A. J. P. Taylor wrote this memorable passage in English History, 1914-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970):
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 for ever 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 £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent. of the national income. … broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.
Comment: In 2011, one can only dream of such a limited state.
I'd love to say this passage is accurate, but I have doubts. England had a welfare system in the Poor Laws, and at times large segments of the population were receiving handouts.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Poor Laws were administered by each parish, and not by the national government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis probably IS accurate. The Englishmen could live freely and still have a bit of a welfare state. Just don't be unfortunate enough to live in Ireland or the rest of the empire... Someone has to pay for government excesses.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInteresting. All that, and the era had a very distinct concept of being English (not just a country, but culturally, and most of that in terms of literature and music), a more robust national Church, and little by way of identity-group immigration.
What is our "American" culture? Soulless technology? "Land of immigrants" who are disparate? Pioneers, from whom most of us (of any race) are not descended? Large military?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen I was growing up during the 1950s, it was understood that American “culture” was White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. We were cultural if not literal descendants of Scots and Northern Irish. We were Yankees, not in the sense of the Union against the Confederacy, but in the sense of thrifty, proud, self-sufficient Anglo-Saxons.
We were unapologetic about our accomplishments. But we were not xenophobes; those not Anglo-Saxon in heritage were welcome to join with us if they adapted to our ways.
There are many enemies of that American culture today. Those who would have the government control our money and our very lives are at the top of the list.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police."
Alas, I think that is still true...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo then, all is not lost?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo - not really - immigration rules do require it - now of course you could argue many don't abide by it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot all that different than the US. They used to say the only contact the average American had with the federal government was when he mailed a letter. Of course, British taxes were also a little higher than ours then.
We have lost a lot of freedom in the last 100 years as our lives have been taken over by the Federal monolith. Ah, but it was for our own good. (Yeah, right.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFat chance with the Obamas at the wheel to live freely with less government. Michelle-toned-arms now wants to eliminate children's desserts at public schools and replace them with fruit. If memory serves, sometimes that was all I felt like eating. Children will be thinner I guess, on this side of anorexic.
With the coming days of doom and gloom, and no money in the Obama "coffers" in the dungeon, I say, eat up! Pad those bones for the coming dust bowl famine.
Has Congress and/or Dear Feckless Leader considered the fact that in future months the price of food could possibly go even higher due to the drought? Grains are not growing well to feed the cows or the people, who are also not eating well (they are on Michelle Obama's diet). Probably we have given all of our grain reserves to foreign countries and those coffers of ours also are empty except for a grain of rice.
Here it is summer, and the search for the perfect non-genetically altered tomato. Florida should have some, right? However, local produce currently is from Canada. I can only think Florida produce must be in Quebec.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLove it or leave it!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI would quibble with his dates. From a Producer's point-of-view, the destruction of freedom commenced with the Factory Act of 1802, after which a sensible Englishman could not employ children for longer than 12 hours a day.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAfter all, how can any of us be really free if employers don't have the freedom to make children work more than 12 hours a day!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd from a Consumer's point of view, weren't there 19th century English laws about food purity, which diminished our freedom to buy disgusting comestibles at the market?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis often-quoted statement
'For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police.'
while heart-warming, is untrue. The UK had a variety of laws requiring aliens to register themselves and/or their movements with the state, dating back to Napoleonic times. No question that it was far easier for foreigners to enter and leave the UK at that time, but the suggestion that they could do so unrecorded is not true.
llater,
llamas
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusewhatever faults or disparities may have existed, it still sounds like a slice of heaven to me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIs there anywhere in the world today where one can find a similar level of freedom?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAfghanistan.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere was some significant risk of impressment into the Royal Navy, especially in port towns for men with some experience at sea.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo, there was no risk of being press ganged into Royal Navy.
That practice had ended more than a hundred years before 1914.
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