Return to my Societe Pages index

Return to Guide Books page

---

The Channel Islands as Places of Residence

[from Introducing the Channel Islands by Henry Myhill (1964)]

Life in the Islands is an unexpected mixture of freedom and of restriction. Unexpected, because although most people taking up residence in the Channel Islands, anticipate that life will be at once easier and quieter; both the ease and the tranquillity generally prove to be rather different from what they had imagined.

To deal with the restrictions first. An almost pathological claustrophobia can afflict inhabitants of small islands. The immigration figures to the Channel Islands roughly balance the numbers emigrating. For every incoming retired bank manager, or manufacturer who has just sold up his business, there is a young Jerseyman or Guernseyman anxious for a wider life in London or the armed services, or a returning Mainlander who has failed to settle down. For the same urge which compels youth in the English provinces to have their fling in the metropolis, is supplemented in the Islands by the desire to escape from the overpowering social pressures of the small communities where the young people have grown up. The young men who do not inherit a farm, a business, or an advocate's practice, look to the Mainland or to the Commonwealth for openings. Many of the girls, too, leave the Islands for training, and more simply in search of the young men, whose numbers at home have been so depleted. 'I want a man from the Mainland', as one of the characters sang in Julian Slade's and Dorothy Reynolds Channel Island fantasy "Free as Air".

It may be this shortage of young people, the preponderance of the middle-aged in every restaurant or cinema for eight months of the year, which is partly responsible for the inability of many 'immigrants' from the Mainland to settle permanently. Especially is this the case when they have young people of their own, who have an even greater tendency than the young islanders themselves to find jobs and marriage partners in Britain. The 'three month limit' laid down by the Inland Revenue, as the maximum annual stay in the United Kingdom without becoming liable to British Income Tax, which seems generous at first sight, becomes a restriction indeed as grandchildren multiply across the Channel.

The ability to settle happily in the Islands demands, too qualities of temperament and of character which are not always associated with the possession of sufficient wealth—still less with the ability to accumulate sufficient wealth—to make the effort and expense of moving there a worth-while proposition.

It is the absence of Estate Duty, rather than the lower rates of Income Tax, which make residence in the Channel Island attractive to the wealthy; and Death Duties have now been part of the English social scene for so many years, that the 'Estate Duty Industry' has devised innumerable methods of mitigating or avoiding them, without the wealthy having to leave the United Kingdom. In any case. Death Duties only become a serious problem for fairly substantial estates; and most people with fairly substantial estates prefer to move in a rather wider circle than that provided by a few friends on a small island.

For the Channel Islands are for the relatively rare beings who enjoy wealth, without the status symbols of wealth as these have developed in the post-war world. The opportunities of self expression given by the possession of a big car hardly exist in islands where only about ten miles of roadway are sufficiently wide for a really large car to be driven with comfort. And the pleasure of the expense account feast has gone if the cost of a good dinner is half what it would be in the West End of London, and if it is in any case no longer chargeable to expenses.

It is this very simplicity and straightforwardness of life which can come as an unexpected shock to minds long accustomed to approaching every financial problem by a devious and roundabout route. To say this is in no way to criticise those whose minds have developed in this way. The complexities, inconsistencies, and absurdities of tax-law, not only provide a living for many brilliant men, but inevitably influence the minds of those whose whole way of life is conditioned by their operation. The prisoner feels bewildered when first he returns to normal life; and the species which during long ages has conditioned itself to the extremes of Arctic tundra, or of equatorial rain-forest, is sadly lost when transported to more temperate climes. The Briton moving to the Channel Islands is in a like condition. Anyone describing them as places of residence, who did not draw attention to this psychological danger, would have failed in his duty.

For there must be tens of thousands of people in the wealthier sections of the community, who although outwardly they protest against surtax, estate duty, profits tax, and the rest, are inwardly for ever basking in a warm glow of self-congratulation at their own shrewdness and expertise, in having avoided much of their individual share of the common burden. They deserve their self-congratulation: they have successfully adapted themselves to life in a highly developed twentieth-century society. But in the Channel Islands their particular dream-fantasy can no longer be indulged in. There is nothing clever about avoiding taxes which do not exist, or which are so low as to be scarcely worth avoiding. In the Islands, a 5 per cent yield means 5 per cent. All the clever calculations whereby some stock yields, say, 20 per cent when grossed up for a U.K. resident paying 15s. in the £ tax, are quite irrelevant, when the standard—and top— rate of tax is only 4s. That famous post-war excuse for spending capital: 'The Government will spend it, if I don't myself, is only valid where Death Duties are levied. Nor is there anything clever about smuggling watches into a country where they retail at prices lower than in Switzerland itself. And why go to the trouble of getting one's motoring expenses allowed against one's far lower taxation, when the road tax is £5 Jersey, against £15 in the United Kingdom, motor insurance is considerably less than on the Mainland, and petrol costs only 2s. 9d. a gallon? Especially when a year's regular motoring, day after day, is unlikely to clock up a total mileage much in excess of 4,000.

Moreover, the search for capital gains, which has more and more dominated British personal finances in the last decade loses some of its point, when income once again has a value simply as income. It is untrue to say, as so many frustrate immigrants do say, that 'There is nothing in the Channel Islands to put your money into'. But it remains true that the ideal Channel Island investments, property, local investment trusts, European unit trusts, Canadian banks, and so on, are the type of securities to stick in the old tin box and forget about - they do not appeal to the 'in-and-out' speculator, whose numbers have risen so greatly in modern Britain. The Channel Island investor can sleep at nights, certainly; but sleeping a' nights is just what the average U.K. investor has forgotten how to do.

It is not only in the financial field however, that the quiet life is a taste less and less frequently acquired. Television, it is true, has ended much of the Islands' cultural isolation, and the popular ITV alternative to the BBC became available in 1962, with the opening of Channel Television's station at Fremont. Jersey, with four cinemas, is well enough supplied for films, but Guernsey's two are not regarded as sufficient by many younger people, and Alderney has only one film show a week. And the pace of life is, quite literally, slowed down by Jersey's all-island speed limit of 40 m.p.h., Guernsey's 35 m.p.h.; and Sark's refusal to allow any private motor vehicles whatsoever.

Another respect in which the immigrant often feels himself restricted is in the preference given, both overtly and implicitly, in almost every department of public life, by the Islanders to their fellow 'natives'. The senior political offices of Bailiff, Attorney-General, and Solicitor-General are obviously reserved, by right and by necessity, for local men with the local upbringing, and the local background, which are essential if these officers are adequately to perform their duties, and to interpret their powers under the Crown. The Rectors of the parishes, too, are whenever possible Jerseymen or Guernseymen; the ability to speak Norman French was within living memory almost essential for their work, and the only reason why more of the livings are not held by local men is that vocations to the Ministry have for many years been proportionately even lower in the Islands than in Britain.

