umber of
people in a certain direction, who will presently discover with a sort
of surprise the common object towards which they are all moving.

Already there are some interesting aspects of public activity that,
diverse though their aims may seem, do nevertheless serve to show the
possible line of development of this New Republic in the coming time.
For example, as a sort of preliminary sigh before the stirring of a
larger movement, there are various Anglo-American movements and leagues
to be noted. Associations for entertaining travelling samples of the
American leisure class in guaranteed English country houses, for
bringing them into momentary physical contact with real titled persons
at lunches and dinners, and for having them collectively lectured by
respectable English authors and divines, are no doubt trivial things
enough; but a snob sometimes shows how the wind blows better than a
serious man. The Empire may catch the American as the soldier caught the
Tartar. There is something very much more spacious than such things as
this, latent in both the British and the American mind, and observable,
for instance, in the altered tone of the Presses of both countries since
the Venezuela Message and the Spanish American War. Certain projects of
a much ampler sort have already been put forward. An interesting
proposal of an interchangeable citizenship, so that with a change of
domicile an Englishman should have the chance of becoming a citizen of
the United States, and an American a British citizen or a voter in an
autonomous British colony, for example, has been made. Such schemes
will, no doubt, become frequent, and will afford much scope for
discussion in both countries during the next decade or so.[47] The
American constitution and the British crown and constitution have to be
modified or shelved at some stage in this synthesis, and for certain
types of intelligence there could be no more attractive problem. Certain
curious changes in the colonial point of view will occur as these
discussions open out. The United States of America are rapidly taking,
or have already taken, the ascendency in the iron and steel and
electrical industries out of the hands of the British; they are
developing a far ampler and more thorough system of higher scientific
education than the British, and the spirit of efficiency percolating
from their more efficient businesses is probably higher in their public
services. These things render the