Thread by @Will_Tanner_1 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
When was the last time that England and her glorious Empire could have been saved from becoming a decaying, socialist hell?
Many say, incorrectly, either WWI, when the empire was exhausted, or WWII when it was bankrupted
The real answer is 1911, with the Parliament Bill🧵👇
The fight that led to the Parliament Bill began in 1909, with Winston Churchill's so-called People's Budget
By that point, Churchill had shifted to the Liberals from the
Conservatives and was allied with Lloyd George to tax the landed elite
into oblivion, despite his family being part of that elite.
The bill sparked a huge fight that culminated in England declaring war on its traditions and history in the name of socialism
The problem with the People's Budget was that it was the first overtly socialist law to come to England
In fact, it was entirely unprecedented and is known today as a
"revolutionary concept" because it was expressly crafted to redistribute
wealth, taxing landed wealth and income to fund welfare programs of the
sort that have now bankrupted Britain
Because of its very nature, the bill was a shot across the bow of the
landed elite, and fomented a great deal of social unrest and internal
anger
The House of Lords, furious that class traitor Churchill would try to
tax them out of existence to fund welfare programs, threw the People's
Budget out, exercising their veto power
But that sparked a crisis
For one, the class warfare of the sort seen in the Punch cartoon below had already been fomented by Churchill and Lloyd George
Secondly, and much more importantly, it was unclear if the Lords had a veto power over a budgetary bill
Those two issues combined into a much more serious one: the British
public asked why the hereditary Lords could retard democracy by vetoing
what bills the Commons passed
As could be expected, that question turned into outright class warfare
and a desire to destroy the Lords, or at least rid it of its permanent
veto power
At that point, Lloyd George took over leading the class warfare charge.
Churchill was, as could be expected, getting cold feet, and Welsh-born
Lloyd George made a much more likely enemy of the Anglo-Norman
aristocracy
His proposal to rid the country of the Lords was the Parliament Bill
Under it, the Lords could only delay/veto monetary bills for a month,
effectively ending any veto power they had over those bills
Meanwhile, it allowed only a two-year delay, rather than a total veto,
for other bills. While this meant bills could be effectively killed
toward the end of a Parliament, it also meant that the early years of
one couldn't be blocked by the peerage
The peerage was split over how to react, as the Lords would have to pass
the bill for it to go into effect. George V, led astray by evil
advisers, said he'd create hundreds of peers to ensure it was passed if
the current Lords didn't do so
Eventually, a group of demoralized defeatists coalesced around just
passing the bill, they became the majority. they called themselves the
Hedgers, because they saw themselves as trying to hedge the risk
On the other side were the so-called "Diehards," who were against
passing it at all costs. The also called themselves the Ditchers, as
they saw themselves as willing to fight a last-ditch stand against
Liberalism. They were led by Lord Willoughby de Broke and aided by most
of the wealthy peers, including the hardline Tory and future WWI war
hero, the 2nd Duke of Westminster
Eventually, the Hedgers won out despite the threats from those in the
Diehards like Lord Willoughby de Broke that the county militias, largely
led by Diehards and composed of those favorable to their cause, would
be called up to fight the bill
So, unfortunately for England in the near future, the Bill was passed and the Lords lost their power
Churchill and George V appeared to regret what they had done, but by then it was too late and Lord de Broke's Diehards defeated
The Parliament Bill was really a turning point for the Empire
Even superficially, it marked England's shift from Victorian/Edwardian
prosperity and preeminence to the long, bloody, painful decay of the
20th century. Within a few years, Lloyd George's government was sending
England's best to die pointlessly in the fields of Flanders. As they
bled out, the families of the Old Etonians who were killed en masse were
taxed relentlessly to fund the war, and were financially bled out by
endless income and death taxes, as Cannadine discussed in "The Decline
and Fall of the British Aristocracy"
But the bigger problem was the shift in mindset and policy that the bill marked
The social shift is what resulted near-immediately.
