AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

Before Making Up

30th August 1957, Page 50
30th August 1957
Page 50
Page 50, 30th August 1957 — Before Making Up
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Political Commentary By JANUS

' A T a national conference, a certain amount of stage

management is permissible to ensure that the essential business is carried out in the time available and that the resolutions finally adopted fall within the framework of a viable policy. The preliminaries often tell us more than the conference itself about the true nature and opinions of the delegates taking part.

In order to find out what the animals in a circus are really like, we should go behind the scenes and watch what happens when somebody throws a bone to them.

The 443 resolutions submitted for the Brighton conference of the Labour Party may provide a more reliable guide to Socialist thought than the final decisions. Among the bones that the party's national executive committee have thrown to the constituencies and trade unions is the particularly juicy pamphlet, "Industry and Society," setting out a policy for future public ownership.

Public Ownership

Perhaps in the end the conference will accept the pamphlet, which will then become the official party policy. The resolutions give no hint of such a result. No fewer than 41 are concerned with public ownership, and not one of them can be regarded as supporting the principles that the pamphlet enunciates.

As the resolutions have been submitted independently, it would be unfair to expect them to add up to a coherent plan. They are chiefly valuable as an indication of the • views of the active Socialists who are not to be counted among the party's leaders, and as such they present a somewhat gloomy picture. They give no encouragement to long-distance hauliers or to the iron and steel industry, who are singled out for assimilation even in the executive coMmittee's pamphlet. In addition, the resolutions threaten a number of other industries that may have taken heart from the somewhat ambiguous general proposals in "Industry and Society."

In total, the resolutions call for the nationalization of an impressiv list of interests. In addition to road haulage and iron and steel, these include shipbuilding, heavy engineering, chemicals, shipping, building, banking, insurance, water, the motorcar industry, the aircraft industry, oil, land, and surgical and medical requisites.

Baleful Eye

Such reasons as are given seem, to the uninitiated, hardly to be reasons at all. They are, indeed, acknowledged as beliefs, in what one resolution sums up as "the common ownership of all basic industries and means of production," adding, with a baleful eye obviously turned towards the executive committee, a rebuke of "the present tendency to deviate from these accepted Socialist principles."

Nationalization Its provided the opportunity to put the principles into practice. Before reaffirming their beliefs, the Socialists might at least inquire whether experience has justified them. There are, in fact, five resolutions that deal with the nationalized industries, and . all express some dissatisfaction or concern. If they show an inclination to correct what has already been done before proceeding to the next stage, there is a direct contradiction in an earlier resolution, which asks for public ownership of major industries to receive "first priority" in the legislative programme of the next Labour Government to come to power.

Even More alarming is the suggestion in another resolution that the belief in nationalization transcends the results measured in terms of mere efficiency. The resolution welcomes " any further extension " of the powers of public ownership. "Capitalist efficiency " has nothing to do with it. All that matters are the "social and economic contributions" that the industries would be required to make to a socialist society..

Ultimate Effect

Whatever happens at the conference between Septemher 30 and October 4, trade and society would be well advised to study the preliminary resolutions, which reveal the face of socialism as it is before being made up. Whether the supporters of the resolutions mean it or not, the ultimate effect must cause the elimination of everybody except Socialists.

Expressly stated in two resolutions is the desire to have Socialists, as such, appointed to the nationalized boards. This may appear reasonable when it is remembered that most of the people who run industries are probably Conservatives. From this has arisen the varying balance between the two parties, or between capital and labour, which may not be the same thing. There has not, however, been a political test for prospective leaders of an industry, such as is proposed in the resolutions for the conference.

Coupled with other resolutions, they would be the first step towards the creation of a one-party State. There is no general desire for this to happen in Britain, bearing in mind the experience of other countries. It may have been the realization of this that made the Labour Party executive committee, more politically clear-sighted than many of their followers, put forward a somewhat milkand-water programme for future State ownership. The Conservative Party have their uses, if only to provide an opposition.

To the Wolves

Hauliers might find it helpful to bring some of the Labour Party conference resolutions to the attention of the public, and particularly of trade and industry. The idea may persist in the minds of some industrialists that they can escape with their freedom by throwing road haulage and iron and steel to the wolves, and that, when those Iwo industries have been renationalized, the Socialists will abandon any further attempts at public ownership.

There is no warrant for the supposition. The good sense of the Socialist leaders may hold their party in check for a while, but among the rank and file there is obviously still no intention of giving up the struggle towards a completely socialized State. Renationalization is the next, and not the final, step. Trade and industry, if they look any distance ahead, will see the advantage of giving maximum support to hauliers, who are occupying the front line that will fall to the lot of some other industry as soon as they have been put back under State control.


comments powered by Disqus