The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Although the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects are the two prevailing ones in Great Britain, all others are welcome, and all live fairly well together; although most of their preachers detest each other with all the heartiness of a Jansenist damning a Jesuit.

Were there but one religion in England, there would be a danger of despotism; were there but two, they would cut each other's throats. But there are thirty, and accordingly they dwell together in peace and happiness.

III.—The Government

The members of the English Parliament are fond of comparing themselves with the ancient Romans; but except that there are some senators in London who are suspected, wrongly, no doubt, of selling their votes, I can see nothing in common between Rome and England. The two nations, for good or ill, are entirely different.

The horrible folly of religious wars was unknown among the Romans; this abomination has been reserved for the devotees of a faith of humility and patience. But a more essential difference between Rome and England, and one in which the latter has all the advantage, is that the fruit of the Roman civil wars was slavery, while that of the English civil wars has been liberty. The English nation is the only one on earth that has succeeded in tempering the power of kings by resisting them. By effort upon effort it has succeeded in establishing a wise government in which the Prince, all-powerful for the doing of good, has his hands tied for the doing of evil; where the nobles are great without insolence and without vassals; and where the people, without confusion, take their due share in the control of national affairs.

The Houses of Lords and Commons are the arbiters of the nation, the King is the over-arbiter. This balance was lacking among the Romans; nobles and people were always at issue, and there was no intermediary power to reconcile them.

It has cost a great deal, no doubt, to establish liberty in England; the idol of despotic power has been drowned in seas of blood. But the English do not think they have bought their freedom at too high a price. Other nations have not had fewer troubles, have not shed less blood; but the blood they have shed in the cause of their liberty has but cemented their servitude.

This happy concert of King, Lords, and Commons in the government of England has not always existed. England was for ages a country sorely oppressed. But in the clashes of kings and nobles, it fortunately happens that the bonds of the peoples are more or less relaxed. English liberty was born of the quarrels of tyrants. The chief object of the famous Magna Charta, let it be admitted, was to place the kings in dependence upon the barons; but the rest of the nation was favoured also in some degree in order that it might range itself on the side of its professed protectors. The power of the nobility was undermined by Henry VII., and the later kings have been wont to create new peers from time to time with the idea of preserving the order of the peerage which they formerly feared so profoundly, and counterbalancing the steadily-growing strength of the Commons.

A man is not, in this country, exempt from certain taxes because he is a noble or a priest; all taxation is controlled by the House of Commons, which, although second in rank, is first in power.

The House of Lords may reject the bill of the Commons for taxation; but it may not amend it; the Lords must either reject it or accept it entire. When the bill is confirmed by the Lords and approved by the King, then everybody pays—not according to his quality (which is absurd), but according to his revenue. There are no poll-taxes or other arbitrary levies, but a land tax, which remains the same, even although the revenues from lands increase, so that nobody suffers extortion, and nobody complains. The peasant's feet are not tortured by sabots; he eats white bread; he dresses well; he need not hesitate to increase his stock or tile his roof, for fear that next year he will have to submit to new exactions by the tax-gatherer.

IV.—Commerce

Commerce, which has enriched the citizens in England, has contributed to make them free, and freedom has in its turn extended commerce. Thereby has been erected the greatness of the State. It is commerce which has gradually established the naval forces through which the English are masters of the sea.

An English merchant is quite justly proud of himself and his occupation; he likes to compare himself, not without some warrant, with a Roman citizen. The younger sons of noblemen do not despise a business career. Lord Townsend, a Minister of State, has a brother who is content to be a city merchant. When Lord Oxford governed England, his younger son was a commercial agent at Aleppo, whence he refused to return, and where some years ago he died.

This custom, which is unfortunately dying out, would seem monstrous to German grandees with quarterings on the brain. In Germany they are all princes; they cannot conceive that the son of a Peer of England would lower himself to be a rich and powerful citizen. There have been in Germany nearly thirty highnesses of the same name, not one of them with a scrap of property beyond his coat of arms and his pride.