The Risee and Fall of England XIV. C. Carson

be placed in a broader context. England's decline occurred within the framework of the disintegra tion of the European order, a dis integration which had ramifica tions around the world. "To think," Kaiser Wilhelm la mented at the outbreak of World War I, "that George and Nicky should have played me false! If my grandmother had been alive, she would never have allowed it."! "George" was George V of Eng land, and "Nicky" was Nicholas II of Russia. "Grandmother" was, of course, Queen Victoria of Eng land. She was not only the Kaiser's grandmother but also Czar Nicholas' grandmother by marriage. Moreover, it was not 1 W.alter L. Arnstein, Britain: Yes terday and Today (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1966), p. 237. 205 206 THE FREEMAN April simply a felicitous phrase to re fer to her as "Grandmother of Europe."2 In view of the heavy tomes since written on the "causes" of World War I, his toriansare inclined to rate the Kaiser's remark as highly naive.

Yet, it should not be casually dismissed. Grandmother Victoria might not have prevented World War I, most likely could not have. But monarchy had provided bal ance and continuity for nations and empires between the Congress of Vienna and World War I - that century of peace. It had come generally to be limited monarchy in which the monarchs' powers for abuse were shorn but in which sufficient power was re tained to counterbalance legisla tures. Moreover, the intertwining of royal families by kinship and marriage did tend to make for good relations among the coun tries of Europe. The spirit of na tionalism had distinguished peo ples from peoples, but they were still linked to one another in royal families. The disintegration of the Euro pean order was twofold during or after World War I. On the one hand, monarchy was abandoned by maj or countries: Germany and Russia most notably. Secondly, the 2 See ibid., pp. 372-73 for a simplified chart of the relationship of Queen Vic toria to the other monarchs in Europe.

empires of Central and Eastern Europe were broken up: German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman. In their place, new na tions were brought into being and old ones revived: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Lat via, Lithuania, and so forth. New as well as old nations were highly nationalistic, jealous of one anoth er, and no longer generally linked with one another by royal fam ilies, though some monarchs were retained or restored. The New Mercantilism: Return to Self.Sufficiency The disintegration was both signaled and fostered by attempts of each country to become econom ically self-sufficient - by economic nationalism or neo-mercantilism, whatever term may be preferred. One history gives an example of this for one group of countries: As an expression of their sover eignty and independence each of the states in Danubian Europe erected its own tariff system .... In general the tariffs ascended in this order: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Rumania ....

Recourse was also made to quota and licensing systems. It adds: "The small states of Cen tral Europe cannot be censured for trying to create a rounded na tional economy when the whole 1969 THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND 207 world was doing the same thing."3 In many respects, this economic nationalism was a continuation and extension to new states of developments which were becom ing general in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Country after country had erected tariff barriers: the United States, Ger many, and so forth. These had set the stage for the new surge to get colonies and dominate ter ritories in various places on the globe. The roots of World War I can be found in this expansionism which grew out of protectionism. England grasped for colonies while holding out against the pro tectionist Ineasures. This new mercantilism differed significantly in the animus behind it from the mercantilism of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eight eenth centuries. It was spurred by the trend toward socialism and the welfare state. Countries found it expedient to erect "trade cur tains" to protect themselves from the world market in order to con trol and regulate domestic econo mies. Black and Helmreich point up the connection in their discus sion of the bills of rights in the new constitutions of the Danubian governments in the 1920's: "The government must assure the right 3 C. E. Black and E. C. Helmreich.

Twentieth Century Europe (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), pp. 293-94. to work; the health of the citizens, particular ly the laboring man, must be safeguarded; the aged must be cared for; the family pro tected, etc. To implement all these 'rights' the government would of necessity have to provide a far reaching social service program, regulate trade and industry, and become in truth the very nurturer of the whole population .... "4 Eng land held out longer-than other na tions against the interior logic, or illogic, of the requirements of the welfare state, but, as we shall see, eventually succumbed. The League of Nations The League of Nations was sup posed to bring about and maintain order and peace during the inter war years. It did not do so; indeed" it could not do so. That organiza tion was to promote international cooperation and provide collective security. Yet nation was pitted against nation economically; ma nipulated currencies made move ment of goods and peoples from one land to another increasingly difficult; ideology and action sev ered the natural Donds' o:f, one peo ple with another. Nations cannot use the power of their govern ments against one another in trade and collaborate to maintain peace politically. They cannot establish national socialism, on the one 4 Ibid., p. 291.

