Unlike his contemporaries G.B.Shaw and H.G.Wells, Hilaire Belloc’s ideas have never been assimilated into current opinion. They are not taken-for-granted, axiomatic, anonymous presuppositions. They are external to it. They irritate the main body of our culture.

The vehemence with which Belloc’s political theories have been put forward by his small bands of followers has not helped...causing them to rebound from a general consciousness tightening itself to repel judgements that might bruise too seriously that collective self-esteem necessary to group survival.

Nevertheless as the vast structure of industrial capitalism crumbles and disintegrates it is time to remind ourselves that Belloc saw and detested as vividly as any Marxist the vast injustices and the advertising-slogan self-justifications of Financial and Industrial Capitalism. He put forward a remedy conceived in terms of constructive human happiness instead of one based upon the misery of mechanized mass revolution. Here is an outline of Belloc’s beliefs.

Widely distributed property is a condition of freedom that is necessary to the normal satisfaction of human nature. In the High Middle Ages an approach to such a life existed. Peasants had come to own and farm their land and manufacture and trade were organized by self-governing guilds dedicated to God. But it could only continue and flourish under a strong centralized monarchy holding and using its power to protect the small man.

The acquisition of monastery lands by a small number of powerful families after the Reformation began to sap the royal power which dwindled struggling until its temporary extinction during the Great Rebellion of the 17th century. It flared up again for two more reigns but was finally crushed out by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when rich men got rid of the last king to exert real power and installed a foreign puppet who would carry out their desires.

The industrial revolution was a morally neutral process. But because it occurred first in a country governed by an oligarchy intent upon the acquisition of abstract wealth and power rather than with the production and use of concrete objects it brought about an evil and inhuman oppression of the poor who had been cheated out of the lands they held by traditional tenure through Acts of Parliament that confiscated all holdings with no written proof of ownership.

What was called by historians ‘the glorious palladium of our liberties’ was in fact the glorious palladium of the liberty for the powerful to exploit the weak. In order to restore a fully human life to the vast majority of England’s twentieth century population it was necessary first to realize with humility in what miserable helplessness and frustration they lived and then to take strong measures completely to alter the structure of society.

Belloc put forward the historical justification of these beliefs in a number of narratives and biographies. A statement of the current situation and of alternatives for the future is made in The Servile State (1912)…a remarkable prophecy of Economic Totalitarianism. Plans for the restoration of individual economic independence…the only solid basis for individual political liberty…are outlined in a number of pamphlets and articles and in several books.

Economics for Helen (1924) sets the claims of freedom and responsibility against those advantages of personal security and general stability which the servile state may give. An Essay on the Restoration of Property (1936) distinguishes between the Distributist and the Social Credit proposals. The ultimate end of Distributism is economic freedom and that of Social Credit is increased purchasing power. Belloc advocates various means of distributing ownership in land, shops and collective enterprises. Belloc did not believe there to be a middle way between general small ownership and general industrial slavery.

Some of these theories were already distastefully familiar to the safe comfortable educated England of the early 20th century as formulated from the Marxist point of view…the exploitation of the weak, the meaninglessness of political liberty without economic power and the complete inadequacy of the liberal tradition to handle industrial problems.

But it was an outrage when similar views were put forward from a fresh angle by a man brought up in the Christian tradition…and indeed appealing to it. The ruling classes of early 20th century England believed the notion that their country was the leader of mankind in its inevitable progress towards perfection. So Belloc’s theories and proposals were received with that thick muffling stifling silence which is the most potent and most infuriating of all defences against an unwelcome argument. But there was another problem…Belloc’s fiery brand of Roman Catholicism.

Belloc believed in a reborn European Cultural Unity and a new Medieval Roman Catholic Empire. This led him into fierce battles with any forces he believed might oppose it. There were the Moslems in North Africa who cut down the trees Rome planted and let in the desert…and the Moslems who fought the Crusaders.

There were the Puritans and the Jews forever harking back to a primitive Old Testament God who gave divine approval to financial success…and using this to justify replacing love and contemplation as the mainspring of living with work and money-making.

There was the Modern Banking System which transformed the creative relationship between men, work and trade into a mechanical, non-moral, non-just, non-human and automatic activity in the modern business world.

