Jul

25

A marvelous passage from A.J.P. Taylor’s English History; 1914-1945? :

Until August 1914 a sensible law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country forever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police.

Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so.’

‘The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale; nearly $400 million in
1913-14, or rather less than 8% of the national income. The state intervened
to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries, from working excessive hours. The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers againstsickness or unemployment.’

‘This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted ony to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.’

‘All this changed by the impact of the Great War.’


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4 Comments so far

  1. arthur on July 25, 2011 4:05 pm

    Thanks for this. I didn’t know it.

  2. Dan Costin on July 25, 2011 4:57 pm

    Too bad the poor Englishman in 1914 lived a life that could be described as nasty, brutish and short. His life expectancy was below the actual age of a great proportion of the writers of these freedom-loving posts. No national healthcare of any kind meant nasty teeth, no vaccination, no check-ups, nothing until he coughed up blood, and then still not much. An ability to trade freely meant that he had possibly been fired from the textile mills and knew what starvation meant. The common good was something he read about, a dream for his grandchildren in the bright future that awaited humanity. Ha. No wonder so many people thought Communism must be the answer.

  3. arthur on July 27, 2011 6:59 pm

    Dan, excellent point. But Brits to this day have horrendous teeth :) . Communism/Socialism is not the answer. Truly educated population is, but that will mean automatic redistribution of wealth (so there is no way that is happening).

  4. douglas roberts dimick on July 29, 2011 3:38 am

    Some Days More Than Others…

    The government took over control of the railroads with a committee of managers in 1913, whereby it (the government) also guaranteed that year’s dividend…

    In principle, how is that government encroachment into the private sector any different that the recent bailout of the US financial system?

    The King of English nor Parliament could stand for having their friends and colleagues risk lost on their investment. Or was it the precursor of war?

    Will not the same be said a la post-crisis 2008?

    No doubt, as Dan alludes, the English class system was perverse in the context of social-economic justice, whereby Communism became appealing to some of those at the bottom rung and downtrodden. Five years in Communist China, I have come to understand how “the sins of capitalism” give birth to “the evils of communism” — look at the histories of the axis of evil today (China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam).

    Bad teeth…? Take survey of those four…

    dr

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