The Dominion. THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1918. THE FOURTH OF JULY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 245, 4 July 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1918. THE FOURTH OF JULY

It is a remarkable example of the changes that arc- brought about by the whirligig of. time that our King, with the whole-hearted approval of the''nation over which he rules, will to-day take part in a service of thanksgiving for the Declaration of Independence of the United States. But the change, after all, would only be surprising if we reverted to the obsolete and all but forgotten standpoints of the days when the American colonists under Washincjton took arms in defence of their liberties. The animosities of those days are-certainly forgotten, and what of their tradition remains alive serves -only to strengthen the tie which in this great crisis of the world's history and, as we hope, for a long future, unites the ß British Empire and the American Republic. "The thoughts of men are widened with the circuit of the sun." "New occasions teach new duties." The wisdom of the present can make atonement for the blunders of the past. Churches today glorify men whom the churches of a former day branded as heretics. It is perhaps a new thing for a British King to take part in a "Fourth of July" celebration, but from the light of the present his action is in accordance with tho fitness of things. Recent years have marked a growing friendliness between John Bull and Brother Jonathan. Before the war, proposals were made for an AngloAmerican Union. In tho iW«ekevtli, Century and After for September, 191.1, Mr. J. Elms Barker wrote:—"How completely Britain has forgotten the revolt of her colonies may be seen by the fact that Earl Grey proposed in 1913 to erect a statue of George Washington in Westminster Abbey among England's heroes, and to present Sulgravc Manor, the ancient family homo of the Washingtons in England, to the American nation." Today Britain and the United States stand shoulder to shoulder in fighting the enemy of , the human race, and a union ir national thanksgiving is natural and right. The fourth of July, _ 1776, marks an epoch in modern history. The United States is marked out from the ordinary run of. nations in having a definite birthday. On this fourth of July day, whicli Americans commemorate year by year and which we arc now able freely and in all good fellowship to join them in celebrating, the British colonies in North America

broke away from the Motherland and set iip an independent nation. They were goaded to do so by the injustice and folly, of George 111, a king of whom Green, the historian, writes:.—"ln ten years he reduced government to a shadow, and turned tne loyalty of his subjects into disaffection. In twenty years he forced the colonies of America into revolt and independence and brought England to the brink of ruin. .Work such as this has been done by very great men and often by very wicked and profligate men; but George was neither profligate nor great. He had a Binallor mind than any English King before him, save Jajies the Second. Nor had he the capacity for using greater minds than his own by which some Sovereigns have concealed their natural littleness. On the contrary his only feeling towards great men was one of jealousy and hate." The conditions wlyich arose out of the foolish and short-sighted policy of Kino George 111 and the events which followed cover a familiar page of history. On that page there is nothing to awaken bitterness in the hearts of Britons and Americans of this_ generation; there is much to fortify our respect for a nation which, to-day is manifestly destined to play a great part in the world's history.

This fourth of July finds the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack unfurled and intertwined in a common crusade. In recent years the celebrations of Independence Day have been robbed of their glory by folly and rowdyism. It has been computed that more people have been killed in these celebrations than were slain'during thWar of Independence. On this fourth of July the people will ee' back to the moral and politic' principles for which the day stands, and, realising the life and death, struggle they are engaged in, will resolve that, those principles shall w tho herita.ee of the world. The oromise has been made that 100,000 ;ons of new . shipping will Iγ munched to-day, and this is typical )f tho spirit in which America is vagingr war for the liberation of nimanity and of the mighty iw ources she is devoting to that noble iausc. An even more impressive sample appears to-day in the anlouncemcnt by President Wilson ■hat there arenow a million American soldiers in France, of whom !7G,000 were transported in June. \. detail here and there in -he Declaration of Independence drawn up by tho great Thomas Fbffekson) may be open for criticism, but its fundamental message if freedom and justice to all peoples R endorsed to-day by our King and Empire, and the common cclebra■ion is a public and impressive manifestation of this fact. These celebrations in common arc periaps the first step to a larger and closer union. They may "bo the leginning of a permanent partnerhip of people oi the same kith and :in in,the interest of the peace and rcedora of the world. The possilihtics of the Pan-Slav movement lave yet to be tested. The rooted letermination of the Allies is a cuarantcc that the- infamous Paujcrman scheme will end in disaster o its authors. But there is rich iromise for the whole world and not >nly lor the nations immediately concerned in the conception nf an \nglo-Saxon union—a union of jcoplcs who have the "samo ideals, he same laws, and the same tradi-j ions." A League of Nations may ie the international achievement if to-morrow, but it does not seem oo much to hope that the foundaions of an Anglo-Saxon union lave already been firmly laid. On mo occasion long ago, when Mon--IOE (of Monroe Doctrine fame) limed to Jefferson for advice, the Lgcd statesman who in his earlier lays had drawn up the Declaration if Independence, said:—".With ircub- Britain on our sides we need lot fear tho whole world." Mr. Bakker, quoted above, has said: — 'A British-American union devised or the protection of their possesions against foreign attack'should ie the most powerful instrument inaginablf, not only for protecting lie future peace of the Angloiaxona, hut also for protecting the >eace_ of tho world." Leading Americans, in the days before the rar, endorsed such a view, and one if the volumes of The American laidcmy of Political Science has tumorous such endorsements. Whitiki:, half a century ago, was in a ense the poet and the prophet of uch a union, for he sang:

0 Englishmen!—in hope and creed, In blood and tongue our brothers! We too are- heirs of Riinnymudcj And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed Are not alone our Mother's.

"Thicker than water," in one rill Through centuries of story "ill' Stixon blood has (lowed, and slill We share with you 1(3 gnod and ill, The shadow and the ""ry.