208 THE FREEMAN April hand, and international collective action, on the other. The notion that if the United States had joined the League matters would have turned out differently pays too high a compliment to the co lossus of the New World. The vaunted inventiveness of Ameri cans would not have sufficed to overcome the interior contradic tions of disintegrating Europe. At any rate, the old order in Europe was not replaced by a new order in the interwar years. In stead, disorder spread, became more violent, and threatened the peace of the world. Governments made that variety of internal war upon their own populations which is implicit in socialist ideology and attempted to forge anew unity by preaching class and race hatred. Governmental power was totalized, first in the Soviet Union, then in other lands. Power was concen trated in the hands of dictators or would-be dictators in land after land - in the hands of Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Marshall Pilsud ski, Salazar, and so forth - in the absence of the old monarchical and aristocratic restraints and under the guise of the thrust toward socialism. Dictators consolidated their power by turning to aggres sion in the 1930's. Word of new horrors began to spread, suggested by such phrases as concentration camps, Siberia, secret police, dossiers, travel permit, shot in the back of the neck, Gestapo, liquida tion of kulaks, and so forth. Intel lectuals in France, Great Britain, and the United States-themselves bent toward socialism - disavowed the misbegotten step-children of socialism known as Italian fascism and German nazism, but were gen erally unrepentant in the face of Soviet purges and the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Decline in foreign Trade and Domestic Production Such was the setting of Eng land's decline. That decline is most readily measurable in foreign trade and economic production. In some areas, the decline was relative; in others, it was absolute. The United Kingdom's relative share of world trade - exports and imports - is indicated by these figures: in 1840, it was 32 per cent; 1913, 17 per cent; 1938, ·13 per cent. 5 More important, Bri tish imports ac counted for an increasing propor tion of the trade, while exports decreased. 6 The United Kingdom's portion of world manufacturing production was 31.8 per cent in 1870; 14 per cent in 1913; and 9.2 5 Shepard B. Clough, European Eco nomic History (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968, 2nd ed.), p. 419. 6 See Charles Loch Mowat, Britain Between the Wars (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 262.

1969 THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND 209 per cent in the 1936-1938 period. 7 Britain's decline was most nota ble in the older basic industries, those industries which the British had dominated in the nineteenth century: coal, iron and steel, ship building, shipping, cotton goods, and so forth. The decline in coal mined was absolute. A record 287 million tons were mined in 1913; in the 1920's, annual production averaged about 253 million tons. S A decreasing proportion of this was sold in foreign trade. 9 "Until 1937, pig-iron production declined steadily from its absolute peak of IOtA, million tons in 1913."10 In general, iron and steel production fell during the interwar years until it began to rise in the late 1930's. What happened to the cot ton goods industry is probably most important, for it had ac counted for a large portion of ex ports in the nineteenth century. Piece goods production fell from a little over 8 billion square yards in 1912 to 31;2 billion square yards in 1930 to only a little over 3 bil lion yards in 1938. Exports of piece goods declined even more drastically: from nearly 7 billion square yards in 1912 to less than 7 Clough, Ope cit., p. 397.

8 Loch Mowat, Ope cit., p. 276. 9 Sidney Pollard, The Development of the British Economy: 1914-1950 (Lon don: Edward Arnold, 1962), pp. 110-1l. 10 Ibid., p. 114. 11j2 billion square yards in 1938.11 British shipbuilding fell off badly between the wars. From 1920 onwards the tonnage under construction fell, though the years 1927-30 were relatively good years, British launchings then run ning at about 75% of the level of 1911-13. In the slump, with millions of tons of shipping laid up, the build ing of new tonnage virtually came to a standstill: in 1933 the launchings from British yards fell to 7% of the pre-war figure. Throughout the early 1930's a large part of the industry was idle ... .12 Some new industries did grow and develop during the interwar years, such as electrical goods, automo biles, aircraft, silk and rayon goods, .and chemical products, 13 but these did not alter the fact of the general decline.

British agriculture did not fare well during the period either. There were just over 11 million acres in cultivation in 1914 (in England and Wales). It had fallen to 9,833,000 acres in 1930. Acre age under wheat in 1931 reached the lowest point ever recorded. There were some increases in pro duction in some categories, but the English were producing far less than they consumed of agricul11 Ibid., p. 121. 12 Ibid., p. 117. 13 Ibid., p. 98.

