Why did Britain not follow FranceÊs revolutionary path in the late 18 th and early 19 th century?
William Beddows
The French revolution was unquestionably one of the most significant episodes of European history, an event that turned French society upside down ending hundreds of years of autocratic and aristocratic rule. The question of why Britain unlike France avoided revolution during this period is at first surprising given the similarity of the social structures of the two countries. Both countries had substantial income inequality; with the rich living a life of luxury in grand country houses while the poor lived a life of squalor, in the densely populated towns and cities. Both were governed by an upper class elite made up of the gentry and the aristocracy while the mass of the populace was kept out of politics, and prevented from holding senior posts in the armed forces, the civil service and the Judiciary. In France this governing elite was overthrown by an aspirational middle class, and the King, Louis XVI condemned as a tyrant and enemy of the people. Yet in Britain the opposite was apparent with the governing aristocracy seen in a largely positive light and the King, George III promoted as the symbol of the nation. In order to explore this question of why Britain did not follow FranceÊs path of development we must look at how the governing elite in Britain managed to retain BritainÊs traditional society, and why they succeeded in preventing the revolutionary tide that had engulfed France in 1789, from doing the same to Britain. One of the key reasons why Britain managed to avoid revolution during this period was as a result of BritainÊs finance and taxation system, which stood in stark contrast to that of France. Due to depression in the 1770s and expensive foreign wars being paid for mostly through borrowing rather than
taxation the French state by 1786 was declared bankrupt. Furthermore France in the 1780s still had the pays dÊétats which were regions covering a third of France where taxes could only be levied once local estates had approved them; the equivalents in England had been abolished by Henry VIII, and their existence in France made revenue raising far more difficult. The fact that France did not have a central treasury also made deficit reduction much more difficult in France as the government had no idea of how much money they had; it was primarily this total financial incompetence of the old regime ultimately led to its downfall in 1789. Britain on the other hand had an effective and reliable tax raising system that allowed the Exchequer to fund expensive foreign wars without excessive borrowing, thereby preventing social unrest. BritainÊs government unlike FranceÊs was committed to reducing the national debt; as taxation procedures were well ordered, uniform and under the close supervision of central government this was far easier to achieve than in France. But not only was the British government more effective at raising tax revenue than its French counterpart; it was also fairer in making the bulk of taxation fall on the rich. The French taxation system was heavily regressive with the poor taking most of the burden of taxation. The French nobility were exempt from a direct land tax known as the ÂTailleÊ as well as being exempt from the ÂVingtièmesÊ an income tax that remained in place until 1790. 1 Finally the nobility could also avoid the poll tax known as the ÂcapitationÊ by bribing local tax officials. 2 The colossal tax avoidance by the French nobility caused significant discontent among the lower orders that paid far more
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