Beyond Hypocrisy
Page 77
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CONTRADICTIONS are inevitable in partypolitics. When the support of several million people is solicited, politicians must hedge, or say different things at different times. The leaders of the Labour party go even' further. They contrive to contradict themselves on one and the same occasion, apparently without their supporters noticing anything wrong. This behaviour on the part of the leaders makes it easy to pick holes in their argument, but creates a barrier for anybody wishing to come to an understanding with them.
That hauliers, or a good many of them, would like to do so was clear to any observer at the Torquay conference of the Road Haulage Association this week. It is also clear that hauliers can find nothing encouraging or inviting in the discussions at the Labour party conference at Scarborough a fortnight previously.
Mr. Harold Wilson, shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, set the tone in an early session by his rernarks on nationalization. He was presenting, for the inevitable approval, the economic policy statement entitled "Plan for Progress," which, he explained, proposed nationalization for steel, road haulage, and any industry or concern found to be failing the nation. "Believe me," he said, "failing to maintain an adequate rate of investment or modernization would be a crime."
He made no attempt to prove that road haulage had failed in this way, or that the nationalized industries had succeeded. He seemed not to care particularly that his statements clashed with each other. It was his task merely to reassure the audience that there were Some industries definitely on the list, and that others could be added.
"Vicious Situation"
Mr. Aneurin Bevan carried paradox a stage further. He condemned the threatened industries for running publicity campaigns in their own defence. This was, he said, a "vicious situation." Employers were able to finance their politics at the expense of the consumers of their goods and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. "I think there is something fundamentally wrong," he _fulminated, "when Socialists have to finance Conservative propaganda every time they buy sugar, and there is something rotten in the State of Denmark when we consume steel and have to finance our enemy's politics."
A, somewhat belated sense of the absurd may have prevented him from saying that it was wrong for Socialists to help the Conservatives every time they used the services of a haulier. The rational thing is to go where the best and cheapest service is available, but if other Socialists feel as strongly as Mr. Bevan does, they can give their custom to a nationalized transport undertaking. If Mr. Bevan's party ever get their way, the Conservative will not have the freedom of choice now presented to the Socialist; he must use nationalized transport or nothing.
. Although Mr. Bevan avoided a direct reference to transport in his remarks at Scarborough, he made it clear, like all.the other speakers, that there should be one law for his party and another for his opponents. The expenditure of money to fight nationalization might be wrong; but, speaking as .treasurer of the Labour party, he called upon the trade unions to subscribe for a campaign to help win the next election.
As it was a Socialist conference, there was nobody present to point out that many trade unionists are Conservative, and that it was " fundamentally wrong" they should have to finance Socialist propaganda every time they paid their union dues. It is doubtful whether Mr. Bevan would have listened to, much less have grasped the point. Not that. he was necessarily being hypocritical. His state of mind lies somewhere far beyond hypocrisy, and his remarks corroborate the impression already given by Mr. Wilson, that the subject of nationalization is one on which the Socialists can speak only in contradictions.
Ample evidence was provided during the discussion on transport. It arose from a resolution urging the speeding up of a review of future transport policy by the special standing committee. The very existence of such a committee might seem to indicate an honest doubt on the subject, but the debate at Scarborough showed clearly that the issue had been prejudged. The committee know exactly what conclusions they must reach.
Reasonable Request
One speaker after another proceeded to set up a case and at once knock it down. Mr. S. Greene, of the N.U.R., who introduced the resolution, made the reasonable request that British Railways should be allowed to compete with road transport on equal terms. Within a minute, he was asking how far it was practicable to restrict C licences so as to force traffic back to the British Transport Commission. Mr. Frank Cousins, of the Transport and General Workers' Union, was in favour of giving more autonomy to local officials, whether they were handling passengers or freight. Hardly pausing for breath, he went on to sing the virtue's of integration and co-ordination.
Not to be outdone, Mr. Ernest Davies, M.P., once more • tried out his favourite paradox. There was excessive competition within the transport industry, he said, and as a result the independent hauliers were running their vehicles And even their drivers to death. Neither Mr. Cousins nor any of the other union officials, who are in a better position to know the facts than Mr. Davies, said anything on this latter point, which is as much a slur on their members as on hauliers. it is, in any event, hard to understand how excessive competition, which must mean that there are too many vehicles for the available traffic, can also involve the excessive use of those vehicles.
. Replying for the national executive committee, Mr. Ray Gunter, of the Transport Salaried Staffs Associaton, may have felt he had a difficult task in summing up. Knowing that he had his listeners with him all the way, he took to the easy assumption that everything desirable would flow naturally from state ownership of transport. Traffic would have to go by the best way possible, he said, presumably meaning that the decision on the best way would be reached by the B.T.C., with the guidance of a Labour. government.
There would be cuts in the railway system, said Mr. Gunter, and these were "obviously " much easier to accomplish if road passenger and freight services were under the same ownership, enabling alternative provision to be made. No doubt equally obvious, to Mr. Gunter, was the truth of another unsupported assertion. "Many C-licences todiy operate uneconomically," he said, "and these would he more economic in a larger system." Once again, it is left as an assumption that what is economic would be decided by somebody other than the person chiefly concerned, in this case the C-licence holder.'