Throttling the Geese • It must be remembered that when
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the concerns affected were operating under private enterprise, they and their executives were paying large sums to the Exchequer in the form of company and personal taxation, so that to give a true basis of comparison any loss in this direction must be put into the balance against the amount earned.
The geese which laid the golden eggs may not have been killed, but the eggs are likely to be smaller and less nutritious until such time as, with more complete control, goods receipts and passenger fares can safely be raised because of the reduction and eventual suppression of free enterprise in the long-distance haulage and passengertransport fields.
For years this journal has conducted 'a strong campaign against any interference with our own flourishing industry and others, such as steel, upon which it is so dependent. We issued grave warnings as to the unadvisability of taking serious risks, purely as a doctrinaire policy, at a time when every effort should have been bent upon maintaining our very existence as a world power; but no. the mad headlong " progress " had to be continued to please a minority of voters and against the strong advice of those whose business it was to know their jobs.
It was, and remains, a matter of inexperienced politicians playing a game of amateur businesg, apparently confident in their Acumen and satisfied with a skin-deep knowledge of highly technical affairs. That -the workers concerned have not appreciated the alleged wonderful benefits of nationalization has been clearly shown by the many disturbances in the relationship between them and the State. It seems' now that they valued to a greater extent than appeared at the time the more personal nature of the well-organized methods of privateenterprise. The "bosses" were not distant and unapproachable figure heads. Many 'employees seem to have taken the view that State ownership. meant that they would individually exercise more control of industries which they assumed would become their own in a more practical and -personal way, but this has not proved to be the case.
We know that some of the Boards realize this position and are making efforts to reorganize the delegation of authority. Et is, however, something of a characteristic of a State machine that its members -have a habit of shirking responsibility and endeavouring to throw it upon the shoulders of those above them. Sound ideas for improvement and economy are apt to be lost on their way up from the lower ranks or take such a long time that their sponsors become discouraged.