210 THE FREEMAN April tural products. 14 A flight from the land' .was characteristic of these years: "employment in agricul ture and forestry in the United Kingdom fell from an average of 1,004,000 in 1920-22 to an average or' 735,000 in 1927-28 .... Work ers left the industry at the rate of 10,000 a year, and the exodus of young.men was 'particularly 'marked. . . ."15 British Themselves Responsible for' Commercial Decline Many historians attribute the commercial and industrial decline of England to the protectionist policies of other nations, to other countries finally catching up to an earlier. lead England had gained, and to the failure of the British to modernize. Undoubtedly, the protectionist policies of other countries made trade more difficult for' the British. The latter tW6 points, however, require' explana tions rather than constituting them. In truth, the British were mainly responsible for their com mercial declin~. The reasons for that decline are .not far to seek.

England had· risen as a great in dustrial and. commercial nation when the energies of men had been· freed, when restrictions upon "land were removed or reduced, when special privileges were 14 Loch Mowat, Ope cit., pp. 250-53. 15 Pollard, Ope cit., p. 142. struck down, when liberty and property were secured for indi viduals, and when they were mo tivated by belief to constructive achievement. England's decline followed the onset of government intervention on a scale that could not be .fully compensated for. That interven tion began to' take effect in the early years of the twentieth cen tury, was temporarily vastly ex panded during World War I, and in the interwar' years began to mount once more. .The thrust toward intervention came from Fabian socialists and other re formers, was spearheaded by the Labour Party in Parliament, and gained sway during every maj or cabinet administration from 1906 onward. High taxation made the accumulation of capital a forbid ding task; regulation made new investments in many areas unen tieing; labor unions introduced inflexibilities into the economy; and Britain became less and less competitive around the world. The determination of interventionists to regulate and control was incon sistent with free trade and the gold standard; one or the other had to go, and it was freedom that went. There is not space here to tell the story in detail, but enough must be told to show how the de cline followed· from the interven tion.

1969 THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND 211 Following World War I, there was a considerable attempt at re conversion and restoration of the old order. "During 1919 the con trols of trade and shipping were allowed to end. Rationing of food and most price controls ended by 1920.... Factories and stores of 'war surplus' goods were sold off. The Government made every show of its conviction ... that Govern ments ought to get out of busi ness .... "16 This last sentence ex aggerates somewhat, but it does indicate one tendency. The budget was balanced once again, and the inflation halted. Trade with the rest of the wor ld was virtually freed. In 1925, Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was able to restore the gold stand ard. Most of this had been accomplished under governments headed by David Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Stanley Baldwin, the latter two being Conservative Prime Ministers.

Revival Short-Lived; More Governmental Intervention These measures did not succeed fully in reviving England for two reasons mainly. In the first place, the reconversion was not that thorough; much intervention was continued, and more came. One 16 David Thomson, England in the Twentieth Century (Baltimore: Pen guin Books, 1965), p. 67. historian notes that during the war. "departments, bureaux, com mittees, controllers were created and piled on top of each other .... " After the war, "though the .flood subsided, government never re turned to its old channel."17 Signs of increasing. government appeared in the establishment of a Ministry of Labour in 1916, a Ministry of Health in 1919, a Ministry of Transport in 1919, a Department of Scientific and Industrial Re search in 1916, a Forestry Com mission in 1919, and a Medical Research Council in 1920.18 Rail road consolidation was prescribed after the war; coal mines were greatly regulated; high taxes were imposed; and some tariffs were continued. Two new welfare acts were passed shortly after the war.

"The Housing and Town Planning Act of July 1919 ... provided for government subsidies through local authorities." An unemploy ment insurance act was passed in 1920. "Nearly twelve million workers, including eight million not previously insured were brought within the scope of the act.... "19 This last was to become very shortly a great burden on English taxpayers. 17 Loch Mowat, Ope cit., pp. 13-14. 18 Ibid., p. 15. HI Alfred F. Havighurst, Twentieth Century Britain (New Y;ork: Harper and Row, 1962, 2nd ed.), p. 171.

