OC AND ENGLAND

Mr. Belloc is a democrat. He is politically democratic in the sense in
which the French Revolution was democratic, and he is spiritually
democratic in the sense in which the Church of Rome is democratic. What
is common to all men is to him infinitely more important than the
accidents by which men differ. The same may be said of his view of the
nations of Europe. He does not view these great nations separately, but
in their relation one to another. That in its history which each nation
has in common with the other European nations is infinitely more
important than that which is peculiar to itself alone.

Mr. Belloc said of Danton that he possessed a singularly wide view of
the Europe in which France stood. We may say that in Mr. Belloc's view
England juts out from Europe in a precarious position. England forms an
integral part of Europe, but her position to-day, owing mainly to the
accidents of her peculiar history, is as unique as it is perilous.

There are two books written by Mr. Belloc which deal exclusively with
different aspects of the England of to-day. Of these, the first is _The
Servile State_, in which Mr. Belloc is writing to maintain and prove the
thesis that industrial society, as we know it, is tending towards the
re-establishment of slavery. In this work he is concerned with an
analysis of the economic system existing in England to-day, and with
sketching the course of development in which that system came into
being. In the other book, _The Party System_, in which Mr. Cecil
Chesterton collaborated, he is concerned with an analysis of our present
methods of government.

With _The Party System_ and the views contained in it we shall deal in a
later chapter. Here we are concerned solely with Mr. Belloc's view of
the development of England and especially with that most startling and
original view which he expounds in _The Servile State_ as to the origin
of our present economic system.

Whether in Mr. Belloc's view, or the view of any other historian, the
cardinal point in the history of England is that England was Britain
before it became England: though Mr. Belloc would probably add the
reminder that England was Britain for as long a period as from the time
of Henry VIII to the present day. England was once as much a province of
the Roman Empire as was France. This fact, of course, is commonly
recognized. Where Mr. Belloc differs from other historians, so far as
can be gathered by piec