The Future of Britain

I want to speak about the future of Britain; but by Britain I mean chiefly this island and its people, not British imperialism. And I must begin by saying that this is merely a layman’s view. I offer you a synopsis for discussion.

We cannot consider Britain’s future without remembering the very remarkable part that Britain has played in the past. She was in several respects a pioneer: a pioneer of nationalism, of democracy and of industrialism. She developed commercial imperialism; but she also made important experiments in social betterment. She became the mother of parliaments, the workshop of the world and, less creditably, the usurer of the world.

Let us look, then, at Britain today—Britain after Munich. The first outstanding fact is our economic decline. We have lost trade to the United States, Germany and Japan. Countries which used to be backward, and therefore markets for British manufactures, have themselves become industrialized. We have been too much interested in the income from investments and too little interested in adapting our productive system to new circumstances. Our productive power tends to stagnate; and from time to time we are afflicted by slumps and unemployment.

We have also lost our lead in social betterment. Partly this is due to economic decline, but partly to sheer lassitude—one thinks of the ships. We have made no serious, comprehensive attempt to deal with the health of the people. Our stamina has been undermined by long industrialism. Montague has called attention to this deterioration.

At the same time the Empire has become undefendable. Potential German power must be reckoned with, and there is Indian unrest. Germany, Italy and Japan threaten the whole imperial system from different quarters. Imperial pride imposes an increasing cost upon us just when our capacity to bear that cost is declining. There is also what one may rudely call the decay of the Sahib. In Egypt, Palestine and India the old automatic prestige of the British ruler no longer works. The subject peoples no longer accept his authority merely because he is British.

England herself has acquired a terrifying vulnerability. London can be destroyed. Even if it is not destroyed outright, an air blockade may bring starvation to a country which depends so heavily upon imported food. We have lost prestige abroad, largely through our post-war diplomacy. People say that Britain no longer counts. Our conduct has appeared as a mixture of insincere idealism and stupid self-seeking. Foreign critics speak of British decadence. I do not myself think that national decadence is quite the right diagnosis.

At home, meanwhile, authoritarianism increases. Parliament is ignored. There have been instances of police aggression and of secret governmental interference. There have been the Sandys affair and the Vernon case. What we are seeing is the dead hand of oligarchy, rather than any mysterious decadence of the British people. The bourgeoisie has lost its grip.

Hence the widespread lassitude. Politics seems chaotic; democracy itself becomes suspect; people crave for leadership. There is apathy and defeatism. Taken together—the economic decline, the loss of social initiative, the imperial danger, our physical vulnerability, the decline of prestige, oligarchic government and popular weariness—they are all the signs of eclipse.

Timing marks pace the 1938 delivery down the margins — “5 mins” (sheet 1), “10 mins” (sheet 5), “20 mins” (sheet 6), “30 mins” (sheet 7); they are recorded here rather than voiced.

Looking at the matter again in 1946, after the war, we must begin by doing justice to our record. There is our literature and our poetry. There are our political institutions and the English spirit. There is our industrial achievement, our Empire, and there is the Battle of Britain.

Our past was shaped by certain very special circumstances. Island security gave us an immunity. Prosperity created a bourgeoisie. There was the fight for democracy; there was liberal, commercial individualism. Later the Labour Movement arose. Britain became the workshop of the world; and there was the Pax Britannica.

But our prospect is now wholly different. We have lost industrial supremacy, imperial supremacy and naval domination. We have lost our “foreign securities.” We have even lost our arrogance. We are no longer a great power. We stand between Russia and America, and we must ask whether we are not overstraining ourselves in the attempt to remain a great power.

Our dependence on foreign food remains. Our population is tired and is ageing. Capitalism has failed to prevent slumps, and the threat of unemployment has by no means vanished. We need to plan production and to nationalize important industries; but we have to make this change at an unfavourable time. Moreover, we are financially involved with the United States.

