Rise Collectivism by Greenleaf

Author:Greenleaf [Greenleaf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781135033613
Google: QxyPF5czqP0C
Goodreads: 17509161
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2003-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

4

Political Matters

The idea of the State is one which is little grasped in England.

SIR E. BARKER, 'The "Rule of Law'", Political Quarterly, May 1914, p. 139

SIR ERNEST BARKER'S dictum, cited as epigraph to this chapter, echoed a famous comment made decades before by Matthew Arnold.1 Each was deploring the phenomenon observed, and wished to see public authority play a greater role in society as an aid to the development not only of humane conditions of life and work but also the moral and cultural fulfilment of the people. To the extent that government in Britain did not, in their view, undertake this burden (whether from lack of purpose or absence of administrative means) then to that degree it failed in its duty as a state. This was, of course, simply to observe correctly the traditional dominance of libertarian tendencies in British life, though it was also to underestimate the collectivist proclivities already long afoot. But as it happens these latter inclinations, much intensified since Arnold and even Barker wrote, have led precisely to what they deemed to be lacking: a British State. In the process of its emergence (as chronicled in this volume) certain political occasions and constitutional ideas have been of no little account as the present chapter will indicate.

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