LABOUR EMBATTLED
THE annual conference of one of the two great political parties in this country is necessarily important. It is particularly important when it is a conference of the party which for the moment constitutes the Government of the country. It is more particularly important still when it falls within twelve months of an impending General Election. All this invests this week's pro- ceedings at Blackpool with an interest stretching far beyond this country and even this continent. There has, of course, been the exuberance inevitable when comrades collect. Mr. Bevan, invariably true to form, has earned castigation at the hands of Mr. Churchill for his completely outrageous assertion that the return Of a Tory Government would create a situation out of which there would be no escape except through. civil war and a blood-bath. That was Mr. Bevan. There was also Mr. Morrison, who to all appearance misquoted Mr. Churchill indefensibly, attributing to the Conservative leader words he never used, in the course of an interchange arising out of an earlier, and fairly guarded, suggestion by Mr. Morrison that it was essential for Labour to be returned at the next election, as the alternative was serious industrial unrest. There may be an arguable question of inflexion and emphasis here, but that the implication of the Lord President's words was as Mr. Churchill suggested is incontestable. There is, moreover, this much justification for them, that Labour unrest in the years immediately following the war was undoubtedly checked by the desire of the trade union rank-and-file to give a fair chance to the first Labour Government which had ever succeeded to both office and power. But to point to that as a historical fact is one thing ; to use language capable of being construed as a threat of Labour unrest in the future if the Conservatives win the election is some- thing very different. Whatever Mr. Morrison may have meant he can never afford to let it be thought that he meant that.
But all this, after all, was part of the preliminaries of the con- ference, designed no doubt, and designed successfully, to create an atmosphere. In the conference itself more restrained notes have been sounded, more particularly by its chairman, Mr. James Griffiths, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The gist of the speeches of the two former was that Labour had done what it promised to do four years ago. As Mr. Griffiths put it in a quotation which illuminated his origins, "we have fought a good fight, we have kept the faith." Mr. Attlee advanced the same claim, and though the fulfilment of election pledges is not quite as abnormal an occurrence as he suggested the claim may be broadly accepted. Labour has given the electors what- it said it would give them, particularly in the matter of nationalisation, and in the matter of nationalisation there is more, and probably worse, still to come ; Mr. Morrison made that plain on Wednesday. But the country is less concerned with the moral aspect of pledge- fulfilment than with the practical effects of it. And as regards nationalisation it has yet to be proved that it is justified either by increased efficiency, increased economy or increased output. The strictures passed by two experienced Coal Board officials at Cardiff last week on the combined effects of wage-demands and unsatisfactory production should be pondered as they deserve. The present unrest on the railways has no immediate connection with nationalisation, but the declaration of a railwaymen's delegate at Blackpool on Wednesday that since nationalisation things have *got worse on the railways is significant, and the appended exhorta- tion, "place the workers in control of the railways," is an instructive warning of the danger of nationalisation developing symptoms of syndicalism.
But Mr. Morrison is not content with nationalisation. Private enterprise is to be kept under constant surveillance and interfered with when it is thought necessary—which means when Labour Ministers think it necessary. Economic planning and control is to continue on a permanent basis under a revised Supplies and Services Act. That principle, of course, is not to be unreservedly condemned. In certain basic industries close association with the Government in the national interest is both practicable and desir- able. The Steel Board, which regulated both prices and develop- ment in the steel industry till it broke down under the threat of nationalisation, worked admirably, so much so that its very success constitutes a signal condemnation of the Government's decision to substitute for it a system which by every precedent will work substantially worse. Against planning and regulation within reasonable limits there can be no complaint. The Conservatives could not dispense with them, and have never claimed that they could. But controls, whatever the temporary necessity for them, gravely impede the efficient conduct of business and deaden the spirit of adventure and enterprise which has given British industry and commerce its commanding position in the past. It is impossible not to discern in the Blackpool speeches and many like them an ill-concealed conviction that private enterprise is something evil and that to fetter it in every way possible is an act of virtue. Mr. Morrison says that " we " want private enterprise to realise this or that ; " we " shall help it in this way or that way. It is pertinent to ask who, for this purpose, " we " is. Mr. Morrison himself is a singularly able Parliamentarian and has shown himself in the past a very competent administrator. But has he any qualifi- cations for controlling and interfering with specialised businesses— and every business is more or less specialised ? Have any, and if so how many, of his colleagues ? Or is the control to be organised by civil servants ? Or are private business-men, sick of the frustrations they have had to cope with, to be enlisted to impose similar frustrations on others ? None of these essential aspects of nationalisation and control interest delegates whose only demand is for more nationalisation still.
Yet when all is said the Labour case as put by moderates like the Prime Minister and Mr. Bevin can make a good showing. The social reforms the Labour Government has carried through are impressive. A Conservative Government might or might not have done as well—when Mr. Griffiths claimed credit for the speed and vigour with which the Beveridge Report proposals had been carried through he forgot that it was a predominantly Con- servative administration which appointed the Beveridge Com- mission—but Labour was given its opportunity by the electors and exploited it to the full, in this way and by taxation raising (in the Prime Minister's words) the standard of living of the less well-to-do and reducing the excessive claims of the very wealthy. If these last words reveal some mastery of the art of understatement the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his part was fully justified on Tuesday in demonstrating that through the operations of all these factors the lower-income groups were better off than ever before, and that since in the past year wages had risen by I21 per cent. and the cost of living by only 7 per cent. all ordinary claims for further increases in wages stood condemned as leading inevitably to inflation. No more salutary words could have been uttered than those addressed to the Labour Conference by Sir Stafford Cripps. Many of them were hard words to hear: "We cannot increase our standard of living at the expense of other people who are giving us gifts." "We must have more, and more efficient, production if•we are to solve our difficulties without loss of standards." "Slicing the cake in different ways does not increase its size." Inexorable as ever, inexorable as an intract- able situation compels him to be, the Chancellor carried a reluctant conference with him almost to a man, very much to the con- ference's credit. The dominating fact is that we are in honour bound, as well as in our own interests bound, to set ourselves economically on our feet by 1952. No man of any party will seek to evade that responsibility, for it is a national characteristic to be determined to pay our way. And the Labour Government Is entitled to point with satisfaction to the sound beginning a Labour Chancellor has made with that process. A Conservative Chancellor might have done as well, which is doubtful ; he cer- tainly would not have done better. But Sir Stafford has not entirely pleased his party. Laments that local elections have been lost because the Chancellor would not frame an unsound Budget to catch votes found more than one echo at Blackpool. It may well be that here the Chancellor has served his country better than his party ; there is little doubt which is the higher achievement. The Labour Government is well into its last year. The colour of the next Government is unpredictable. But one personal verdict imposes itself. Mr. Atdee's firm if unobtrusive leadership has been of inestimable service to his party. The cohesion both of Ministers and of the party in Parliament after four years is remark- able. There has, as the Prime Minister says, been admirable team- work. But a team does not work as a team without a leader.
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