212 THE FREEMAN April Trade Unions a Major Obstacle to Recovery The other great obstacle to the revival of England in the 1920's was the labor unions. These had grown greatly during World War I, and they now had a powerful political arm in the Labour Party. Labor unions find it very difficult to survive deflation. They depend for their following to a consider able extent upon frequent in creases in wages. This can only be accomplished generally by increas es in the money supply or reduc tions in employment. When the government began balancing the budget and later returned to the gold standard, labor unions re sisted any cut in wages vigor ously. There were widespread strikes, this activity coming to a head with the General Strike of 1926 (an event significantly pre ceded by the return to the gold standard). The government came to the aid of miners by subsidiz ing them and prescribing the con ditions that should prevail. More generally, however, those union workers with jobs continued to get high monetary wages. They did so at the expense of other workers, for unemployment became endemic in England in the 1920's, and was a fixture throughout the interwar years. By June of 1922, the regis tered unemployed had reached 1% millions. The government came to the rescue, and began its subsidi zation of unemployment on a large scale. The government, "by a se ries of Acts in 1921 and 1922 ...

extended the period during which benefits could be drawn . . . , al tered the rates of benefit, and in creased the contributions."2o One of the maj or reasons for economic decline in England during the in terwar years was that a consider able portion of the people were not working. The labor unions pro duced the situation, and the gov ernment sustained it. Unemployment was highest in the old staple industries, and re mained high during these years. These were the industries, of course, where unionization had its great impact. A further reason for decline can be seen in wages and productivity. British wages were generally higher than in other lands. 21 On the other hand, pro ductivity did not keep pace. In coal mining, for example, other countries in Europe were greatly increasing the output per man shift; England had only small gains. '''By 1936, the peak year in every country, Britain's output per man shift was 14 per cent above that of 1927, whereas the increase in the Ruhr mines was 81 per cent, in the Polish mines 54 per cent, in the Dutch mines 118 per 20 Loch Mowat, Ope cit., p. 127.

21 Ibid., p. 268.

1969 THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND 213 cent."22 Small wonder that Britain could not maintain its trade posi tion. Protecfionismin the Thirties Government intervention and labor union obstruction prevented the revival of the economy in the 1920's. With the coming of the depression of the 1930's, the gov ernment abandoned the feeble ef fort it had made to restore the policies which had made England great. The great symbols of these, the gold standard and free trade, were given up: the gold standard in 1931; protective tariffs and imperial preference were inaugurated in 1932. The pound sterling was no longer good as gold, and Eng land was no longer the trading Mecca of the world. It has been suggested that Eng land backed into socialism in the interwar years. But this was not always the case. In the 1920's un der a Conservative government there was a straightforward move ment in that direction in two in stances. Radio was taken over by the government as the British Broadcasting Corporation. A Cen tral Electricity Board was created, and it was empowered to make wholesale distribution of electric ity. In retrospect, though, it does look as if the stage was set for socialism by the backdoor. The 22 Ibid., p. 276.

governm·ent appeared to do its best to wreck free enterprise by abol ishing competition in many areas in the 1930's. Cartelization was authorized and fostered in several industries, notably coal mining, iron and steel, and shipbuilding. The government fostered com binations, collaborations, and price setting, similar to what was un dertaken under the N.R.A. in the United States. What was involved is suggested by this description: "The Government looked for the benefits of monopoly, tempered by planning in the national interest. Accordingly, the British Iron and Steel Federation was formed in April 1934. '.' . In 1935-36 it took over the price-fixing functions of earlier sectional associations, and it negotiated with foreign cartels to impose quantitative restrictions on imports .... "23 Nationalization was only a step away after this. If anything, the intervention in agriculture was more massive than that in other areas in the 1930's.

England had already, in the 1920's, attempted to establish sugar beet growing by giving subsidies (what were called bounties generally un der the older mercantilism). In the 1930's protectionist policies for agricultural products were fol lowed, and attempts at carteliza tion, of a sort, were made. Potato Marketing Boards, Milk Market23 Pollard, Ope cit., p. 116.

214 THE FREEMAN April ing Boards, Bacon and Pig Mar keting Boards were set up to do such things as control production and prices. One historian de scribes the inconsistency in this way: "Viewed in the broadest pos sible perspective, the world was suffering from a surfeit of food, and Britain, the world's chief food market, reacted to this glut by closing her frontiers to imports and encouraging her farmers to add to the world output by expand ing their high-cost production."24 At any rate, the vaunted inde pendent Englishman was indepen dent no more; he was caught in the toils of gove'rnment power by the promises of government favors. There was a revival of the Brit ish economy in the middle and late 1930's. It did not, however, signal ize the recovery to full health of the patient. Instead, it was only an instance of that deceivingly health ful flush that patients sometimes develop just before they succumb.

