How Free are We? Liberty in Britain
As a major conference on the nature of liberty opens, David Marquand questions the free and democratic legacy that British history has bequeathed to the country and citizens of today.
No one should be surprised by this. The British state has been – and in a host of ways still is – an imperial state. In its 18th-century adolescence, it was the most ruthless imperial predator in Europe; in its 19th-century maturity it presided urbanely over the greatest empire the world had ever seen. But it was urbane only because it was strong enough to be: because the predations of its earlier years had been spectacularly more successful than those of its rivals. The relaxed and tolerant governing class that ruled it liked to think it embodied a Whig tradition of ordered freedom and evolutionary progress, whose blessings would spread to all the varied races it embraced. But in the last resort the empire rested on force, as was shown by the savagery with which the great Indian uprising of 1857 was put down. The alleged British tradition of liberty was confined to whites of British descent; it did not extend to blacks or browns.
In Britain’s possessions in Africa and Asia, Hilaire Belloc’s lines vividly caught the essence of empire:
To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription, available from only £5.
Start my trial subscription now
If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.
Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems.
