Wellsprings of Britain’s power

Empire’s accomplishments lend it a certain strength

Her navy, army, and traders established peaceful networks that enabled free trade before there was what we now call free trade.

Columnist Latham Hunter (“Brexit: not just a story”, July 15) identified Britain’s island psyche as one source of her strength. True. But we could well consider also two other wellsprings of Britain’s powers. First, socio-economic: “We want our country back!” was a slogan that helped propel Britain out of the EU. Who took it, and why do Brits want it back?

An unwritten principle behind British common law, which we (and most of the rest of the Anglo world) inherited, is that whatever is not forbidden is permitted. This contrasts profoundly with the Napoleonic Code used in most of continental Europe, whose corresponding principle is the reverse: whatever is not permitted is forbidden.

Thus, the laws Britain had to develop were an uncomfortable mixture of European, mainly Napoleonic, law and British common law. The resulting incompatibility is one of the reasons Brexit evolved and we hear the slogan, “We want our country back!” Back to what? The British (everything is permitted) environment leads to economic, political, and social experimentation and progress; while the Napoleonic code dictates that a suggestion for anything new is forbidden, because it might upset the status quo. Arguably, this powerful European anti-change undercurrent is part of the reason that Britain’s (and the U.S.’s) emergence from 2008 has been more vigorous than that of the rest of Europe. Second, ethical-cultural: In a meeting of a think-tank, we discussed the groundbreaking book by economist Hernando de Soto, “The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else.” I asked the speaker, a respected politician who is neither Jewish nor a professing Christian, to put his finger, if he could, on one single socio-economic factor without which that success would have been impossible. Without a moment’s hesitation he replied, “The Judeo-Christian ethic.”

Let us think carefully about his instant and unequivocal response.

The British globalized before what we today call globalization. From Hudson’s Bay to Tasmania, spearheaded often by religious groups, Britain, established missions, hospitals, and schools that were needed for the spiritual and material good of far-flung people, both British and other. Her navy, army, and traders established a peaceful land and sea network that enabled free trade before there was what we now call free trade.

Britain covered the globe with English, a flexible, cultured language that welcomes contributions from other tongues, from Sanskrit to Swahili. The King James Bible and the Magna Carta (still used in today’s courts after 801 years), two of the mightiest documents ever penned, are in English.

Of course Britain at times also brought brutality, theft, exploitation and slavery. But in every society there are a few evil men in every profession from shoemakers to priests; and when based on Judeo-Christian ethics, that society gets rid of them as we did slavery (yes, Canada had slavery). The media daily reports that societies not based on Judeo-Christian ethics or its equal are drowning in — guess what? — brutality, theft, exploitation and slavery, with little prospect of getting rid of them. Unrepentant Imperialist? You bet! As a child, I started my primary school day with the principal leading us in Bible reading and prayer. He stood under a vast world map that stretched from corner to corner on the wall above his head. It was, of course, pink everywhere, to illustrate the truth of its caption: “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”

I can feel still the security, warmth, and comfort that crept in as I understood that I and my country were parts of such an empire.

Help, Britain, help! Where are you when we need you?