No house can be purchased by an immigrant if an Islander born is prepared to buy it. In practice, this means that the Housing Committees are unlikely to allow a house of under £5,000 in Jersey, or of under £3,000 in Guernsey, to be sold to a new-comer. In the same way, the only farms which are allowed to be sold to immigrants are 'English farms' which are already in 'Mainland' hands.

Beyond this open, and perfectly justified system, of ensuring that posts which demand local men are locally recruited, and of protecting the less affluent native from the inflation of property values brought about by the wealthy immigrant, there is an unacknowledged but equally efficient network of friendships, local loyalties, and clan-like relationships, which combine to make sure that every local position of any importance goes to a Channel Islander.

This can be frustrating. Many a schoolteacher, for example, attracted to work in Islands where the Burnham scale enables a man to run a car, to take a continental holiday every year, and to open a weekly bottle of wine, returns in dudgeon to the Mainland, when some head teachership, or post of special responsibility, is filled by someone of local origin with less experience and qualifications than himself.

This, however, is surely the wrong attitude. The obvious tendency for Channel Islanders to give every preference to their fellows, is something which the immigrant may find irritating, but which he can hardly criticise. They are surely entitled to run their own show. When all is said and done, even comparative new-comers like the Careys of Guernsey have been in residence since 1340! That the Islands are today appendages of the English Crown, rather than a department of the French Republic, is due to the Islanders' own choice. British naval strength over the centuries has done no more than help them to help themselves. And if their very attachment to Britain is of their own doing, equally so is the convenient looseness of that attachment.

On several occasions attempts have been made—the last a century ago by immigrants from the Mainland—to assimilate the Islands to British local government as another county, like the Orkneys or Anglesey. The insular autonomy has only been preserved by the resistance of the Islanders themselves; and if, today, taxes are so low, this is only in part because of the admitted attraction to the tourist and the wealthy resident. It is mainly due to the Islanders' own dislike of paying more than they possibly need; and to their public spirit, which fills the ranks of the honorary police, and of the various honorary parish and States offices, with responsible and experienced men who are prepared to work hard, and to give up much time, with no remuneration other than the knowledge that they have served their country. 'Erige par souscription publique en reconnaissance de services rendus a son pays', as reads a monument in the Parade to Philippe Baudins, Connetable of St. Helier, 1881-96 and 1899-1905.

One is reminded of the Swiss canton, where respect and loyalty to the Federal authority is mingled with a jealous pride in local rights; and where, as in the Channel Islands, much excellent and unpaid public service enables taxation to be kept at a minimal level. One is reminded, too, of the Greek City State: some of those Aegean islands under the protecting wing of Athenian naval power, cannot have been entirely dissimilar in atmosphere. Indeed, Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney, each with its 'city', its 'assembly', its opposition of 'town' and 'country', and even, at some moments in history, of 'oligarchs' and 'democrats', might be described as modern city states, set in the northern seas.

The Greek city states resembled modem Switzerland in the presence on their soil of a large class of foreign residents, leading lives at once privileged and underprivileged; paying their share of the taxes, and having the protection of the state, but neither liable to military service, nor enjoying the full political rights of citizenship. The position in the Channel Islands is rather different: the Englishman who moves there is already a subject of the Crown, and after three years' residence can vote in elections to the States, or go along to speak at his own parish assembly.

Until he is actually invited to take a part in political life, how- ever, he may be better advised, and happier in mind, if he regards himself as a privileged "petolkos", content to leave the burdens of statesmanship to those 'full citizens'. Channel Islanders born, who have allowed him to live amongst them, and to benefit from a unique atmosphere and special position, which they and their ancestors have created and preserved.

If only the immigrant can thus adjust his mental attitude to gratitude towards the islanders, rather than resentment, he will soon find their behaviour towards him correspondingly more open. Many books on the Islands, and many 'failed immigrants', speak of the Channel Islanders' reserve, of their hostility towards 'foreigners', and of people who have spent thirty years on an island without ever entering an islander's home.

This impression may be due to the fact that many immigrants are not only southern English, but have clung, during long years overseas, to ideals and habits, which are no longer found even in the Home Counties or the Cotswolds, where they originated. These admirable men and women have spent the best years of their lives governing and defending the far-flung outposts of a tropical empire which has been disintegrating under their feet; or supervising the banking and merchanting activities of an even greater trading empire, under the constant menace of devaluation and expropriation. The little formalities of British colonial life: the bridge, the cocktails, and the gossip, have all been necessary psychological crutches, to assist them in keeping the flag flying.

They return, often with their careers cut short, sometimes with their health ruined, to the British climate, and to British income-tax, to whisky at over £2 a bottle, and cigarettes at over 4s. for twenty, to a generation which not only knew not Joseph Chamberlain, but which was as yet unborn when last the King of England was Emperor of India. In moving, as so many of them do, to the Channel Islands, they are seeking, if only half consciously, more than a mild winter and a cheap night-cap. They are seeking, too, that idealised upper middle- class southern English way of life, of which it was still permissible to dream, when first they sailed from Liverpool or Southampton in the 1920s or 1930s, and to which they have always hoped one day to return.

Now, if the Channel Islander can be likened to the people of any particular region in his general attitude to life, it is to the North Countryman. There are many differences; but his warmth and sincerity, his insistence on real rather than on superficial values, his instinctive preference for the comfortable rather than the ostentatious, mean that the inhabitants of St. Peter Port or of St. Helier, have more in common with those of Ilkley, Yorks, or of Southport, Lanes, than with those of Eastbourne or of Maidenhead. They say up in Yorkshire, that many a business-man is worth six figures, before he even contemplates moving out of his terrace house; and many comfortably off Yorkshire families refuse to trust any financial institution other than the Yorkshire Penny Bank. In the same way, the story is told of an old Jersey farmer, who was finally persuaded to open a bank account. He called on the bank manager, and asked him how to set about it. "Well", asked the bank manager, "how much would you like to pay in to the account which you propose to open?" "£53,421 17s 4 ½d" replied the old farmer, producing a bulging sack. "I am afraid that it will take a little while to count all that," said the manager. "In fact, I'll set all the available members of the staff to work counting it." "That's quite all right," said the farmer, "but if you're going to be a long time, I'll go away for a while, and return after you've finished." The counting went on, and after a couple of hours the figure of £52,388 6s. was reached. This apparent error of over £1,000 greatly worried the manager, who switched even more of his staff over for a recount. They confirmed the figure of £52,388 6s. just as the old farmer drove up outside the bank in his aged van. The manager, a worried expression on his face, greeted him before he even got out. "I much regret that you appear to have made a mistake in the sum of what you paid in earlier today. Instead of £53,421 17s 4 1/2d as you stated, my staff can only arrive at £52,388 6s". Climbing down from the van, the farmer seemed not the least bit perturbed. "Ah! bon! It's easy to see how that's happened! Trust me to get them mixed up." And he pulled out after him another bulging sack.