Before the bill, the landed elite, both the gentry and the peerage, were
widely honored and respected and seen as the goal state of anyone and
everyone. Wealthy businessmen sold their companies to buy landed estates
and construct gorgeous country houses, even as the agricultural
depression of the 1880s made those estates less profitable than they
used to be
Why? Because land was power. Tenants largely voted for the candidates
put forth by their landlords, it was generally only landed gentlemen who
got peerages and the powerful seat in the Lords that meant, and the
resources of an estate, from the house that could host events to the
votes of the tenancy, were easily translated into political influence
What that meant was that the political parties and their leaders were
tied to the land of England, from the landlords at the top to the day
laborers at the bottom, and the farmers in the middle. Instead of being
overly concerned with Continental affairs and being dominated by the
cosmopolitan managerial elite we're used to today, those in charge were
committed to the country's success because their wealth was tied up in
its land. There were exceptions, of course, but that was the general
rule
Altogether, then, before the Parliament Bill and Churchill's People's
Budget that precipitated it, there wasn't an internal war in England
against its traditions and history. The empire and those who led it were
self-confident, committed to its success, and through their country
seats and old titles, tied to its histories and traditions
After the bill, much of that disappeared. Estates were taxed at obscene
rates, the Lords no longer had power, and global commercial interests
won out over the internal landed, agricultural and industrial interest
that profited from England-first policy. From then on, there was much
more internal unrest and class warfare, whether in terms of taxation or
national class war like the General Strike of the Interwar era.
While the social changes were swift and severe, the policy changes were somewhat more gradual but even more destructive
Namely, the transition from aristocratic government to bureaucratic government meant massive change in what was accepted
Take taxes. To the landed elite, direct taxes like death or income tax
should serve a valuable national end and generally only be established
in time of war. So they were more than willing to pay both in the
Napoleonic Wars, but repealed them immediately afterward and kept
reasonable throughout the conflict. To the bureaucrats, however, taxes
are a way of effecting massive social change. So, the direct taxes are
not only kept around permanently but raised dramatically, such as the
90% of Harold Wilson' 1960s, even when unnecessary from a financial,
national interest perspective
Another example is regulation. To the landed elite, a gentleman should
be the lord of his own domain except when absolutely necessary. So there
are laws that restrict anti-social behavior, such as murder, but
otherwise regulation and laws are kept limited so as not to infringe
upon the liberty of the people. To bureaucrats, however, regulations and
laws are a way of cementing and expanding their own bureaucratic
domains. So, such laws and regulations have to expand relentlessly so
that there are always more slots for more bureaucrats with more power
and pay. That leads to rapid infringements upon liberty, even the
traditionally understood rights of Englishmen
And, of course, there's the matter of private property. To a landed
gentleman, property is sacrosanct because it is the basis of his life,
wealth, and power; that same view generally imbues the classes under
him, as they want to be like him. To the bureaucrat, however, private
property is a threat. It's a basis for non-bureaucratic power, leads to
anti-regulatory sentiment, and so on. So, it's attacked, whether through
taxation like death duties, government fiat, or other devices. This
happened in England under Attlee, who was elected in 1945 and quickly
"nationalized" (stole) everything from railroads to coal mines while
taxing agricultural estates out of existence. Harold Wilson picked up
where he left off and further destroyed it
Thus, the high-level results of the Parliament Bill were:
1) hostility to English tradition and emblems of its glory,
2) the destruction of the gentlemanly class that administered the empire and served in its armies, and
3) prosperity-destroying taxation
and regulation that wiped away the English pre-eminence in industry and
agriculture that enabled its imperial ambitions
So, before it you had a prosperous and free society led by those with a
tradition of service, at little cost to the state, and a vast empire
that supplied it with resources. After it, the bureaucrats quickly
bankrupted the empire in WWI and II, taxed away its prosperity and
gentlemen, and then gave the empire up because they didn't see the point
of imperial splendor, glory, and paternalism
Thus, the glory of England ended because of the Parliament Bill
Though it took a few decades for the changes wrought and made possible
by it to play out, particularly the heavy taxation and shift of
political power away from the landed elite, those changes were
disastrous, and weren't ones the empire could survive, even had WWI and
II not soon happened; the taxation and class warfare would have gone the
same way anyway, as seen in the '20s, '60s, and '70s, or with Starmer
today and his attempt to tax farmers out of existence, as
@NoFarmsNoFoods is fighting
The pre-Parliament Bill landed elite would never have done anything
approaching these attacks on liberty, property, and prosperity. But the
bureaucracy that followed it? This is the natural result, what it always
wanted
