The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-07

representation as those we now enjoy.
 In that case, moreover. We might nov
 be sending our Premier to London, and
 instead of celebrating the birth Of our
 national independence be sharing in the
 framing of traEscendent federal polity
 for a far greater self-ruling Britain
 than at presents exists.
 We do net share in the aspirations in-
 vOlved in such doubts and visions. but
 state them here and now because it seems to us that they help to bring into
 full relief the real service that America
 has done for the world. particularly for
 what is called the Anglo-SaXon world.
 It is our belief that just because or
 largely because Americans established
 an independent federal nation over a century ago. not only this country, but
 self-ruling Britain, are what they are.
 There is not security for the convic-
 tion that federo-r representative princi-
 pies would have spread so fast or so far over British dominions if the example of this republic had not first shown
 what is possible for large sections of
 the English-speaking people. Americans
 freely acknowledge all they owe to
 English institutions; to their colonial
 training in representative government
 to the spirit of the grand old Whlg
 party; but they feel that they, in re- turn, have contributed something to the
 glory of Greater Britain. In many re-
 spects the old Dutch Republic of the
 Netherlands is to be regarded as the
 prototype of the United States; from
 various Teutonic sources Americans in-
 herited the genius which made cur
 Union possible: and it may even be that
 we learned something from our prede- cessors. the Indiana. We are, like St.
 Paul, debtors to both Greek and Bar barian, if we care to trace our debt with care. And what renders the American Revolution the more signifi- cant is that it was not racial war.
 Taken as whole the colonists were of English extraction; and, like the Eng fish themselves, of substantially Teu- tonic extraction. It was war for
 purely political rights, and in giving birth to the Declaration of Tndepend- ence it also gave birth to the possibility,
 almost to the necessity, of such a po-
 litical experiment as that whose con
 summation is so simply defined in our
 Constitution.
 In other words, our national experi- ment is a practically original one. And without here analysing the striking specialties of our polity, it may be said that our example came none too soon, and that independence was condition precedent for the free illustration of our general federal polity. Canada was then in her infancy. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, as British colo nies, were yet to be. Had we waited for the doctrines of Pitt to become ascendant. had we yielded to despotism we might-such is the momentum of castiron rule-have waited for a Clad stone. Meantime, our obedience would have reacted on England herself and on the future of her other colonies, not to mention the future of that great America south of us. Perhaps there would have come no Gladstone or any of his ilk during the century. This may be an exaggeration, but one can not absolutely know. Certainly, how ever no British statesman at home could have done that for the future of colonial government which our example did. Our successful independence broke
 the spell of Toryism and made the home Government wise in time.--From the Boston Transcript.