This combination of naivete with solid worth, something of North Country ruggedness with much of the shrewdness of the Normandy peasant, produces strong and likeable characters; but it is not what the typical southern English immigrant expects. He may be surprised, too, to find that although the Channel Island communities have some of the pleasant features of the England of forty years ago, they are more classless socially than the England of today.

The reasons for this are four. In the first place, everyone on a small island is dependent, economically and for social intercourse, on everyone else, and cannot afford to show too openly any feelings of superiority which they may cherish. In the second place, most families of a certain income, and all families with sufficiently intelligent children, send their sons and daughters to the same excellent public day schools. Thus, that appalling class division in the average English provincial town between the children of the doctors, solicitors, and industrialists, whose parents have struggled to send them away to public schools, and the children of the tradesmen, white-collar workers, and factory foremen, who have gone to the local grammar school, is avoided. When the Seigneur or advocate has sat beside the grocer or farmer, in the classrooms of Victoria or Elizabeth College, or when the taxi-driver's daughter has played hockey in the same team as the daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor, the yawning class gulf is at least partly bridged. Thirdly, the absence of industry means that anyone must be prepared to turn his hand to almost anything, in order to earn a living. Members of the wealthiest families run hire-car businesses or restaurants; and titled aristocrats seeking a haven from U.K. Estate Duty buy up small retail stores. Finally, money itself talks. The greatly increased attraction of the Channel Islands since the Second World War to tourists and to wealthy residents has led to the emergence of a new rich class of successful hoteliers and building contractors, whose background gives them little sympathy with the hierarchies of an earlier age.

Before the war, the military garrisons, besides adding a useful leaven of regimental balls and young bachelor officers to the social life of the Islands, added also something of that pronounced class consciousness which is inseparable from military existence. With the garrisons' departure, this has quite disappeared, and the occasional retired officer who wishes to indulge his social pretensions, finds that he must do so in vacuo.

Life in the Channel Islands, then, is relaxed and non-competitive, and is free of much of the necessity of keeping up with the Joneses. These are not the only advantages.

The cost of living, taken as a whole, is less than on the Mainland. It is true that house prices are higher than anywhere except London, and a few favoured spots such as Torquay and Bournemouth—although Mainland property prices have made a big effort to catch up in recent years. But repair bills, in these climatically favoured isles, tend to be lower. Rates, too, are far less in all the Islands than on the Mainland. In the country parishes it is unusual for even fair-sized houses to pay much over £10 a year. Thus, the total annual outlay of the householder (translating the capital value of the house into an annual mortgage interest), in spite of higher house prices, is no higher than in Britain.

Flat rents are sometimes rather less, as the building of blocks of flats, or the conversion of older houses into flats, has been a favourite form of investment of the type of Mainland immigrant who likes to see his money in 'bricks and mortar'. Gardens, for those who are horticulturally minded, can be made to produce vegetables all the year round. For lazier mortals, on the other hand, there are none of the social pressures which have in recent years put the lawn-mower high on the list of consumer durables essential for the aspirant to middle- class status. The man who cannot afford the labour, or who cannot be bothered, to cut his lawn, or to weed his paths, can sit amidst the jungle of his front garden, reading the newspaper, without provoking criticism. 'Let the grass grow under your feet', as the theme song of Free as Air proclaimed, is not far wide of the mark.

The attitude to clothes is also free and easy. A man who at night slips on a blazer in place of the 'chunky' pullover, or guernsey, which he has been wearing all day, is quite acceptably dressed for a cocktail party. Evening dress, whether black or white tie, is almost as little worn as smoking or "frac" on the Continent. The milder climate, moreover, makes it possible to dispense with many of the heavy winter garments which form so essential a bottom drawer to the British wardrobe. In fact, a man could appear suitably dressed all the year round with no more than one well-cut raincoat, one well-tailored 'naval reefer' type of double-breasted blazer, three decent pairs of trousers, a few drip-dry shirts, and a guernsey. Such almost monastic austerity, however much it may appeal to some males, is a decidedly unwise suggestion to make to ladies. Shops for them, especially in St. Helier, are good; and one or two have established useful links with some of the French fashion houses. Even so, shopping within a small community always exposes the buyer to the danger of finding herself confronting the identical dress or hat that she is wearing, on her worst enemy (or, equally disastrously, on her best friend). It is true that there are only a few shops which stock clothes above a certain price-level, whether for men or for women; and all income-groups regret the failure of Marks and Spencers to establish a foothold in the Islands. But few small country towns anywhere have equal shopping facilities; and anyone who can afford to spend more than a certain minimum on clothes will surely be making an annual visit to London—or to Paris—and can put off his or her major purchases until then. And when the time comes to go to London or to Paris—or to Devon, or Glasgow, or Rome, for that matter—the journey is easy.

The quick drive to the airport, and the easy flight, enables people who have retired to all the islands except Sark to continue to use their dentist or optician in London, without having to stay there overnight. British United's "Executive" flight even allows someone working in London to commute from Jersey every day—although it would admittedly have to be rather a late-starting working day.

Taking a car by sea to the Continent, although the boats run by no means every day, and shipping space must be booked well in advance, is an altogether quieter and more relaxed process than the frantic drive to Dover, followed by the long queue. The ship is leaving, let us say, at eleven. We rise on the late side, eat a good breakfast, and drive to the quayside, stopping briefly in town to pick up the foreign exchange and traveller's cheques that we have ordered by telephone the previous day. A friendly chat with the Customs Officers (members of the States' Civil Service of Jersey or of Guernsey—a different breed from the latter day Puritans who greet one at Weymouth or Southampton), and we leave the car in charge of the R.A.C. or A.A. Port Officer. There is still time to walk back into town for any last-minute purchase or business; but the simplicity of life here has prevented us from forgetting anything, and we wander on board for a coffee or something stronger. Later we enjoy a good lunch; and then a last good British pot of tea, as the ship waits under the splendidly reconstructed ramparts of Saint-Malo, before entering the lock which will enable her to steam through to the Gare Maritime.

A cheery wave from the British Railways French manageress, and we are away, through Parame and Dol towards Fougeres. A companionable toot from a GBJ limousine, another from a GBG estate wagon, as they overtake, proclaim that they aim to reach the Mediterranean by tomorrow night. Our own sights are set lower. Three days ago we sent off a postcard to that delightful little country inn, half-way between Laval and the Loire. Even now the beds are being aired, the onion soup is on the stove, and the chicken is being placed in the oven. That GBJ and GBG are the last British cars that we shall see for days. We are barely fifty miles from British territory, but we might be a thousand. So much change can be enjoyed, with so little of the weariness and worry of travel.

Sea travel from Alderney, and any form of travel from Sark, are, of course, a little more complicated. Even so, there is none of the rush and hustle which so wears out the traveller on more frequented routes.