Among the ruling classes of England the romanticism of the early 19th century…with exquisite sensibilities, urgent religious feeling and a passion for social justice…had settled down by the end of Queen Victoria’s Reign into the state of a Dr. Pangloss with a stiff upper lip.

This concealed feelings to such an extent that it was indecent…not good form in the parlance of the day...to envisage the existence among their own kind of love, hunger, poverty, anxiety, anger or the desire for God. To those of other inferior sorts who exposed themselves to germs, emotions and insecurity their attitude was one either of condemnation or of domineering patronage.

This was the atmosphere which Bernard Shaw, H.G.Wells, Hilaire Belloc and G.K.Chesterton reacted fiercely against. These four men…of whom two inherited a French, one an Irish and one a Struggling-Small-Shopkeeper tradition…were united in the desire to shatter the complacency of the Wealthy…whether apathetic or bustling.

The Well-Off…it was not quite nice to call them the Rich so they invariably did so…existed in a kind of overstuffed innocence unspoiled by the economic world. The Rich took for granted that cleanliness was next to godliness and solvency to virtue. For them the respectability which gazed over earnest rationalism obliterated a multitude of sins.

With enormous vitality the instinct of all four writers was to shock…Shaw by rationalist and Chesterton by Christian paradox, Wells by angry comic compassionate fiction and Belloc by satire of what was assumed to be good by an exuberant boastfulness that deliberately outraged all the current canons of gentlemanly modesty.

Hilaire Belloc’s output can be grouped into seven categories: satire, literary criticism, essays, poetry, travel, history and politics. The satirical books are high spirited, genial, fierce or bitter…and written as fiction…The Green Overcoat and The Mercy of Allah; spoof biographies…Lambkin’s Remains…and comic verse…A Moral Alphabet, Cautionary Tales, Peers…More Peers and The Modern Traveller. Belloc’s Literary Criticism was what was expected from a Man of Letters.

There are many volumes of Belloc's Essays… stimulating, irritating, reminiscent…good talk and animated conversation. Belloc’s Poetry has an energy which enables it to reach into both the heart and the mind. To read Belloc’s essays is like dining with a great conversationalist. In them the richness and depth of the written word replace the golden geniality…the spiritual equivalent of candle-lit cigar-smoke and the lingering vibration of wine…which gives to its spoken counterpart a quality evaporated by print. Some are political and polemical…the products of his years in Parliament, of his unsuccessful struggle for the public auditing of Party funds and of the libel action in which his paper the New Witness was involved just before the first world war. Others discuss aspects of the main themes of his large-scale books…religion, history, social patterns, places, buildings and people.

Belloc’s Historical Studies were mainly concerned with England and France and meet Jane Austin’s criterion of perfection…passionate, partial and prejudiced…works of art rather than of scientific truth. Belloc’s Travel books…on foot and under sail…are marked by a keen sense both of history and of the immediacy of the present. The Four Men and The Voyage of the Nona are small masterpieces of this genre. But it is Belloc’s politics that will interest us.

Belloc’s Politics were summed up in his short masterpiece published in 1912 The Servile State. All developed states were organizing their workers into Slavery. This might be more or less comfortable but was always without roots and without power whether the label was Socialist or Capitalist.

To restore men to the happiness and dignity of responsible freedom it was necessary to organize the wide-spread distribution of small property and of shares in both the finance and the direction of communally-owned public services. In the England of 1912 such a theme…though foreshadowed in the papal encyclical De Rerum Novarum in 1881…was considered heretical, radical and reactionary.

Yesterday I spent ten pounds…and all afternoon…travelling across the county by train to return my Apple Mac Mini to Solutions Inc on the Old Shoreham Road beyond Brighton for repair. It was a wasted journey. ‘When did you purchase it sir?’ ‘April last year…but I haven’t used it much…four months total...and not for the past three months. But when I went to use it again it refused to boot up. Not a murmur. I even left it on overnight hoping it was something like an internal battery that needed to charge itself up before it would go. But not a dickie bird.’

