Speaking bluntly: England is Protestant

In the year 1938 a wise English language book was published which proved to be prophetic only 2 years later. Its author was a noted British historian and retired British politician. Being an ardent Roman Catholic because of his French father's ancestry he was, of course, a moderate and polished Catholic thinker of Western European kind.

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc 

was, besides, also one of the work titans among the writers of his generation and left an incredible amount of historical, political and literary works. As an author he became exceptionally popular among the people and earned a lot of money.

He was a wealthy man of success, but a beleaguered husband and father at the same time. He was plagued by a dark feeling of an imminent failure of the British class government and fall of the British Empire, too. Although his political views were quite radical ones, he wrote on the balanced and very kind way, in a clear also strong English. He wrote about most important issues, doing that with admirable passion.

Hilaire Belloc, An essai on the nature of contemporary England

In his essay from the year 1938 he wrote that he was ready to risk “the mention of unpleasing as well as of pleasing matters”. And he found the serious justification for this: “Nevertheless, the task ought in the case of modern England to be attempted, because it is of the first practical moment. Not to understand what modern England is may, if the error be prolonged, lead the foreigner into dangerous collision with it ; it may lead the native into what has already proved to be failure and may become disaster.” So, from this point on, I’m quoting his essai.

Modern England is Aristocratic, Protestant and Commercial

I mean by ‘Aristocratic State’ a community in which it can be seen that an oligarchy directs public affairs, controls domestic and foreign policy, the Courts of Justice, education, and in which such a social structure is found natural by all citizens.
(p. 5)

One effect it [the Protestantism] everywhere and necessarily has, which is the promotion of sympathy with other portions of the Protestant culture, and of increasing a feeling of superiority combined with mistrust against the Catholic culture.
(p. 6)

And England, we say, is also Commercial. This is the third main political character of the Modern English people; and when we say Commercial we mean “organised for the increase of material wealth by exchange.” There is a profound difference between the commercial and the productive spirit in the economic character of a nation.
(ibidem)

Class government arose in England historically during those generations which produced modern England as a whole ; the generations of the religious revolution, 1536-1688

(p. 21)

Class government began to oust the old National Popular Monarchy after the confiscation of the ecclesiastical lands — the property of monastic corporations, colleges, hospitals, guilds and the rest — for the benefit of the squires and greater territorial lords.

Yet another characteristic of the Aristocratic State, and perhaps the most important of all after its unity, is its continuity and permanence 

These are also achieved elsewhere by monarchy. In every rival country policy, especially foreign policy, is at the mercy of revolution, and even of shifting electoral majorities.

There is a certain known atmosphere and quality about all that is or has lately been within the Roman communion, a certain savour in the culture proceeding ultimately from that religion

It is the cultural savour of Belgian, French, Irish, Italian, Spanish life. Against this quality or savour the English spirit is arrayed. It is hostile to the social effects of the Catholic Church.
(p. 43)

England, like all other Protestant societies, has this highly particular tone of its own. For instance, there is in English Protestantism a very large and almost universal element of Puritanism, which varies in intensity with varying districts and classes, but is present nearly everywhere. It is now strangely confused in the matter of sex ; but it is still prominent in other sensual matters, notably in the consumption of fermented liquor.
(p. 45)

Further, it is felt that more or less similar societies, enjoying a similar Protestant temper — the United States, Holland, Scandinavia — are necessarily superior to nations of Catholic culture — France, Belgium, Poland, Spain, etc.
(p. 46)

With Englishmen the term ‘foreigner’ is a general term of depreciation, and, addressed to nations of Catholic culture, a term of contemptuous depreciation

Thus the Englishman respects the Prussian (called ‘German’), though he dislikes many Prussian characteristics; he does not respect the Italian ; in his own Islands he respects the Scotsman, but not the Irishman. This feeling is so strong that it even affects in some degree the foreign policy of the country, for it profoundly though obscurely stirs that general opinion in contradiction with which no Government can act.

He thought of himself as the highest in his own Protestant group of peoples, but of that group as still further separated from the countries which had rejected the Reformation

Here must be noted a very interesting phenomenon. This sense of superiority is never alluded to in terms of religion ; it is not even spoken of as being connected with the secular effects of religion. It is spoken of in connection with race [ethnic groups]!

Contempt for the Catholic culture is expressed by speaking of the Catholic Germanics as ‘South Germans,’ of Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium as ‘Latin,’ of the Catholic Irish as ‘Southern Irish’ or ‘Celts.’
(p. 47/-8)

This is the end of the quotes from Mr. Belloc's wise brochure. You can download and read the original here. Perhaps I will return to other issues presented in it relating to British society during the interbellum, when the British Commonwealth was still a superpower.

Here, I emphasize: the British, and more generally Anglo-Saxon sense of superiority, and on the other hand the lack of sympathy for societies with a non-Protestant majority applies to entire nations

Most unfortunately, this was not remembered by the foreign minister of Poland Józef Beck in 1939, the Polish exile government and armed forces’ leader during the World War Two General Sikorski did not understood this, also the armed anti-communist underground in Poland did not took all that into account in the years 1944-48. At present, however, the second most important Slavic people are repeating the same tragical mistake as don’t understands business in world politics, placing their hope in the help of a famous Presbyterian, i. e. an adept of Calvinism.