Political Commentary
Page 56
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Labour's Blind Spot
By JANUS BY way of limbering up for the stresses and strains of the coming General Election, I have been reading the Labour Party's new book of " Cadipaign Quotations." The compilers had what they must have regarded as an amusing job. There are a few quotations from what are quaintly described as "neutral or non-political sources," ranging from Confucius to the late Archbishop of Canterbury. The rest of the book is for the most part a mosaic of snippets from statements by opponents of the Labour Party.
Easily first in the number and variety of attributions is Mr. Winston Churchill. No fewer than 80 of the quotations are either by him or about him, and the next most prolific " contributor " is Lord Wootton, with just under 30 entries to his credit—or should one say " discredit "? If you look at it in one way, this is something of a compliment to the Conservative Party leader. The massive changes of opinion made by Mr. Churchill during his long and eventful political career render him an obvious target. Nevertheless, other people have been known to change their minds. Most of them would be flattered if nearly 100 extracts were culled from their public utterances The "Campaign Quotations" are, of course, all torn from their original context and placed in an uncongenial setting deliberately chosen to show them off to the worst advantage. This does not necessarily provide'a complete excuse for the perpetrators of the quotations, any more than the protest of the reveller at being asked to perform in a solemn court of law the antics that seemed so eminently fitting the night before in Piccadilly Circus. The fact remains that some of the statements may have been made ironically, or that the speakers may have meant something entirely different from the meaning conveyed by a few words in isolation.
Not the Same Quotations that the Labour Party wishes to commend are equally carefully placed to give the desired effect. "A man cannot enjoy spiritual freedom in a society based on injustice," said A. Clutton-Brock, and the aphorism is included in a section headed "Socialist Ideas and Ideals." Had it been slipped in among references to the 25-mile restriction upon hauliers in free enterprise, it would scarcely have seemed the same.
I need hardly say that the 25-mile limit finds no place in the book of quotations. The section on transport is less remarkable for what it contains than for what it omits. Out of 40 entries, 32 are concerned solely with the railways and three with the road-rail problem. The subject of three other items is the denationalization of road transport. They are intended to show that a return to free enterprise is impossible or unthrifty. For this purpose, Mr. JamesCallaghan, at one time Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, is pressed into service with an extract from a speech made in December,1949:—
" What this means is that they [the Tories] propose to sell back to private enterprise the part of the public transport system which is making a profit, and leave with the public the part which is making a loss." The introduction to the book cheerfully promises to alter, in subsequent editions any mistakes that may have been made or any changes of opinion. Mr. Callaghan's n16 statement, although somewhat beside the point, was reasonably correct when he made it. It appears to be now out of date when one remembers the loss of over Lim. sustained by the Road Haulage Executive in 1950. Possibly a correction will be incorporated in the next issue of the book.
Not for the first time the Labour Party has shown that it knows very little about the road haulage industry. Only recently, the Party pamphlet " Monopoly " bracketed the Road Haulage Association with the cement ring, Tate and Lyle, and the Iron and Steel Federation, and branded them all alike as monopolies. Nobody who knew anything about the haulier would dream of hurling this particular accusation against him.
Road transport appears to be the Labour Party's blind spot. The transport section in the book of quotations illustrates this plainly. Four-fifths of the quotations have been selected to support the thesis that the railways have improved in every way as a result of nationalization. The one statement that can be dug up in support of the road transport side of the British Transport Commission has been disproved by events, and is in 'effect negative, as it does not commend road transport nationalization but merely stresses the difficulty of a return to free enterprise.
Waxing Eloquent The book thoughtfully provides an appendix of blank pages for the addition of the reader's own selection of quotations. If it be desired to strike a better balance in the references to transport, almost any trader or industrialist should be prepared to wax eloquent on the subject of the Road Haulage Executive. The only difficulty is that his statements might not be such as the editors of "Campaign Quotations" would wish to include.
Possibly, the blind spot is an involuntary indication that the Labour Party would like to forget about road transport. There may be a feeling of regret that it was ever included in the original plan for nationalization. The treatment of hauliers, in particular, is not in accordance with the Party's more recent statements of policy. The Socialist manifesto for the 1950 election discussed the possibility of nationalizing part of an industry and leaving the rest free. It continued: "For private and public enterprise to compete fairly with each other can be good for both."
The phrase smacks faintly of the schoolroom and the copybook maxim. It seems to have been dropped from more recent official statements, but the sentiment presumably still holds good. It is almost a platitude once one has assumed the necessity of partial nationalization in any particular case.
In the one industry where the experiment has so far been tried there is no question of " fair " competition. All the legal advantages in toad haulage are on the side of the R.H.E. The copybook maxim is smudged before it begins to operate. The Labour Party is almost in the indefensible position of the man who repents of his past sins but refuses to make restitution. The Socialists cannot start with a clean sheet until they redress the balance in road transport. The method is simple, but to them impossible. They need only include the removal of the 25-mile limit in their election programme.