Since the days when Anthony Trollope put up his first experimental pillar-boxes in St. Helier, mail services, both internally and externally, have been in the charge of H.M. Postmaster-General, acting under the authority of the States in the different islands. This means that although it may cost threepence to send a letter from Forest to Torteval, it will cost no more to send it to London, or to Co. Fermanagh. Parcels, too, seem very cheap to send to the Mainland, when it is, of course, necessary to fill in a Customs Declaration. For parcel deliveries within the Islands, the cheapest scheme is one operated by the various bus companies, for weights of up to 28 lb. The best value of all in freight charges, however, is to be found when travelling by British Railways from the Islands to London. Presumably because this is a service terminating outside the U.K., it is possible to 'register' baggage from station of departure to station of arrival. But the registration fee, which is 2s. from London to Paris, is only 6d. from Waterloo to Jersey or Guernsey, and for this trifling sum huge trunks can be transported— and even, on occasion, and unofficially, upholstered armchairs concealed in canvas!

Some immigrants complain that food is more expensive in the Islands. Meat is a little dearer; and the odd penny or two to cover freight charges are added to the cost of butter, margarine, and some other commodities. But vegetables, on the other hand, are cheap, fresh, and of excellent quality; and shopping in the covered markets, especially in that of St. Peter Port, is an experience in itself. Milk, although a penny a pint dearer than on the Mainland, comes from the famous Island dairy breeds, and is more than proportionately richer in cream content.

Certain locally produced foodstuffs—I think of Jersey butter, Jersey apples, Jersey honey—are considerably more expensive than imported varieties. This is because they are only produced on a small scale, without either English subsidies, or the wide open spaces of New Zealand or Canada, for a small but steady market of local customers who relish the taste of their native heath.

One can buy French pastries, French saucisson, and the best croissants produced away from French soil.

The Islands' unique political situation leads to some articles of foodstuff being much cheaper there. All teas, for example, which leave India or Ceylon, bear an export duty, so that the U.K. consumer is in fact paying a tax to the governments of those countries. Equally, however, all non-Commonwealth teas bear a U.K. import tax, designed to promote what was once "Empire Trade" under the terms of Commonwealth Preference.

In the Channel Islands, it is possible to avoid both these taxes, and to purchase, say, an excellent Portuguese East African tea, which suffers neither an export tax on leaving Mozambique, nor an import duty on entering the Channel Islands. As a result, it retails at a price about 30 per cent cheaper than a similar quality of tea from Assam.

The full apparatus of the Welfare State is nowhere as fully developed as in the U.K. itself. Social insurance contributions, however, are correspondingly less. Individuals, on the other hand, who have already qualified for U.K. benefits before moving to the Islands—old-age pensioners or widows, for example—can continue to draw their pensions from the insular post offices.

The Health Service, approximating to the British system in Guernsey, is in Jersey still pre-Bevanite. This does not mean that nothing is free, and that everything costs the earth. It means that the General Hospital, Isolation Hospital, and Mental Hospital are run very much as were the pre-war British Infirmaries. Accidental injuries, taken straight to the casualty ward, are treated free; and free, too, are operations or long-term treatment for anyone who cannot afford to pay. Those who want a bed in a private ward, or who prefer a private nursing home, pay for it, just as they would on the Mainland.

The general practitioner in Jersey charges so much per visit or per consultation; and tends, as in pre-war Britain, to temper the wind to the shorn lamb. Even the golden-fleeced, however, will not find his fees any higher than "private" fees on the Main- land; and both doctor's fees and hospital expenses can be covered by several comprehensive insurance schemes.

It is not so easy, however, to get insurance cover for drugs. The private individual in Britain, although he may complain about his 2s. prescription fee, has lost touch since 1948 with the soaring prices of the ever-improving products of the pharmaceutical industry. There are old people in the Islands whose high cost of living, in an all too literal sense, is the cost of the expensive drugs which alone keep them alive.

The Channel Islander with children faces none of the educational problems of the Mainland parent. In both Jersey and Guernsey there are excellent private schools, for those who wish to pay fees. These prepare boys either for Victoria College in Jersey, or for Elizabeth College in Guernsey; and the girls for the two Ladies' Colleges. They prepare them equally well for the public schools on the Mainland. Fees of these private schools are roughly comparable to those of good preparatory schools in England.

There exists, too, a chain of Roman Catholic Colleges and Convent Schools, characterised by good teaching and reasonable fees, and often staffed by French members of the teaching Orders.

The States' primary schools, for their part, have none of the 'Blackboard Jungle' quality, which has become associated with some schools in some British cities; and which, by frightening middle-class parents, has nipped in the bud any post-war hopes of integration between England's 'two nations' in the world of education.

At secondary-school level, this integration has already been achieved in the Channel Islands. Entry to Victoria College, to Elizabeth College, or to the two Ladies' Colleges, can be secured either by passing the equivalent of an 'eleven plus' examination from the States' primary schools, or by taking an examination rather like the 'Common Entrance' to the English public schools, and paying fees. And the amount of these fees has come as such a shock to some prospective parents, that they have gasped incredulously for several minutes, before grasping what they were being asked for. A pleasant shock! At Victoria College, at present, the fees amount to the crippling sum of £75- year - this for a good education in fine buildings, in the clear air of Mont Millais, way up above St. Helier, and given by schoolmasters who have been hand-picked from amongst the dozens of well-qualified men who apply for every appointment advertised. For few schoolmasters, given the opportunity, would not seek to follow their vocation in the most congenial conditions, and warmest climate, open to them.

The mild climate deserves a paragraph to itself. It more than compensates for the rather higher cost of all fuels (particularly noticeable in Alderney), caused by freight charges, and by the high overhead costs in operating electricity generating stations and gasworks to serve small communities. Many a morning in mid-winter the sunshine pouring into a southward-facing room is all the heating that it requires. Less heating means not only less expense, but also less work, and less dirt. This is important, because domestic service, although slightly easier to secure than on the Mainland, is always liable to vanish at the start of the tourist season. Then again, less dirt itself means less work, and less frequent redecoration, and hence less expense. Indeed, the resident of the Channel Islands finds himself on an 'unvicious circle'.

The Islanders are far enough away from England, intelligent enough, prosperous enough, and sufficiently public spirited, for all aspects of their community life to be highly articulate. The plays and pantomimes put on by the amateur dramatic groups have an almost professional polish. The wide variety of evening classes provided at nominal fees by the Jersey and Guernsey Education Committees would do credit to the local authorities of cities of half a million people. These classes are well supported, especially those in French for English 'natives', and in English for foreign workers who have found employment in the Islands.

