London Gathering
By Our Industrial Correspondent
IT is heartening to see industrialists and trade unionists getting together to see how many of the problems presented by the European Free Trade and Common Market plans can be solved in advance. This week, labour and management representatives from the OEEC countries are meeting in London to discuss the questions which arise out of them. The men and women who are attending are not there to advocate any particular policy (though many of them doubtless hold strong views); the object is simply to clear the groundto find where differences lie, and how far they are removable. Rarely, if ever, has any important international problem of this kind been so thoroughly explored in advance.
On another page Mr. George Woodcock, the Assistant General Secretary of the TUC, gives the trade union viewpoint—though, as he points out, individual trade unions, and individual groups of workers, are bound to have very different atti- tudes, according to the way that any extension of free trade affects their prospects. The trade union attitude is extremely important because it will certainly help to determine the Labour Party view : and what the Labour Party thinks may well determine what Britain does, if the political scene retains its present hue. The risk is that the Labour Party may tend to throw its weight against the European idea not out of any real dislike or distrust, but simply because it is tinged with Toryism. Such was the Labour reaction to the European movement in 1948-50, when Ernest Bevin was wearily obstructive, and Labour delega- tions to Strasbourg—though approving the idea of a parliamentarians' get-together=were deter- mined not to let the movement get out of hand. Mr. Woodcock's article suggests that the Trades Union Congress, at least, is now taking a more realistic view. Much of the credit for this realism must go to the UK Council of the European movement, which has tried hard to ensure that European Free Trade is kept off what might be called the Express level of sententious argument : and the list of distinguished people attending the London conference is itself sufficient tribute to the Council's work.
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