England declined in many other ways than the economic in the interwar years. British influence and power was waning in the world at large. At the Washington Naval Conference, and then more completely at the London Naval Conference, Britain abandoned its naval pre-eminence. The United States was accorded equality, and 24 Ibid., p. 141. the Japanese acquired a leading role in the Pacific. These indicated the decline of power and of the will to be the strongest. Waning World Influence The waning of British influence was more subtle and probably much more significant. In the nineteenth century, British politi cal forms and institutions had been the models for much of the world. In the interwar years, this ceased to be the case. Intellectuals began to cast admiring glances toward the Soviet Union: to its social planning, to one-party govern ment, to the dictatorship instituted there. Italian fascism had its ad mirers, too, as Mussolini consoli dated his power in the mid-twen ties. (At least, some said, the trains run on time in Italy.) But to look at it this way is probably to approach the matter wrong-end-to. What was there to admire and imitate about British institutions any longer? What were they? How convinced of their probity were the British them selves? Power had already been centralized in the House of Com mons and concentrated in the cab inet. The balance of powers now· remained largely in relics which were forms without substance.

Political parties represented about all that was left of the means of balancing power. But these, too, 1969 THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND 215 lost vitality during the years un der consideration. The only party that managed to get a clear majority in the inter war years was ·the Conservative Party. But its leadership was usu ally reluctant to govern. Labour got a plurality in the election of 1929, and Ramsay MacDonald, the Labourite, formed a government. It fell in 1931, and MacDonald led the movement for a National gov ernment. There was an overwhelm ing vote for candidates pledged to the National government. Actu ally, Conservatives elected 472 members to the House of Com mons, a preponderant majority it self. Nonetheless, Ramsay Mac Donald served as Prime Minister for a National government from 1931 to 1935, followed by two Con servatives, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, to 1940. This was surely the peacetime nadir of party responsibility in modern British history. Without effective party responsibility for what was done, there was little check left upon government. In short, Eng land turned to its own variety of "one-party" government in this period - a pale imitation of what was occurring in the dictatorships.

Retreat to Munich Britain was withdrawing from the world, retreating from compe tition behind tariff barriers,. going off the gold standard, pulling. in to the hoped-for safety of empire. Other nations were becoming ag gressively expansive: Japan, Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Nobody did anything of real consequence when Japan invaded Manchuria in the. early 1930's. Britain and· France agreed not to intervene significantly when Mus solini's forces invaded Ethiopia in 1935. This would throw Mussolini into the arms of Hitler, it was feared, and Britain clung to the relics of a balance of power policy which, in fact, at this point meant a withdrawal of influence. When Spain became a battleground be tween communists, on the one hand, and fascists - assisted by Germany and Italy-, on the other, no British weight was used to prevent the intervention. Indeed, as Germany rearmed, as the Rhineland was remilitarized, as international treaties were fla grantly violated, Britain acqui esced piecemeal in virtually every measure.

The depth of the bankruptcy of British foreign policy was reached at the Munich Conference in 1938. Prior to this conference, Cham berlain had made hurried trips to meet and. treat with Hitler, plead ing with the arrogant dictator to moderate his claims. At Munich, Hitler refused to allow Czech rep resentatives to be present at the 216 THE FREEMAN April meeting of himself, Mussolini, Daladier (for France), and Cham berlain. Yet the men present agreed to the cession of Czecho slovak territory (the Sudeten land) to Germany. But if the Czechs had been present, they could have been outvoted; such are the possibilities of democratic col lective agreements. Chamberlain returned to England exultant; the Munich agreement had, he pro claimed, secured "peace in our time." And the crowds cheered! Unprincipled Behavior That men are fallible beings is undoubtedly true. They fall short of their ideals; they do not invari ably hue to the line of principle; they compromise quite often where moral questions are involved. Yet there are tides in the affairs of men, and it is not simply individ ual fallibility involved in these affairs. Chamberlain had not sim ply varied from principle; in the best of times men do this. He was confused, and his confusion was the reflex of that of a large por tion of the English people. The de cline of England was preceded and accompanied by moral and reli gious decline. It is one thing to violate the known and agreed upon principles of morality; it is quite another not to know what these principles are, to be torn between conflicting views, or to be uncertain as to the existence of veri ties. It was the latter which af flicted the English, as well as peo ple elsewhere.