The recently opened Channel Television, for reasons of sheer economics, has to buy most of its programmes from other companies. But the few hours a week which are devoted to purely local material have an immediacy and a personal appeal enjoyed by none of the great commercial networks on the Mainland. People that the viewer knows, or faces with which he is familiar in daily life, appear on the screen every night. The announcers radiate a sense of warmth and of 'involvement', which is sadly lacking in the brutal treatment of 'interviewees' which is currently fashionable amongst leading BBC and ITV interviewers. And for the first time in history, a continuous cultural exchange between the Islands has been created, as the camera switches from St. Helier to St. Peter Port to Alderney, within the compass of a single programme. This is a big step from the days when the closest contact was often at the inter-insular football matches for the Muratti Vase (in which Alderney always sportingly puts up a team against her two larger rivals).

The Press is more insular in its outlook. Guernsey has two newspapers, the Guernsey Evening Press and the Guernsey Star (both now have the same owners), which cover news in all the islands of the northern bailiwick. Jersey's Evening Post occasionally deigns to headline a little Guernsey news, and, almost subversively, gives prominence to a regular 'Alderney Letter' and 'Sark Letter', from its correspondents in those islands. The Evening Post, in fact, is particularly generous in its hospitality to all kinds of correspondents; and the two complete pages which it frequently fills with 'Letters to the Editor' make compulsive reading.

One of these letters may well be signed by a leading member of the Jersey Communist Party. There is nothing to be scared about in this. We have seen how movements of ideas in France have so often in the past spread to the Islands. This is not to suggest that M. Thorez is about to follow in the steps of Victor Hugo, the aristocrats of 1793, and the Huguenots, in seeking refuge in Jersey from a right-wing government in Paris. But the Jersey worker has heard somewhere the maxim of the French peasant: 'Pas d'ennemis a la gauche.' His Communist Party is the party of the dechristianized regions of the French country-side, a party of protest rather than of political revolution. The leaders of the J.C.P. are hard working and reliable men, well liked by their employers, and worried more than anything else by the housing shortage to which high site values have given rise.

To anyone seriously thinking of a move to the Islands, an aside may be whispered on the subject of what to bring. Transport is not cheap; but, distance for distance, the big carriers quote roughly the same rates for removals to the Islands as for removals from one part of the Mainland to another. Thus, from the Midlands, the cost is roughly the same to Jersey as to Cornwall. Although, clearly, it is better to part with anything that one is unlikely to require, it is probably better to bring anything that might reasonably be needed. If it proves superfluous, then it can be sent to a saleroom in the Islands, where furniture, even if it is not particularly ancient, or particularly good, fetches higher prices than at Mainland sales.

To part with all one's goods and chattels, with a view to refurnishing on arrival in the Islands, can be a mistake. For antique furniture at the auctions, as we have said, is expensive to purchase. And although shops selling new furniture are excellent, to furnish one's own home from them is to make the same mistake as ladies who buy all their clothes on the island where they live. One beautiful bungalow, and one lovely luxury flat after another, bear the imprint of the same limited choice of furniture in stock. Very nice in its way—but does one want to know that the same wardrobe is in a hundred other bedrooms between L'Etac and La Rocque, or between L'Ancresse and Pleinmont?

There have been several references in this chapter and elsewhere in this book to the subject of taxation. Whenever this arises in conversation outside the Islands, it evokes great curiosity, and reveals much muddled thinking. Indeed, few popular misconceptions are more wildly inaccurate than those associated with taxation in the Channel Islands. Typical comments from Mainland visitors are: 'Of course, it isn’t right that you shouldn't pay any income-tax', or, more all embracing: 'You lucky people, with no taxes'. The Press helps to fill in this rosy but incorrect picture, and even one of the 'Serious' Sunday papers has printed an article referring to 'tax-free Jersey'.

The point is, of course, not that taxation is non-existent in the Islands, but that it is different from taxation in the United Kingdom. Different—not necessarily lower: annuities until 1959 were still taxed capital-wise as well as income-wise, in Jersey, when only their income proportion suffered taxation in Britain. And whereas a bicycle can circulate freely on British roads, in the Islands it must pay a 2s. annual licence fee. (It is a delightful experience to enter one's parish hall during the last quarter, to license one's bicycle for the first time that year, in all seriousness to hand over 6d., and to be handed with the greatest courtesy in return, a paper 'number plate' to be fixed to the licence-holder at the back of the bicycle.)

Taxation in the Islands is not the same as in Britain, because the governments, which levy the taxation, are not the same. To the question, 'Why can't you be an ordinary county like everyone else?', the Islander rightly replies, 'Because we never have been'. He is generally too polite to go on to explain how Hastings was one battle which the English did not win; and deeper feelings will prevent him from telling how the series of historical accidents, which established the special position of the Channel Islands as appendages of the English Crown, were completed by an historical tragedy: the German Occupation. Part of Britain's Far Eastern Empire was occupied by the Japanese for three and a half years. All is now independent, or well on the way to independence. British Somaliland was occupied by the Italians for a few months, and has now been allowed to join the newly independent Somalia. All these territories, like all the colonies, have always been free to levy taxation at their own rates. Surely, then, the oldest possessions of the Crown, which endured five long years of occupation by the Germans, are entitled to their fiscal freedom? Before the war, they regularly voted voluntary grants to the Imperial Defence Fund; and if, in 1940, they were offered no defence against a conventionally armed enemy, they can hardly be blamed if they hesitate before committing themselves to paying their full share in the cost of an independent nuclear deterrent.

It is not only direct taxes in the Islands which differ from direct taxes on the Mainland. Indirect taxes are also levied at different rates: the absence of purchase tax, for example, means lower prices for a wide range of articles, from cars to transistor sets. Excise duties on alcoholic drinks and tobacco are lower. Although ordinary wines, since British rates have been lowered several times during the past decade, are only fractionally cheaper, spirits offer considerable savings. Whisky in Jersey is now 25s 9d. a bottle, against over £2 on the Mainland, and London Gin is 20s.9d. against 38s. There is also an excellent locally distilled gin which retails at only 16s. 3d.; and a local tobacco industry produces a cigarette in whose advertisements a charming young lady invites potential customers to smoke in patois. English brands of cigarettes retail at less than half their United Kingdom price—on average about eightpence a packet of twenty cheaper than the 'tax-free' cigarettes sold at half a crown on British Railways' cross-Channel steamers.

Usually, Guernsey's excise rates have been slightly higher than Jersey's; but in 1962, Jersey faced a budget deficit, and rather than raise direct taxes, added a few shillings to those on drink, and a few pence to those on tobacco. Sark, on the other hand, has always shown her independence of the capital of the northern bailiwick, by keeping her rates a little below Guernsey's. So a differential of as much as four or five shillings was opened up between the price of a bottle of whisky on Sark, and the price of the same bottle in Jersey. This is said—for it is, of course, only rumour—to have led to a little smuggling between Sark and Jersey!

Direct taxation has also varied between the Islands, and even today, Sark is distinguished by having no direct taxes at all. Instead, a contribution is levied on each household, towards the relief of the poor, based on the size of the house, and the outward appearance of wealth. In the other Islands, rates of income-tax are the same. Alderney, since the war, has paid Guernsey rates in return for Guernsey's work in helping to restore her economy. And Guernsey, since her 1959 budget, has reduced her standard rate to the same 4.s. in the £1 which has been levied in Jersey since the war.