There are, broadly, two courses before us. We may try once more to triumph in power politics while retaining the essential structure of private enterprise. Or we may undertake a profound change—a change in our aims, in our structure and in our politics.

What, then, do we really want? We ought to say quite plainly that we do not want imperialism and we do not want economic dominance. We want a full life for all the people of this island. By a full life I mean the fullest possible human development. In Blake’s phrase, we should seek to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.

What can we give to the world? First, we can give high-grade goods. Secondly, we may give an example of social democracy achieved without blood-letting. Thirdly, we may contribute the spirit of mutual forbearance, give-and-take and practical tolerance. These are precisely the things which the world most needs. Our special task may be to unite what is good in liberalism with what is good in communism, and thereby to help establish a liaison between Russia and America.

Our first concern, however, must be Europe. We must help to revive Europe both economically and culturally. Europe’s own great tradition must be combined with the novelties represented by Russia and America. Should this take the form of a federal Europe? Perhaps; but certainly not a Europe organized against Russia.

A revived Europe might have two principal foci, Britain and France, though we have to admit that France is sick. There are also the northern democracies. These countries are liberal at heart, yet circumstances force them increasingly to socialize their economic life. Hence what I should call liberal communism.

The movement may be described dialectically. The thesis was liberal, commercialist individualism. The antithesis is collectivism. Collectivism has shown a good form in Russia and a bad form in Germany. The required synthesis is a Western liberal communism: neither isolated individualism nor herd-subordination, but personality-in-community. The individual must be cherished as an individual, yet must recognize that individuality itself can flourish only in a just and vigorous community.

There are several further questions which I can do no more than place before you. One is the balance of age in the population and its relation to emigration. What of Britain and Germany? Of Russian power politics? Of federation with the United States?

Can Britain become a model state while her population is declining? If so, there is the question of the best class and, above all, of the education of the masses.

We must also ask whether the modern state is to be a pagan state, and what then becomes of Christianity. The Christians must convert—Buddhism. A community requires some common object of loyalty. Nationalism has been made to serve—one thinks of the S.P., and of Abyssinia.

Is democracy merely the ideal form of government for a naturally governing class? Must society acknowledge a supreme deity—and does that imply universal suffrage? Then there is Russia.

Germany raises the old problem of empire. Empires do not contribute most at their peak. Finally there is the problem of leisure.

Here the notes return to the 1938 sequence (this sheet is its page 2), after the two 1946 sheets above.

Before we despair, let us take stock of Britain’s main assets. We still possess machinery, industrial plant and minerals. We still possess a great body of skill. More important than any of these is our political and moral tradition: our respect for individuality, our kindliness and our habit of give-and-take and compromise. This tradition is very strong, and it may make all the difference. But it is not indestructible.

Britain’s problem today is that radically new circumstances demand radically new aims and new habits of thought and feeling. Our task is to get the policy clear and then propagate the feeling without which it cannot be carried out. We need a new kind of patriotism. If we fail to create it, the result will be disaster.

There are two possible futures. The first is automatism: business as usual, an unimaginative continuation of old tendencies. The second is conscious reorientation—what I shall call Britain Born Again.

Automatism means orthodox imperialism, tariff walls and armaments, combined with orthodox capitalism. It means continued exploitation both of Africa and other dependent regions and of British workers. It means gruelling rearmament, accompanied by the decay of social services. Education would increasingly become education for discipline. Police rule would grow, and free thought would come to an end.

This course leads toward imperial war with Germany, Italy and Japan. Britain would then suffer defeat and ruin. The final result would be that Britain became a Nazi dependency, with no freedom left to us.

The alternative is Britain born again. But such a policy has prerequisites. One is the pressure of circumstances. There are, for example, the effects of Munich. A second prerequisite is vigorous propaganda for a new patriotism.

I stress that this must not be propaganda merely for a policy. What is required is a national renaissance and a change of social aim. The policy presupposes the renaissance; it presupposes a popular will for national rebirth.

What is wanted is firmness with generosity, and freedom with responsibility: a people in training for a great task.