One historian describes the de cline of religion in the interwar years in this way: More broadly, religious faith was losing its strength. Not only did church-going universally decline. The dogmas of revealed religion - the Incarnation and the Resurrection were fully accepted only by a small minority. Our Lord Jesus Christ be came, even for many avowed Chris tians, merely the supreme example of a good man. This was as great a happening as any in English history since the conversion of the Anglo Saxons to Christianity .... 25 Another points out that by the 1930's the number of communi cants in the Church of England only barely exceeded that of Ro man Catholics. The well-to-do still availed themselves of the rites of the church. "But no more than socially; and Puritanism lan guished except in a few Dissent ing congregations, and among the elderly."26 For several decades, the erosion of belief in verities had proceeded apace or accelerated. Intellectuals 25 A. J. P. Taylor, English History: 1914:.1945 (New York: Oxford Uni versity Press, 1965), p. 168.

26 Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Week-End (New York: Nor ton, 1963), p. 113.

1969 THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND 217 had swung over to relativism. Morals, people were taught, are relative to time and place, are matters of customs and mores. Moral absolutes were for English men reflexes of Puritanism and Victorianism, hence, old-hat, out moded, and increasingly despised. Rationality had been undercut by new currents of irrationality. Ripe for Socialism There was a close relation be tween these developments and the movement toward socialism. So cialists could not advance their dogmas in a framework of individ ual responsibility. The virtues of industry, thrift, clean living, and careful husbandry must be under mined. Traditional morality ab jured violence, enjoined respect for property, taught that men should not steal but be content with the fruits of their own labor. Cove tousness was enj oined by Holy Writ. These had to be, and were, denigrated for socialism to make its gains.

The point is this: When Cham berlain confronted Hitler, he brought no high moral position from England with which to op pose the Fuhrer. The gradualist movement toward socialism in England had acclimated the Eng lish to methods analogous to those of Hitler, if not in so brutal a guise. The British had come to accept labor union violence as a legitimate means to achieve their ends. They had been familiarized with increasing use of government force against the population to regulate trade, to confiscate ,vealth, to provide funds for idle men. What was right was what the majority voted for, according to an underlying ethos. If the major ity voted for programs which took the profits of corporations, that was not theft; it was only social justice. If the House of Lords stood in the way of this thrust for power, it should be shorn of its effective veto. There was no high ground in all of this from which to counter Hitler's moves. More over, the British people did not want adventures; they wanted peace.

It must not be thought that socialists believed consistently in the protection of minorities. Which minorities? Not the Lords. Not the farmers. Not factory owners. Not the unemployed (and their right to work in struck plants). Not of women, for the labor unions had worked diligently to drive women from their employment after World War I. The Czechs were, after all, only another minority. Why should their selfish wishes stand in the way of the great goal of world peace? It is not my point, of course, that the British were more re218 THE FREEMAN April sponsible than others for these international events, or that they acted more ignobly. They did eventually stand and fight, and they did so sturdily and even hero ically. In the dark days of 1940-41, they stood alone against the Axis might which bestrode the conti nent of Europe. Winston Church ilrs promises to "wage war, by sea, land, .and air" until victory was achieved rallied his people behind him. The point, rather, is that England's decline was of its own making, that the decay of morality underlay this decline, that the British abandoned ancient princi ples and vitiated their system, that government intervention produced the decline, and that waning influ ence abroad was a logical conse quence of the loss of certainty at home. Nor was the' war anything more than a temporary interrup tion of the British on their road leading toward oblivion. ~ The next article of this series will pertain to "Socialism in Power."

IDEAS CJN LIBIRTi'f! Martin Van Buren THOSE who look to the action of this Government for specific aid to the citizen to relieve embarrassments arising from losses by revulsions in commerce and credit lose sight of the ends for , which it was created and the powers with which it is clothed. It was established to give security to us all in our lawful and honorable pursuits, under the lasting safeguard of republican institutions. It was not intended to confer special favors on in dividuals or on any classes of them, to create systems of agri culture,. manufactures, or trade, or to engage in them either separately or in connection with individual citizens or organized associations. If its operations were to be directed for the benefit of any one class, equivalent favors must in justice be extended to the rest, and the attempt to bestow such favors with an equal hand, or even to select' those who should most deserve them, would never be successful.