Until 1957, Guernsey also had a progressive rate of surtax, introduced in the early post-war years, in the usual Guernsey way of keeping up with the English. As with the Isle of Man, which also had surtax until 1961, the memory of this past offence still deters many seekers after a tax haven. Guernsey, again like the Isle of Man, is more generous in certain reliefs. In particular, it has negotiated a series of double tax relief agreements, whereby half the income from any Commonwealth country may be allowed as a deduction against income taxable in Guernsey. A married man with £5,000 investment income from Canada, for example, would pay £168 tax in the Isle of Man, £458 in Guernsey, and as much as £745 in Jersey. But Jersey has been more consistently welcoming towards the wealthy immigrant. For the investor's memory is long, and the dog who has once bitten has to show many years of good behaviour before he is again fully trusted.

'Tax refugee' immigrants have been known to arrive by air, and to have purchased a £15,000 house within twenty-four hours, without really finding out to what extent they were escaping taxes. For income does not necessarily cease to suffer U.K. tax simply because its recipient has left Britain. Income originating from the United Kingdom will always suffer tax there, and if it is over the level at which surtax becomes payable, will suffer British surtax as well. Most other countries deduct what they call a 'withholding tax': for example, 15 per cent or 3s. in the £ by Dutch companies, and 7 1/2 per cent or is. 6d. in the £, by South African companies. The Jersey or Guernsey tax is then payable on the residue. Guernsey, as we have said, makes certain allowances for withholding taxes paid to other countries in the Commonwealth. But by and large, the double taxation relief agreements which the Channel Island governments have negotiated with other states are fewer, and less all-embracing in character, than those of the United Kingdom. The Channel Island resident will thus often find himself paying two separate taxes to two different countries. Although the two combined will generally be less than the standard rate in Britain, he will not benefit fully from those extensive reliefs which often remove from lower British incomes any tax liability whatsoever.

Certain British Government securities, such as 3 1/2 per cent War Loan, and some of the Savings Bond issues, are exempt from U.K. tax in the hands of non-residents, so that they need only suffer the appropriate insular tax. But these 'guilt-edged' securities have an unhappy history in recent years. They have their uses; but one hears well-authenticated stories of successful business-men who retired to the Islands during the period of Labour rule after the war, and who invested their entire estates, running sometimes into hundreds of thousands of pounds, in War Loan. Such men, if they exist, have seen their nominal capital halved, over a decade when the real purchasing power of that capital was itself steadily depreciating. Their capital losses have far outweighed their total savings on income-tax and surtax.

But although the avoidance of United Kingdom income-tax '.s the main aim of many Channel Island immigrants from overseas, whose pensions reach them free of deductions, for immigrants from the Mainland the principal attraction of the Islands is that none of them levies the heaviest of all forms of direct taxation: estate duty (commonly known as death duty).

A quite incidental aspect of this is that in none of the Islands are the wills of deceased persons published. Let it not be thought, however, that this puts an end to rumours, and to morbid curiosity. Those British Members of Parliament who regularly press for anonymity in the question of who leaves how much, should spend a few weeks in the Channel Islands, to investigate the effects of their proposals. They would return very satisfied with the present position in Britain, where the amount of a man's estate is at least clearly assessed, in black and white, for all to read. In the Islands there are as many figures to choose amongst, as there are friends and acquaintances of the deceased to speculate, on the basis of their own memories and sources of information!

The testator in the Channel Islands does not enjoy the complete freedom of anyone making a will in England. The law varies between the different islands, but is in all of them based on the old Norman custom. A man with a wife and children is bound to leave a third of his estate to his wife, and a third to his children: only a third will be free for him to bequeath where he wishes. A millionaire estranged from his spouse must find some other tax refuge than the Channel Islands if he is unwilling to leave her comfortably provided for.

The country where a man pays income-tax is the country where he is resident. But the country where a man's estate is deemed to be situated is not necessarily the same country where he is resident, and certainly not the country where he happens to die, but the country where he is domiciled. The vexed question as to what constitutes the legal concept of domicile, is best left to the specialists; it is enough to say that it is much harder to change one's domicile, than to change one's residence, and that one classic method adopted by some immigrants to the Channel Isles, as a supposedly irrefutable method of establishing their domicile there, has been to purchase a burial plot ready for themselves in one of the island cemeteries !

To be removed from United Kingdom estate duty, of course, assets have to be withdrawn from the United Kingdom. One method of achieving this has been for immigrants to form a holding company under Jersey, Guernsey, or even Alderney law, into which they have then poured all their assets. Upon death, none of these assets can then be said to pass, for what the deceased bequeaths to his heirs consists of the shares in the Jersey or Guernsey registered company. In fact, the Estate Duty Office on the Mainland never even sees the will, for probate is granted not at Somerset House, but at the greffe of the Royal Court. This apparently convenient device, however, is not altogether without its snags. And apart from anything else, it is being frowned upon more and more on both sides of the Channel.

An alternative method would be for the immigrant to sell his United Kingdom securities and property, and to invest the proceeds elsewhere. It might be objected that other countries, too, have their inheritance taxes, even if not as steeply graded as the British ones. This is certainly true of other sterling countries, such as South Africa, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and so on. However, neither the 'bearer' share which is almost universal on the Continent, nor the North American security held in what is called a 'London marking name', suffer any inheritance tax in the hands of anyone domiciled in the Channel Islands.

In taking such a course the immigrant would be taking the risk that prices might move against him: he would also be exposing himself to the fickle fluctuations of the 'investment dollar premium', which determines the cost of foreign currency acquired for purposes of investment. But above all, he would be cutting himself off from the London capital market. Naturally, this would be a voluntary abnegation. There is nothing, for example, to stop the Channel Island resident from taking a profitable interest in the London new issue field, which sheer distance denies to residents of other off-shore tax havens such as Gibraltar or the Bahamas. But funds left in Britain would not bring their owner any benefit from his Channel Island residence. Today the British Navy no longer rules the waves, and in the same way, the London Stock Exchange, in terms of volume traded, must now yield pride of place to Wall Street. But in sophisticated expertise, London still has the edge over any other financial centre.

