tw
, nations of common origin, laws, liters
? ture, and language, had so many inter
ests in common and been so closely an,
J mutually dependent, without aspirin
: to convert into political reality tn
) union which bends them into one.
3 When we asked what closer politics
: tie can be forged than those which a
e ready exist, we may reply by askin
what political tie may be establishe
between Canada, Australia, and Sout
E Africa when they attain their maiorit
and are no longer content to accept
governor nominated in Londsn, or t
refer their disputes to the abitrament O
a colonial minister, who is often ignol
3 ant of their history, and almost alway
? imperfectly informed as to the facts O
: which he has to decide? No one Wi
J deny that time viii come when thes
colonies will aspire to complete indie
, pendence; but it is equally indispui
Z able that no Englishman can regar
such an eventuality without the deer
, est feelings of regret and sorrow if tn
Seeding commonwealth which W
+ have planted all over tn
3 world should, on attaining thei
independence. not maintain som
{ connection with the motherlan
r across the seas. Empire in the oil
sense of the word is impossible. Gu
D colonies already are all but emanc
1 rnokn1 Aw.ovr, H. A..2