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Second Bite

4th December 1959
Page 75
Page 75, 4th December 1959 — Second Bite
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Politics

G

LREADY some hauliers are beginning to urge that what the last Government left of British Road Services should be completely dismantled and sold b k to free enterprise. The suggestion is not prompted b rancour or ill will; nor are the hauliers afraid of n ionalized competition. Their feeling is that they have w a vital battle and should follow up the advantage u til the opposition is liquidated. They have an enemy within th gates while B.R.S. continues to exist. If the threat of re ationalization is revived in however distant a future, the L bour party will always have at hand a framework in w ich to piece together the undertakings they acquire.

'though the fears are not without foundation, hauliers m ght be well advised to forget them. There is nothing to b gained from pursuing the matter at the moment. The G vernment show no disposition so early in their life to e bark on hazardous legislation of which not even a hint a eared in their election manifesto. The public that use r d transport are still critical of the nationalized sector.

O ly a few days ago members of the transport committee of the Luton, Dunstable and District Chamber of C mrnerce were complaining that goods took 19 days to re ch them from Reading and 10 days from Gloucester, a d that a parcel said to have left Bishopsgate by road h d not arrived a fortnight later.

n spite of their dissatisfaction, the traders would be u likely to support a proposal for political action. They h ve too recent a memory of what action might have been ta en, had the election gone the other way, to hinder th m even from carrying their own goods in their own ides. In the present peaceful atmosphere, an angry at ack by the hauliers would peter out, and in circumst nces that might preclude any chance of renewing it.

A Lessons of the Election

11 the political parties are digesting and analysing the le sons of the election. Three clear victories in a row are n t interpreted by the Conservatives as a mandate for

g ing to extremes. They are .prepared to accept that the

✓ te was not so much in their favour as against the Siialists, who had become too closely identified with th ngs the public did not like, and notably with n tionalization.

When the Socialists were in power, the Conservatives, w o had said that nationalization would fail, would have

b en less or more than human. if they had not been to

s e extent glad when their forecast came true. In

o position, the Socialists equally wanted to see free enterp -se fail. They became the party of ,disaster and fore

b ding, and when the economy continued to prosper they w re discredited. The 1959 election was a straight fight b ween State control and free enterprise, and there is no d uht about which side won. .

Somewhere in the Labour party, amid the babel of con .

GI

tr dictory voices, the future policy on nationalization is b -ng worked out. Old party beliefs and dogmas, and the si cere moral attitude from which they derive, are face to fa e with the certainty that they will lose the next election

a decidedly as the last. The party may split, in which case th Liberals are waiting hopefully on the sidelines to catch s e of the pieces. It is equally likely that agreement will b reached in the end on what to everybody but the S cialists will look like a fundamentally new policy.

What is amazing in retrospect is that the Labour party ever succeeded in persuading the public to acquiesce in the large-scale plan of nationalization that followed the 1945 election. Whatever one may think of the method, the choice of industries was astute. For the most part, the organizations taken over were already on the way to becoming semi-public corporations, and the owners of the rest were not readily in a position to awaken public sympathy, whether or not this was their fault.

The notable exceptions were the hauliers, very much alive and very much engaged in running the businesses that the Socialists planned to take away. The spirited fight put up by the hauliers stimulated and encouraged other industries when their turn came to be threatened. Even at that stage the Socialists began to realize they were going too far. Their threats became milder and less precise. They seemed unable to forgive the hauliers, and their one remaining definite pledge was to take back into State ownership the two items—steel and long-distance road haulage—that the Conservatives had set free.

More Apparent than Real The animosity of the Socialists against the hauliers may be more apparent than real, and there is a reasonable,, if not a good, chance of dispersing it for good. No party in opposition wholly agrees that the Government have a complete mandate from the electorate for every item in their manifesto. Any party that wrests power from another considers it has the right to reverse at least some of the measures of the preceding Government. In the present circumstances, where the sitting Government are returned with an increased majority, it is reasonable to claim that the electorate have confirmed what has been done.

It wquld be misleading to take too much notice of what went on at the two-day conference of the Labour party at Blackpool last week-end. Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, the party leader, was faced with a difficult task. On the whole, he skilfully steered his way between those Socialists who want more nationalization regardless of the manifest verdict of the electorate, and those who would prefer to see the question of State ownership quietly dropped. Mr. Gaitskell did not reject nationalization, but he did point out that it should be regarded as a means to an end, and not the end itself. He even dared to say that the party constitution should be re-written and brought up to date.

There is still a good chance of ultimately reaching the situation most desired by transport operators, under which the Socialists agree, as definitely as politicians can, not to seek to enlarge the present sector of public ownership. Mr. Gaitskell can then claim that he is giving due acknowledgement to the rights of the electorate, who have plainly subscribed. to Conservative legislation up to the last election. He can promise a strenuous fight against all new legislation. If this included a plan to break up B.R.S., the whole question of nationalization, or at any rate of transport nationalization, would again be thrown into the melting pot. Mr. Gaitskell would be unable to restrain his wild men; nor perhaps would he wish it.

On all counts, the hauliers who are anxious to press for total denationalization should hold their hand, at any rate until they have some better idea of Labour policy. In the meantime, they might think it advisable to investigate what market there is likely to be for a fresh supply of transport units, and particularly for the meat company that had a deficit of £154,000 in 1958, and for the parcels company that showed net receipts of £961,000.

Tags

Organisations: Labour Party
People: Hugh Gaitskell
Locations: Reading, Gloucester

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