In propaganda we may have to learn a great deal from the Nazis. But we must emphasize at every point the profound difference between their purpose and ours. Democratic propaganda must stress the freedom of the individual and, inseparably from freedom, the responsibility of the individual. A true community is not a herd. Democracy must distinguish between essentials, on which common action is necessary, and non-essentials, in which variety and experiment should be welcomed.

We must stress equality of opportunity, and we must appeal confidently to the English genius for democracy—to the English spirit at its best. There is no harm in saying ‘Up England’, provided that Britain’s message to the world is not domination but the building of a new community. We shall need new slogans and symbols and should avoid the old labels as far as possible.

We must play upon patriotic emotions, but turn them toward a new object. Military glory should be reviled, not glorified. Britain should seek honour through her social and cultural example. Imperialism must be disparaged: its dangers must be exposed, its abuses brought into the light, and the public gradually weaned from traditional patriotism.

We must also expose the faults of the present oligarchy—its lack of imagination, its traditionalism and its subservience to finance.

When the renaissance has become widespread, policy can follow. The oligarchy must be overthrown, and it will certainly resist. We should use constitutional means. But if democratic forces are attacked, they must fight and defend Parliament. The armed forces, too, must be infected with the new democratic and anti-imperial spirit.

We should address propaganda to the German people. At first this might have to be ostensibly private rather than governmental. It could be carried by aeroplanes, by smuggling and by broadcasting. Its themes should be peace and anti-imperialism.

At home we need a defence scheme directed toward invulnerability rather than imperial attack. We need shelters, fighting aeroplanes and carefully prepared evacuation. We must dissipate London. We must create adequate food stores.

At the same time we should reduce our ‘attack forces’—battleships—and prepare for what may be called Plan B warfare.

We must abolish the Empire. India should receive immediate self-government, and so should other politically advanced regions. For the Crown Colonies we should invite trustees from democratic powers.

Finally, there should be a democratic alliance. It must be defensive only, and it must be open to all states willing to accept its defensive and democratic purpose.

Britain should make a declaration to the world that her armaments will be used strictly for defence within her own frontiers and that she intends to abandon the Empire. We should then summon a world conference on imperial and economic questions. But self-government for India must come first.

At home we need social reconstruction. Agriculture must be developed intensively. Food duties should be avoided by building a two-year store of essential food. There must be agricultural training schemes, and the land should be nationalized.

All the main productive forces should also be nationalized in some form—but ’ware ‘socialism’. Finance must be controlled.

The Press and radio must also be brought under public control. They should be administered by semi-independent boards, on the analogy of the law. The New Zealand scheme may offer useful suggestions.

Education requires an equally radical change. At present we have, in effect, two kinds of education: one for masters and another for slaves. In the reconstructed society there should be state schools for all, somewhat as in France. That education must cultivate responsibility, initiative, individuality and the sense of community.

The unemployed should become pioneers of community.

What, then, is the immediate task? First, experts must work out the detailed policy. This is already well under way. Secondly, and much more importantly, there must be propaganda. This is also the more difficult task.

The aim must be a new patriotism directed toward a new internationalism. We must expect resistance from the Government and from the whole oligarchy. Consider Mr Chamberlain’s control of the cinemas. What is needed, therefore, is a huge rank-and-file effort. The universities must play their part.

A few further heads remain. Idealists are apt to assume their own moral superiority.

We must reckon with German national power, and with Russia. We must study the National Socialist control of trade, comparing the German and Italian systems under Hitler and Fascism. We must also consider what happens if the British Empire collapses.

Macmurray’s work is relevant here. Our national assets must be understood in their economic origin. We must consider internationalism—and here one thinks of Japan—and infra-Commonwealth federalism.

There remains what is sometimes called the mob problem. There is the proletariat, and the minimum: food and other necessities must be guaranteed. Young parents must also be considered. There are the claims of men and of the race.

There remains the question of equal incomes—with no land privately held, and with adjustment for family needs and for clothes.