Labour Sidesteps Nationalization
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From our Political Correspondent
pLAIN, straightforward nationalization of road transport is dropped from the Labour Party's new home policy document, "Signposts for the Sixties." Instead, the national conference in October will he asked to approve a policy which envisages the unhampered expansion of publicly owned transport— obviously to the detriment of the privately owned sector.
"The scope for public enterprise should be extended by removing the anomalous restrictions which at present prevent public corporations from undertaking many useful and profitable developments," says the document.
"Britain will never have an economic transport industry until the publicly owned transport authority is free to extend its road services wherever it can usefully do so."
It adds: "Where competition creates not efficiency but chaos in a key sector of the economy, there too an expansion of public ownership may be necessary to put things right."
The point was amplified by Mr. Harold Wilson when the document was published last week. "We are not contemplating going back to the sort of idea of taking over from private owners of small lorries, and paying large sums in compensation,". he said. "We are thinking much more in terms of expanding the existing nationalized sector."