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The Rise of Britain’s Fiscal-Military State. Towards the study of Britain as an imperial power. We have been discussing the forging of a British identity Colley argued that war was instrumental in this process
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Towards the study of Britain as an imperial power • We have been discussing the forging of a British identity • Colley argued that war was instrumental in this process • In the coming weeks we shall examine the relationship between Britain and its European and colonial rivals, and the impact such conflicts had on the British state
What is a state? The centralised model • Penguin Dictionary of Sociology: ‘A state is a set of institutions governing a particular territory, with a capacity to make laws regulating the conduct of the people within that territory, supported by revenue deriving from taxation and reliant on a monopoly of legitimate force’
A different model: the participatory, self-governing state • A coordinated and territorially bounded network of agents exercising political power • State is distinguished by kind of power exercised rather than the form of agencies • Political power is distinctive in being territorially based, functionally limited and backed by threat of legitimate physical force
A different model: the participatory, self-governing state • Mike Braddick: where are such institutions located? Who runs them? The state starts to look rather different: dispersed authority; negotiated via local office-holders all locally chosen, unpaid; legitimacy dependent on consent; self-governing communities • Was this type of state under threat?
A fiscal-military state • A state capable of funding and fighting large scale warfare • England had preferred to focus on navy. In 1578 England had 24 ships with 6290 men; in 1688 it had 173 ships with 41,900 men. • But there had been a movement in the direction of a fiscal-military state before 1689, especially during the civil wars of the 1640s • 1647-60 armed men numbered 11-47,000 • Pressure to raise money. In 1590s Eliz’s total income was £500,000; a century later it was 10 times that. Increase well above inflation and population growth. • Financing the state. 1550-1640 ad hoc measures. Problem of under-assessments. Types of tax were therefore a problem. Ship money. Forced loans. • 1640s saw a double transformation: scale of govt revenues increased dramatically and proportion of total income from parliamentary sources increased dramatically. New forms: the monthly assessment and excise. Direct taxation increased from £192,000 pa 1560-1602 to 1.43m pa 1648-1653
Accelerating pace of change • GB was at war more frequently and on a wider scale than ever before: • 1689-1697 (Nine Years War), 1702-1713 (War of Spanish Succession), • 1718-20 (War of the Quadruple Alliance) • 1739-48 (War of Jenkin’s Ear; War of Austrian Succession), • 1756-63 (7 Years War), • 1775-83 (War of American Independence), • 1793-1801 (War with Revolutionary France), 1803-1815 (Napoleonic Wars).
Different type of war • Periods of peace were not truly pacific. • war on new scale: American war posed huge logistic problems eg supply lines over 3000m. • Acquisition of empire also placed strain on British state.
The effects • Expansion of army and navy. In first half of C18th peacetime army was 35000; after 1763 it was 45,000 (most stationed in Ireland). • Armed forced intruded into civilian life. • After 1689 they comprised 10-15% of the House of Commons (more than no of lawyers). • Troops could be used as policemen esp. 1715, 1745, 1780 Gordon Riots.
GB army dependent on foreign manpower. Much money spent subsidising other countries eg £7m in war of Sp succession; £17.5m 1739-63; over 32,000 Germans fought for GB vs American colonies. £46m was spent on loans and subsidies to foreign states during the wars against France 1793-1814.
The cost of war • War was hugely expensive • Over 60% of govt income in 1689-1697. • How was this financed? • Revolution in tax collection. 1660-1784 tax revenue grew 6 fold. Why? 1670-1810 tax receipts outstripped economic growth. Therefore economic growth was a factor but not the only one. What were others? The Treasury became very powerful in this period. Imposition of new taxes and higher levels of existing taxes.
Growth of state • Why? Need to cloth, feed, arm troops and supply navy. Growing number of tax officials and govt administrators and victuallers and contractors. • Growing no of office-holders. Greatest increase was in revenue depts esp. excise. • Growth of bureaucracy. Separation of politics and bureaucracy. 9 of Lowndes family served in the Treasury 1674-1798. Establishment of rules and routines. Reform in the 1780s
Financial Revolution: the creation of a public debt • Annuities • National Debt • Bank of England 1694 • Paper money • State-sponsored joint-stock companies eg East India Company • State lotteries
Creation of a National Debt: 50-60 of income on servicing; 66% at end of American war.
How successful? • Infrequent tax riots though 1725 in Scotland vs Malt Tax. 1720 South Sea Bubble (fear of speculation and its effects on morality). 1733 excise crisis. • Hostility to tax • Fear of encroachment on British liberties and destruction of the consensual, dispersed state
Conclusion • A fiscal-military dimension to the state did grow – some of it was planned but mostly the necessary and even unintended consequences of war • An ambiguous reaction to this development: suspicion and even opposition to this process as much as patriotic celebration of the military capacity of the British state