In a curious way, the Stock Markets of the leading industrialised countries seem to reflect their respective automobile industries. Thus Wall Street, with its restricted list of heavily priced shares, seems to cater for a similar taste to that fed by the tycoons of Detroit. The thin, volatile markets of the Continent also have something in common with their excellent, but narrowly based motor industries. In the same way, the City of London, like Coventry and Dagenham, offers wares of all kinds, great and small, good and indifferent. In cutting himself off from London, the Channel Island investor would say good-bye to many a defunct Jowett, taken-over Triumph, and sprawling industrial empire which puts one in mind of the many-modelled B.M.C. But he would lose at the same time Rover-like rehability, and Rolles-Royce standards of technical excellence. For it is in the sheer technique of financial engineering that London reigns supreme. Some types of investment, developed by British financial genius, are to be found nowhere else. Thus, the property development company, where a tiny equity is the residuary legatee of vast developments financed by fixed-interest prior charges provided by institutions such as insurance companies, is a purely British phenomenon. It is no surprise that Mr. Clore and Mr. Cotton have successfully invaded Manhattan, for they have no counterpart either across the Atlantic, or across the Channel.

An even more important field in which Britain leads the world is that of the investment trust. The managers of the London investment trusts have an uncanny nose for scenting out those small companies which have a brilliant future ahead of them. And from their dusty offices in Edinburgh and Dundee, the managers of the great Scottish investment trusts often have a clearer idea about what is really happening on Wall Street than the formidable members of the New York Society of Security Analysts. Other countries do have investment trusts, but the big North American 'closed-end* trusts tend to move in line with the share market as a whole, whilst their 'mutual funds', or 'open-end' trusts have been proved to perform conspicuously worse than the indices. The supreme advantage of the British investment trusts, on the other hand, is that by cunning 'gearing' through prior charges, and by flexible and expert management, they not only invest a man's money for him, but do the job better than he can do it for himself.

Fortunately the Channel Island investor need not deprive himself entirely of all this inherited experience and expertise. For there exist a number of locally registered investment trusts which have some of these advantages, combined with freedom from liability to United Kingdom income-tax and estate duty. The first of these, the Jersey General Investment Trust, was founded in 1931 on the initiative of Mr. Trevor Matthews, a stockbroker who for reasons of health had moved to Jersey from Cardiff—-the same city which has more recently thrown up another financier in Mr. Julian Hodge. Amongst other services to Jersey, Trevor Matthews issued sound advice in June 1940, which calmed many who were terrified of the financial effects of the imminent German Occupation.

Until he arrived on the Jersey financial scene, local investments were limited to the rentes, a special type of mortgage tied to particular houses or pieces of land; and to the shares of a few local companies. These local shares were then, as now, bought and sold either by auction at one of the advocate's offices, or, more intriguingly still, by the insertion of a 'small advertisement' .under the heading 'Financial', on the second page of the Evening Post. (These can be highly successful; for Mainland immigrants, anxious to get their money out of the U.K., and unaware of local conditions, have been known, when purchasing such local shares by private treaty, to pay several shillings per share more than the market price!)

Trevor Matthews saw the need for alternative forms of local investment, especially as the Colonial and Service pensioners, who had been retiring to the Islands for more than a century, had been joined in the ip20s by wealthy immigrants such as Sir Robert Houston. The 'J.G.I.T' and its associated company, the St. Clement's Housing Association, have been criticised for spreading their investments over too many companies, and for holding too large a proportion of fixed-interest securities. But their record over the years has been excellent, and their financial orthodoxy stood them in good stead during 1962, when bonds were everywhere steadily rising, whilst from Toronto to Zurich the common stock averages plummeted.

It was many years before anyone followed Trevor Matthews's lead. Then, in 1959? a group in Guernsey decided that their island must not be left behind. The Investment Trust of Guernsey aims to follow the same successful methods as the Scottish Investment Trusts, and enjoys the counsels of a Scots investment expert on its board.

It was during 1959 too that the Channel Islands first became aware of the investment implications of the Common Market. Britain's application for entry to the E.E.C. still lay ahead, with all the doubts and reservations which this aroused in the Islands.

But in searching for media through which to take an interest in these six fast-growing and rapidly integrating economies, about which so little was known or indeed available. Channel Island residents came across a number of well-established Dutch trusts, and newly founded Luxembourg trusts (which had the advantage that Luxembourg deducts no withholding tax whatsoever).

Although these trusts lack the gearing of the British investment trusts, they have the advantages of immense size, brilliant and distinguished boards of directors, and very low running costs. The fact that, up to date, they have been constantly growing, has also enabled them to alter the proportion of their funds in different countries or industries at minimal expense. For example, in 1959 and in 1960, when economic prospects in Europe seemed brighter than in America, Robeco, largest of all the Dutch trusts, channelled all its new money into European securities. As a result, the proportion of its assets invested in the United States declined from nearly 4.5 per cent to under 30 per cent, although very few American shares were in fact sold. Robeco, by 1962, had over a hundred million pounds' worth of assets. Three years earlier, it had hardly been heard of in London, but by 1962 it was estimated that as much as 7 per cent of its capital was held by residents of the sterling area. And of this seven million pounds, it can confidently be guessed that at least a quarter belonged to residents of the Channel Islands.

This increasing popularity of the European trusts did not go unnoticed by certain other figures in the world of Jersey finance, including the partners of another leading stockbroking firm in St. Helier. The prospectus for the flotation in which they were associated, the Channel Islands and International Investment Trust, went out early in 1960. As with Robeco, the directors arranged to make 'new shares available at their nett asset value.

To United Kingdom investors, used to purchasing their investment trust shares at a substantial discount on asset values, this may seem no advantage. But in the Channel Islands, where the limited range of securities has often meant that sheer buying pressure has forced shares to a premium way above the value of the underlying assets, it was not unwelcome.

However, the really significant feature about the 'C.I.I.I.T', which like the 'J.G.I.T', now has its own office in St. Helier, was that 'On the formation of the Company, S. G. Warburg & Company Limited, merchant bankers, of 30 Gresham Street, London, agreed to act as investment advisers.' Towards the end of the last century, after a series of failures amongst the small private banks in the Islands, these were one by one bought out by the 'Big Five' clearing banks from the Mainland. These thus took over the banking system in the Channel Islands at just the same time as they were busy absorbing the local county banks all over the English provinces. But until this appearance of Warburgs as the shadowy prompters off-stage, the Channel Islands had seen little of the other great financial institutions of the City of London.

They were soon to see plenty. The stone which started the avalanche was dislodged by Mr. Selwyn Lloyd in his Budget speech of 5th April 1962. When his predecessor, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, had first introduced the two-handed engine of estate duty in 1894, with a top rate of 8 per cent, he had stipulated that it should not apply to immovable property situated overseas. This provision had been continued by all successive Chancellors, even although they had pushed the top rate of duty up to 80 per cent.

It was not surprising, therefore, that many wealthy Britons during the post-war years acquired farms in Rhodesia, or villas overlooking Montego Bay. There was even a regular traffic in property in the Bahamas, whereby the vendor agreed to buy back his property after the death of the wealthy British purchaser. These purchasers of overseas estates would no doubt have preferred to find a haven for their funds nearer home, in the politically more stable Channel Islands. But a principal object of the housing committees, which were set up by the respective States after the war, was to prevent the inflation of property values which such an influx of Mainland money would have brought about.

