Great Britain and America
Great Britain and America is a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle published in The Daily Chronicle on 7 june 1893.
See also :
England and America
THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY CHRONICLE.
Sir, — If I venture to recur to this subject, it is because the letters in your columns seem to call for some answer. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I speak with all diffidence, and that I readily admit that my views cannot claim the weight which would attach to special knowledge or wide experience. Neither have they any pretensions to originality, for many on both sides of the Atlantic have come to the same conclusions. It seems to me that, if there is a lesson which is forced upon us by history, it is that community of blood is the one thing which can cement a great commonwealth together. It may take long in acting, but its ultimate effect is as fixed as fate. The Bavarian differs from the Prussian in temperament and religion, but this great race law has welded them together in spite of long centuries of jealousy and opposition. The Sardinian or Tuscan is a very different man to the Neapolitan, and every Italian city has a record of strife with its neighbours, yet all have been drawn together as irresistibly as the molecules of a salt coalesce to form a crystal. On the other hand geographical proximity goes for nothing. The few leagues between Belfast and Dublin represent a greater gap than lies between London and New York. Lower Canada is more French than France is, and her English-speaking neighbours have only intensified her national characteristics.
If we see this law in action in other countries, how can we avoid applying it to our. selves? Our race (for which Anglo-Saxon is a complete misnomer, for it is leavened through and through with the Celt) has spread itself over the earth's surface. At present it is divided into two main branches —the British and the American. Is that division to be eternal? We have seen that such divisions have been temporary in other cases. Why should ours be an exception? The points upon which we differ are trivial and transitory. Those which we hold in common are important and permanent. Common origin, a common language, common sympathies and views upon religion and morality, those are the ties which can never be snapped. It is obvious that to unduly force such a reunion would be to provoke a reaction against it upon both sides, and that to speak of it as an immediate possibility is visionary. It is a far off beacon, but not so distant that we cannot see it and steer for it.
As to the possibility of a military spirit being the outcome of such a reunion I could understand an American fearing that, for we have always been a pugnacious nation, but we have no reason to fear that a people who find 20,000 men sufficient for their standing army would lead us off upon a course of aggression. On the other hand, the immense latent resources of an Anglo-American commonwealth would be so formidable that the most powerful military nations would hesitate to attack it. This immunity from war would be one of the purposes for which Mr. Cuninghame Graham asks, and surely even from the ratepayer's point of view that is not to be despised. What Mr. Mall says is, of course, obviously true. But the objection to Home Rule would be largely removed if it were part of a general scheme, and not a dislocation by which Ireland is put on a different footing to her sister kingdoms. — Yours faithfully,
- A. CONAN DOYLE.
- 12, Tennison-road, South Norwood, June 6.