Message before a Special Session of Congress, September 4, 1837, to consider monetary· problems.

VihY have an ElectoralCollege? ~ This article is an uncle's response to a lad's question shortly after the presidential election of 1968. BERTEL M. SPARKS, the uncle, worked his way out of "poverty stricken"( Appalachia through law school and two graduate degrees in law. He served on the faculty of New York Univer sity School of Law for eighteen years and is now professor of law at Duke University. He is the author of two books and numerous articles in legal periodicals. Dear Philip: In reply to your question about my opinion of the Electoral Col lege, I am in favor of retaining it. Before abolishing any institution that has been with us for such a long period, we should take time to ask why it came into existence in the first place, how it has worked in the past, and what sub stitute we have to offer. It is my opinion that a careful considera tion of· these questions will lead to the conclusion that the Electoral College is not so bad after all.

It seems that when our Found ing Fathers were about the task of writing our Constitution they were almost unanimous on two basic ideas. They wanted a gov ernment strong enough to keep the peace and they feared any such government that was that strong. They had learned from their experience under King George that unlimited power in human hands was a dangerous thing. Being a highly educated group, their knowledge and under standing of history had taught them that tyrannical power was not confined to anyone form of government. It could exist whether its form was that of a monarchy, aristocracy , theocracy, or even a democracy. Their experience un der the Articles of Confederation had also taught them that a gov ernment without adequate power could not protect its citizens in the exercise of their commercial and social relations with each other. It was a recognition of these diverse and somewhat con flicting policy goals that led them to the establishment of a form of 219 220 THE FREEMAN April government that made possible the greatest exercise of personal free dom and the development of the highest level of material well-be ing that has ever been known any where else on the earth before or since. How did they do it?

The scheme agreed upon by that little group of men gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 was not a democracy but a republic, char acterized by a separation of pow ers and a division of authority. To them this meant much more than a separation of the legisla tive, executive, and judicial de partments of government. Regard less of what separation of the de partments could be achieved, the men who were laying our founda tion feared the consequences of having all three concentrated in one central government. That much had been tried before in various parts of the world, and under such arrangements tyranny had often been the ultimate result even where the election of the officials imposing the tyranny had been by popular choice. The added feature was a federal system where the local units of government, the states, were made independent en tities and not just instrumentali ties of the central power and the central government was made one of strictly limited powers.

The exercise of even such limited powers was carefully circum scribed. The Senate was to repre sent the states, with all states be ing equal for this purpose, and the House was to represent the peo ple. The chief executive was not to be chosen by the legislative body, as is the custom in many countries of the world, but was made independent of them. Yet the power he could exercise with out their approval was strictly confined. Although the judges were to be appointed by the Presi dent, they could not be removed by him and therefore it was highly unlikely that the judiciary would ever be dominated by anyone President. It was no accident that the Representatives and Senators were given terms of different lengths and the election of Sena tors was so arranged that not more than one-third of them could be changing at anyone time. And the President's term was made of different duration from that of either House or Senate. This some what awkward staggering of terms was to avoid the instability that could result from having the whole government change, even by popular vote, at a moment of great emotional upheaval.

The Electoral College was in vented as a part, although maybe only a small part, of this general scheme of separation of powers 1969 WHY HAVE AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE? 221 and division of authority. It was a scheme for letting the people choose but at the same time avoid ing some of the dangers inherent in a direct choice. Not the least of the dangers they had in mind was that in a time of national turbu lence, such as we might be ap proaching at the present time, suf ficient emotional excitement might be generated to elect a popular and glamorous personality such as a Julius Caesar or a Napoleon Bona parte. Of course, these dangers exist under any system of govern ment. The important question is under what system can the extent of the dangers be diminished? Any present-day student of the American government knows that this system of separation and divi sion of powers with each depart ment and each political unit serv ing as a check on every other did not work out exactly as intended by the Founding Fathers. None of the three branches of the central government has ever behaved ex actly as the founders anticipated, and the powers and responsibili ties of the state governments have declined to a degree that would probably frighten any delegate to the Constitutional Convention out of his wits. The Senate was never an impartial body of wise men serving to check the popular pas sions likely to be present in the House. Both the chief executive and the courts quickly developed into something that would prob ably be unrecognizable by any but the most discerning of the Fa thers. And it is doubtful if any of them anticipated the emergence of either political parties or the ex tensive administrative ma'chinery that now plagues the central gov ernment. The Electoral College never became the uninstructed gathering of superior and sober men calmly deciding upon a suit able citizen to serve as the Chief Executive for the coming four years.

