History questions not worth their own thread IV

[privatehudson]

However, when people refer to the United Kingdom as England it annoys me.

Yeah but it's been going on for so long that its unlikely to stop now. I've been listening to a lot of biographies on audiobook recently (Churchill and Rommel for example) and its not like its even confined to the English. Quotes by Germans and Frenchmen (for example) are peppered with references to England/The English when they quite clearly mean Britain/the British.

 

[say1988]

"England expects that every man will do his duty"

 

[W|M]

That one was only used for easier coding on naval flags.

 

[History_Buff]

In that instance it was, though it's entirely normal for contemporaries to refer to Britain and her possessions as England, especially amongst foreigners. Became less of an issue after 'The British Empire' became the vogue term.

 

[Lord Baal]

Which nation has been a monarchy for the longest period of time? Got curious after reading an article on San Marino.

 

[say1988]

That one was only used for easier coding on naval flags.

Really? I know "expects" replaced "confides" because of the code system, but I am surprised that Britain/UK wouldn't have been in the code book and the lack of it could be just as telling.

 

[say1988]

Which nation has been a monarchy for the longest period of time? Got curious after reading an article on San Marino.

Almost certainly Japan. As far as I am aware they have had a monarch for all of their recorded history. Of course the power of the Emperor has varied dramatically throughout that time period.

 

[W|M]

Really? I know "expects" replaced "confides" because of the code system, but I am surprised that Britain/UK wouldn't have been in the code book and the lack of it could be just as telling.

It might have been that Viscount Admiral Nelson's assistant found ''England'' in the code-book first, and decided to use it so that he wouldn't have to look for ''Britain''

 

[say1988]

From what I understand, the original order from Nelson was "England confides" and the signal officer requested to replace "confides" with "expects"

But teh point remains that it has been used as a shorthand for Great Britain and the United Kingdom since the Act of Union

 

[Domen]

Even if the Russians didn't constitute an absolute majority of the USSR's population, they would still be the largest ethnic group.

Yeah but if in Britain 75% are English it means that Britain is much more essentially English than the Soviet Union was essentially Russian.

 

[privatehudson]

David Howarth says that Nelson originally suggested "Nelson confides that every man will do his duty" but someone else suggested England rather than Nelson. He then called over lieutenant Pasco (the flag officer) and gave him the message, followed by a warning that it must be done quickly as he had one other message to put up. It was at that point that Pasco suggested replacing "confides" purely to save time as it would have to be spelt out.

As Howarth points out the original signal is more personal and therefore better, implying that he personally knew the crews would not let him down. As an aside I can't remember where I read it, but there is a rumour that many non-English on board the RN's ships that day muttered something to the effect of "Yeah, because he knows that we will do our duty, its the English you have to constantly remind".

Since the "Nelson/England" suggestion occurred before Nelson had called Pasco over I would be surprised if the choice had anything to do with speed of transmission, unlike the Expects/Confides decision.

That said the system only had a vocabulary of about 3,000 words or signals, which sounds a lot until you realise that the OED has something like 171,000 full entries. So those 3,000 had to cover a lot of ground given that much of that number would be common signals.

So it is possible that there was only an entry for either Britain or England, and its not implausible that faced with a choice between them, England would have been chosen. However there's no evidence either way.

That said I don't find West India Man's suggestion about the code book to be very likely. It would be the flag officer's duty to know most of the common codes without resorting to written help. If he had to look up a common word or signal all the time the messages would take far too long to put up.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Of the highly developed countries of the world today, how many of them had significant tariffs and other protection for local producers when they were industrializing?

 

[Masada]

Most if not all. I'm assuming "significant" >5%.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

"Significant" in my post doesn't mean a number, unfortunately. It just means that foreign products can't afford to compete. I don't know what that number would be, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Yeah but if in Britain 75% are English it means that Britain is much more essentially English than the Soviet Union was essentially Russian.

Both terms being meaningless, since ethnicity has never been something pure, anywhere.

 

[Tee Kay]

AFAIK, the European colonial empires had historically lower tariffs than the United States from the mid-19th century onwards. For the United States tariffs only came down to about the 5% level in the late 1970s.

 

[madviking]

Here's the Wiki article on US tariffs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history

 

[r16]

Really? I know "expects" replaced "confides" because of the code system, but I am surprised that Britain/UK wouldn't have been in the code book and the lack of it could be just as telling.

and ı have heard Nelson actually meant Nelson , but he wasn't in the code books .

edit : Sorry , ı hadn't seen privatehudson's detailed post .

 

[Masada]

"Significant" in my post doesn't mean a number, unfortunately. It just means that foreign products can't afford to compete. I don't know what that number would be, I'm sorry to say.

Ah, right. I guess I can at least make some points. No major developed state has ever been autarkic in the 'true' sense. Even those with high effective tariff barriers e.g. Australia and New Zealand in the 60s still imported goods. So in a sense, some foreign products can always compete. "Some" can still be a hell of a lot. In New Zealand's case about 25% of consumption or something.

The more important factor would be costs of production. For instance, Australia and New Zealand for a long time manufactured lots of goods because it was cheaper to do so. Tariffs tended to be bought in only after that balance began to change. The logic being that states don't need to erect barriers to protect industries that can compete on their own merits.

There's also infant industries to consider. Most states have provided at one time or another protection for infant industries. But this rarely ousts all foreign products and tends to be used to as a wedge to make available enough market space for the domestic industry to be able to operate sustainably in the long term. It's seldom intended to do much more than that. The trick is figuring out at what point sustainable operations can begin.

I guess the picture then is complex.

 

[Ergo Sum]

Both terms being meaningless, since ethnicity has never been something pure, anywhere.

While I agree with your point, there's no denying that the British government grew out of the English Crown's imperial project, and there are many who would say that Britain is 'essentially English' without any irony. And England-born folks might be better suited to gain positions of power in the British government/politics/society, etc. Point being that this is not a simple definition.

That said, I wish I could elaborate on how me being called 'Anglo-Saxon' despite being American is the height of absurdity, but that's another tired debate entirely.