‘Regrettably Sir the warranty period is twelve months. Did you take out an extended warranty.’ ‘Probably not. I was told Apple Mac Minis never go wrong. Can you check?’ ‘Part Number?…No Sir…Regrettably you are not coming up on the computer with a 3-year Extended Warranty.’ ‘Then I want it replaced I presume Apple doesn’t build their computers with six months obsolescence.’ ‘Regrettably I cannot authorise that, Sir. You will need to talk to Apple.’

‘But you are Apple’s Sussex representative.’ ‘Yes Sir. Exactly. We are not Apple. Here is the number you need to call.’ ‘So I’ve just wasted ten pounds coming to Brighton.’ ‘Regrettably yes Sir. But we will of course be happy to repair it. But our minimum charge is £150…for the computer engineer to take the cover off. And the only thing that can go wrong is the motherboard. So he would replace it. This would cost you another £150 for a new motherboard.’

‘But I only paid £339 for it…new. And I can get a new PC laptop for what it will cost me to have my Apple Mac Mini repaired.’ ‘True Sir.’ ‘So you recommend I throw it in the bin.’ ‘ That is not for me to say Sir. But recover the data first. And it is worth talking to Apple. They may approve a parts replacement under warranty for you Sir.’

‘Can I check the power pack.’ ‘Certainly Sir. But regrettably you must go back to Sales...just 100 yards round the corner. I don’t have the right connection. We never see Apple Mac Minis here because they never go wrong. Aah! Wait! Hear that...when I disconnect the PPU. So that’s not your problem.’ Pity...a new PPU would only set me back £40. At least insult was not added to injury with ‘Have A Nice Day Sir’. Back across the county. What to do?

Sunday 27th August 2006 was the day for this year’s annual Rye Raft Race. Once upon a time the race started at Strand Quay and ran downstream to The Conqueror in Rye Harbour. For some reason it was switched ten years ago and now runs upstream from the Fishmarket. But at least this meant that the rafts were launched 44 yards away from Vemara from the sheep pasture on the opposite side of the river giving me a grandstand view.

After devoting hundreds of hours to playing cricket in my younger days I can estimate cricket pitch multiples very accurately…to within an inch or two. A cricket pitch is 22 yards from wicket to wicket…the Old English measure of One Chain. Hence my confident claim that launching took place two cricket pitches away from Vemara’s cockpit.

It was the best turn-out for many years with eleven rafts competing. It has been storm showers every hour or so for the past two weeks. But today the weather stayed fine until mid-afternoon. As the rafts disappeared round the bend and out of sight I must wait until the Rye Observer comes out on Friday to find out who were this year’s winners.

It was a very sociable day for me. The previous evening a black-leathered and black-helmeted figure had appeared on the river bank at the end of Vemara’s catwalk and stood there for some minutes gazing at the boat. This is not that unusual an occurrence as Rye is the destination of choice for bikers from all over the south-eastern suburbs of London who gather at Strand Café most weekends…and on bank holiday weekends in particular.

But this was no ordinary biker. These black leathers were riding a bike with a German number plates. All the way from Germany just to see me? Well perhaps not. But it was my elder brother John…last seen at Heidi’s house in Rye Harbour a year ago. I had received sixtieth birthday greetings by email last month and we had made an unsuccessful attempt to meet up at Christmas when John was in Leeds and I was in Llangolman. We arranged to meet up again before he left Rye on Bank Holiday Monday for his newly purchased Property Development Project in Bishop Stortford in Hertfordshire…a few miles away from the family home in the village of Braughing.

So after the Raft Race I was making my way to meet up with my brother and his wife Sue when I bumped into Martin returning to his house on Fishmarket Road after watching the race from the bridge so I took the opportunity to take my first guided tour. David was at home so I gave him the telephone number to Malcolm and Claire Wallace. Last week I had made arrangements with Claire that next week when Dynamic Events were back in town after a 400-person conference up north David could go round to their offices on South Undercliff and choose two of his mother’s large Rye Maritime Heritage watercolours held in store there to have on his wall at 42 Fishmarket Road.

Martin was in the middle of serving up the Sunday Roast so I did not linger but continued round to Regents Square …named after the old Regent Cinema that was bombed by Hitler’s Luftwaffe. I spent a very enjoyable few hours catching up on John, his family and the rest of the clan before returning to Vemara…and my research into the last time that the Monarchy and Parliament were at loggerheads…which means most of the 17th Century.