But the fact that the formal ex pectations of the Fathers were never realized should not blind us to the fact that the basic frame work which they established has served us well for almost 200 years. The central core of the tradition they established is still with us and it is now our tradi tion. The Electoral College is part of that tradition. While it is not the representative body exercising an independent judgment as was originally intended, it does have a function to perform. It is at least an accounting device registering a summation of the will of the peo ple on a state-by-state basis. Be ing on a state-by-state basis, and that not strictly .according to population, it has some tendency to decrease the likelihood of a Presi222 THE FREEMAN April dent winning primarily through an emotional appeal giving him an overwhelming advantage in one section but probably making him obnoxious to a majority of the voters in other parts of the coun try. It also makes it a little more difficult for one social or economic unit to become dominant. What is even more important in my mind, it continues to' remind us that we are a federal republic whose sepa rate political units still have vi tality.

And after all these years is any one in a position to say the Elec toral College has produced any bad results? There have been a few in stances when the electoral ma jority did not coincide with the popular majority and also two in stances when the electors failed to . elect anybody and the. question was thrown into the House of Representatives. But can anyone rightly say that~ny of these in stances have pr()duced ;bad re suIts? I believe not. And in each instance the matter was handled peacefully and without any sub stantial amount of public excite ment. That within itself is no .small accomplishment when it is remembered how frequently a change of administrations is ac companied by varying degrees of disorder in many foreign coun tries. It might even be pointed out that the two Presidents who were chosen by the House of Represen tatives, Thomas Jefferson and John Q. Adams,. are regarded by many as being among our more able Presidents.

Much has been made of the un fortunate things that could hap pen under our present system. But in view of the fact that none of the feared disasters has ever hap pened, I wonder if the danger isn't more imaginary than real. I find it hard to argue against almost 200 years of uninterrupted success! Even if no candidate had received an electoral majority in 1968, is there any reason to believe a peaceful and satisfactory solution could not have been reached? Let's explore the possibilities. First of all, the electors, except in a few states, are not legally bound to vote with the party that elected them. It is possible that if no candidate had won a majority on November 5, enough electors would have switched their alle giance to give somebody a ma joritywhen the electoral votes were cast. If that had been done, is there any reason. to believe the result would not have been a rea sonable one or that it would not have been accepted by the public?

If the electors had stood by the candidates for which they had been chosen and nobody had re ceived a majority, is there any 1969 WHY HAVE AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE? 228 reason to believe the House of Representatives would not have acted· in a responsible fashion? Even if the House had acted so irresponsibly as to fail to choose anyone, there is still another route to follow. In such a case the Vice President is to serve as if he were President. The election of the Vice-President would be by the Senate. Would the Senate be so ir responsible as to fail to choose a Vice-President? So it seems that in order for us to end up without a lawfully chosen President, the Electoral College, the House of Representa tives, and the Senate would all have to act in an irrational and ir responsible way. And as we moved from one of these bodies to the other the failure of each would place that much more moral pres sure upon the next and' would dramatize to the public the seri ousness of the occasion. The pe riod of uncertainty during which the matter was being resolved would tend to be a period of sober reflection. Tempers would cool a bit and the danger of rebellion would be lessened rather than in~creased. With so many safeguards in operation, it is unlikely that we would ever find ourselves with out a lawfully chosen and reason ably acceptable Chief Executive.

At least I haven't heard any other system proposed that holds great er promise of permanence' andsta bility than has been demonstrated by the one we have. Your Uncle, Bert The Clash of Opinion IT WERE best to draw the veil of oblivion over the weakness of character which like a moral contagion afflicts this good ·land in these later years, except for the menace to our free 'institutions contained therein. Intolerance of difference of opinion is death to them. Tolerance of such difference is not enough to maintain them. Respect for it is still insufficient to secure their true de velopment. It must be sought, invited and encouraged, for only through the clash of opinion and the attrition of --thought can man press onward towards the goal of truth and the perfection of civilization. J 0 H N w. BUR G E S S, Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory GARY NORTH R Those who wish to preserve freedom should recognize, however, that inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary.