Constructing Ionian identities: the Ionian Islands in British official ...

such as John Stuart Mill argued “the problem of character is the determining issue in
the question of government” and highlighted the importance of national character to
English political stability. 62 Key elements associated with an ideal character were
“self-restraint, perseverance, strenuous effort, effort in the face of adversity and
duty”. 63 These characteristics were necessary virtues that contributed to the moral
and social development of the individual and, consequently, of the society. Character
constituted a vital part in the vocabulary of political analysis among educated
peoples in post-Napoleonic Britain “which insisted on the inadequacy of merely
constitutional or legal changes when not being accompanied by the necessary
qualities and habits of the people”. 64 Moral character constituted a recurring leit-
motif in the writings of Victorian intellectuals; the moral qualities, manners and
habits of British citizens were “the prime recruitment for the health of the body
politic”, and “fear of corruption” was the main threat to the vitality and prosperity of
a stable civic society. 65 This view was relayed into public service, which “was not the
pursuit of an individualistic self-interest, but a sense of duty and strenuous effort and
an altruistic disregard of private interests”. 66
Stuart Hall argues “biological racism and cultural differentialism, constitute
not two different systems, but racism’s two registers”. 67 This way of understanding
62 Collini S., “The idea of character in Victorian political thought”, Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society 5th Series, (London, 1985), p. 31.
63 Ibid., p. 36.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., p. 42.
66 Hall C., McClelland K., Rendall J., Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the
Reform Act of 1867, (Cambridge, 2000).
67 Hall S., “The Multi-Cultural question” in Barnor Hesse, (ed.), Un/Settled Multicalturisms:
Diasporas, Entanglements, ‘Transruptions’, (London and New York 2000), p. 223.
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