Meanwhile no vision of future Pan-Angle safety should blind anyone of us to his country's present needs. In the interim before federation, we must so strengthen each of our respective nations as best to weather the storm of adversity should it {223} burst upon us before co-operation is secured. Simultaneously with the recession to home waters of the British Isles fleet, the younger Britannic nations are taking appropriate steps to ensure their separate interests. This is an evidence that each recognizes danger. Each assumes that these defensive efforts are not induced by the fear of other Pan-Angles. This is no place to discuss the compulsory military service already established in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, nor to suggest that it would not be needed were Pan-Angle federation already an accomplished fact. Nor is this a suitable occasion to discuss the policies, strengths, or weaknesses of separate Britannic or Pan-Angle navies. America must be equal to the emergency of defending all Pan-Angles who would seek its protection if the British Isles fleet were to suffer a serious setback. Wisely, America and Canada waste no Pan-Angle funds in fortifications on their long boundary or in war vessels on the Great Lakes. But they should both maintain on salt water navies, which they can use for the joint interests of Pan-Angles. Canada and America may soon need to co-operate with Australasia in solving the problems of the Pacific.[223-1] Pan-Angle nations may severally make alliances with foreign powers for the purpose of protecting us all. One of them has already done so.[223-2] But peoples who are strong enough make no foreign alliances. As we work towards federation we must not be {224} discouraged at our slow rate of visible progress. For "slow thought is the ballast of a self-governing state."[224-1] The growth of the federal idea may be none the less vigorous because its fruitage appears long delayed. These pages abound with examples of the fact that we are slow to move politically. Were it otherwise, the autonomous nations of the Britannic world would long since have had representation in some common parliament, would have established a single final court of appeal, and a common citizenship; an overburdened British Parliament would no longer legislate on English municipal drainage, affairs of the dependencies, and questions of inter-Pan-Angle concern. As it is, the five younger Britannic nations, realizing tardily that the British navy no longer adequately protects them, have not as yet bestirred themselves to effect more cohesive and coherent political relations with each other, and between themselves and the British Isles. America, astride the Western Hemisphere, in her own estimation secure against invasion, is taken up with internal development, and but seldom, even since the last Pan-Angle war with Spain, looks out at the increasing pressure beyond her borders.