Then in the early I950s, professional advisers in Britain realised that the text of the Jersey law which regulated the rentes (the traditional local investment resembling a mortgage) described them as "propriete immeuble". By this trick of words, they were therefore immovable property, and hence exempt from U.K. estate duty. More and more wealthy Britons began to purchase rentes, until by 1961 more than ten million pounds' worth of Jersey property was 'in pavm', to quote the phrase used by the President of the island's Finance Committee. The maximum rate of interest had for long been restricted by Jersey's 1771 law against usury to 5 per cent; but such was the demand for these 'Jersey mortgages' that money was being borrowed at 3 per cent (as opposed to 7 per cent on the Mainland), and individual deals were reported to have taken place at as little as 1 per cent. Hotels and businesses were borrowing large sums for further extensions, and not only was the British Treasury anxious to stop this loophole, but the Jersey authorities were themselves perturbed at the unhealthily high activity of the building industry, thus artificially stimulated.

By declaring that property and land, wherever situated, would be aggregated with all other assets for the assessment of estate duty, Selwyn Lloyd brought all these gay goings on to a full stop. The island advocates who had arranged for the placing of the Mainland money lost their commissions on these transactions. The purchasers of the rentes found themselves stuck for years ahead with useless investments bringing in a meagre return. Hardest hit of all, the borrowers in Jersey had to start looking around for other sources of credit, to provide the loans when their rentes fell in for repayment.

While the maximum rate of interest remained 5 per cent, no one would ever be found to lend the money, and young Jersey couples, as well as businesses, would never be able to secure mortgages. So, in the autumn of 1962, the old 1771 law against usury was repealed, and for the first time the customers of Jersey banks found themselves having to pay the full market rate of interest on their overdrafts.

The London merchant banks saw not only the need for fresh lending institutions, but also the opportunity of earning a satisfactory return on their funds. Several of them decided to go further even than Warburgs, and actually to establish Jersey controlled companies. M. Samuel and Company had in fact already taken this step before the end of 1961, and they were followed during 1962 by Kleinwort, Benson, Lonsdale, and by Rothschilds. There may well be others to come. Moreover, the two new investment trusts which were floated in the autumn of 1962: Securities Trust of Jersey, under the wing of M. Samuel's, and International Investment Trust of Jersey, under the wing of Rothschild's, may well only be the precursors of many more.

The Channel Islands, from now onwards, seem well in the swim of the main currents of international finance.

Many sophisticated and wealthy men would say that the Channel Islands offer little or nothing in the way of tax advantages, which are not already available to the British taxpayer who makes full use of the many perfectly legal means of tax avoidance which are open to him. This is perfectly true, and it may well be that the immigrant to the Islands who will derive most benefit from residence there, is only moderately sophisticated, and only moderately well-to-do.

To be happy and successful in the complex society of the twentieth century, it is necessary to be either a big noise, strong and brutal enough to force a passage through the jungle of modern life; or equally well, an insignificant whisper, which can slip unobtrusively through the densest undergrowth.

Examples of both may be seen on a November day in the Buckingham Palace Road, where on one side stands the B.O.A.C. Air Terminal, and on the other the Victoria Coach Station.

At the Air Terminal there will draw up a chauffeur-driven limousine, bearing a captain of British industry, a man with an income of £50,000 a year, on the first stage of his visit to an overseas subsidiary. With the discretionary trust which he has set up in favour of his dependants, his company-owned house, his company-paid servants, his top-hat pension policy, his expense account lunches and club subscriptions, and the all-expenses-paid business trip which he is just about to make to a more favourable climate, he resembles in everything except physique a supremely lithe juggler, with several balls in the air all at once. He has not only got round or overridden all the obstacles which trip up lesser mortals on the economic road of life; but he has actually made use of many of those obstacles in furthering his own interests. His one and only difficulty is that all his time, and all of even his enormous energy, are occupied in this financial juggling act. And the twinge which heralds the threatened coronary may at any time warn him that the pace can tell on even the swiftest and the strongest.

Across the road, at the same time, a neatly dressed woman in her early seventies descends from a motor-coach which has just arrived from Bournemouth, and collects from the boot the light canvas suitcase which contains all that she requires for the next five months. She has left her tiny flatlet in the Channel Islands that morning, and travelled to London by the cheapest route: by air to Hurn, and on to Victoria by bus. Her flatlet is let until April, and this evening she will proceed straight to London Bridge, to board the banana-boat which will carry her comfortably to the Canary Islands. There, in a pension in Tenerife, where she is already well known, she will pass the winter, spending at the rate of less than half her £10 a week income. And on her return home in the spring, she will surprise her friends with the cotton dresses which she has had cheaply run up by an excellent dressmaker whom she has discovered in Santa Cruz. As she comes out from the coach station, it cannot be said that even by the most materialist standards, she is any less successful than the tycoon across the road, who is just making out a cheque to the B.O.A.C. for his excess luggage.

So much is a matter of temperament. Professor Titmuss has rightly pointed out how the rich in England today are as rich as ever they were, and has enumerated the many methods by which they remain so. But there is nothing simple or restful about these methods. Companies need directors. Trusts require trustees. Nor are all the adolescent upper-class marriages, which are hurried on in order to secure the exemption of wedding gifts from estate duty, amongst the happiest and most durable of unions. The devices described by Titmuss may have taken much of the sting out of post-war Labour legislation. But all those who grew to maturity while that legislation was being enacted, between 1945 and 1950, however they voted, or however their families voted in those years, can never accept the presence of wealth with the same casual abandon as their seniors and juniors. More especially, they will always live under the shadow of the great Iron Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps. They will feel the piercing eyes of that particular Big Brother at the back of their necks long after the bleak winds of the 1960s have swept away the paper tigers of Messrs. Colman, Prentis, and Varley.

It is not only his capital levy, and his dividend limitation, that they remember. For his policy of Austerity had a genuine philosophical basis. Those who grew up under his rule may have felt, as they bicycled to collect their rations, that they were being deprived of their own Golden Age. But they realise now that they were being granted the Beatific Vision. A move to the Channel Islands can mean not only an escape from some of the measures which he introduced, but an escape also from certain aspects of the Affluent Society, into that simpler world which was Cripps's real aim.

For every clergyman who really enjoys the cut and thrust of parochial church council and diocesan conference, or the interminable wrangle with the Guardians of Queen Anne's Bounty, there is one who would gladly move into the Hermitage left vacant by St. Helier on the islet in St. Aubin's Bay. And for every 'someone in the City' who really enjoys the boardroom conflict of personalities, or the increasingly congested journey from place in the country to office in town, there is one who would willingly exchange power and position for a tidy block of shares in the local Channel Island investment trusts, and a job, however small, which enabled the summer evenings to be spent at Noirmont or at Jerbourg.

Residence in the Channel Islands is a question, therefore, of temperament. But everyone will enjoy visiting them.