F. S. Oliver, Alexander Hamilton, and the 'American Plan' for Resolving Britain's Constitutional Crises, 1903-1921

Frederick Scott Oliver was a Scottish businessman, writer, politicalpundit, and friend of many leading Conservatives. Distressedby the serious constitutional problems confronting Britain atthe turn of the century, he proposed solutions based on theideas and methods of the founders of the United States of Americain the late eighteenth century. These notions were set forthin Oliver's biography, Alexander Hamilton (1906), and helpedinspire the constitutional settlement brought by Milner's ‘kindergarten’in South Africa in 1910. Subsequent attempts by Oliver and hisRound Table associates, however, to implement this ‘AmericanPlan’ to resolve constitutional crises over Ireland justbefore and during the course of the First World War were largelyfutile. Austen Chamberlain and others failed to share Oliver'senthusiasm for such idealistic nostrums as constitutional conventionsand federalism as possible means to maintain unity within Britainand the empire. They were regarded simply as too American.     

The Tax Threshold: Policy, Principles, and Poverty

In the absence of an independent poverty standard, postwar Britishgovernments have tended to use current, politically determinedsocial security scales (from Unemployment Assistance in the1930s to Income Support today) as their definition of minimallyadequate income levels, commonly known as an ‘officialpoverty line’. A basic principle of taxation since thedays of Adam Smith, however, has been that incomes below theminimum income required for socially defined necessities shouldbe free of tax. The personal tax allowance which determinesthe income tax-paying threshold thus also provides a practicaldefinition of such an official poverty line. Royal Commissionsand official committees since the nineteenth century have endorsedSmith's principle, but it only acquired major political significanceafter the Second World War when income tax began to affect lowearners, particularly after the 1960s when poverty was ‘rediscovered’in the UK. In spite of this potential coincidence of purpose,a review of evidence and interviews with officials shows thatthere has been no co-ordination of policy between the Treasuryand Inland Revenue responsible for determining the level ofthe tax allowances, and the Social Security ministries responsiblefor the minimum benefit scales. The tax threshold has consequentlycontinued to be determined by considerations of political economyand administration and not by the alleviation of poverty. ^* This paper is part of a larger project on concepts of povertyand need in British income maintenance systems, chiefly the‘Assistance’ schemes which ran from 1934 to 1966.I am grateful to the many people who have helped with the project,regrettably too numerous to name here. I am particularly indebtedto Sir Norman Price and Sir Kenneth Stowe, James Meade, DellaNevitt, and). Leonard Nicholson for information on the tax issues,and want to record my thanks to them and to Fran Bennett, JohnHills, Chris Pond, and Adrian Sinfield, and especially RodneyLowe, as well as participants in seminars at the Universitiesof Edinburgh and Essex, and in Budapest, for their advice onthis paper.