Jigsaw Puzzlers
By JOHN COLE
WHAT a capacity the British have for getting everything mixed up in one gigantic pudding! Just as the Common Market negotia- tions have broken down and just as the unem- ployment figures have begun to look more depressing than at any time since the war, those terrible twins of the economic front, Neddy and Nic, have reached the crunch simultaneously. And all this just as Mr. Harold Wilson is settling in as Leader of the Labour Party, and every one's mind is turning towards a general election.
What effect this will have on the prospects of success in either or both of the National Economic Development Council and the National Incomes Commission is anyone's guess. Certainly, the need for Britain to get grow th, and stable growth, has never been more strikingly underscored nationally and internationally : at Brussels, the Government was negotiating from a position of considerable internal weakness; the unemployment figures, and particularly the un- even distribution of unemployment through the country, have shown that this weakness is deep- seated.
The Government, unfortunately, has thought fit to seek a short cut to an incomes policy, by tackling it directly through the NIC. The tempta- tion to do this, admittedly, was very strong, for the early behaviour of Neddy, and even more its behaviour this past few weeks, has given no cause for confidence that the long-term method will produce dramatic success either.
Nevertheless, Neddy still seems the more hope- ful instrument. An incomes policy will certainly only be created by negotiation, not imposition.
The establishment of the NIC, which is really a court whose judgments seek to influence public Opinion, would only be justified if the Govern- ment had decided to abandon all hope of nego- tiating with the two sides of industry.
But this hope has not been abandoned, and it would be folly if it were. It is, of course, quite impossible to negotiate on wages in isolation. and the great value of Neddy is that it should, work- , ing at its best, enable employers and unions to have an effective voice in government policy over the whole range of economic topics, at the creative stage. The experience so far has. quite frankly, been disappointing. There has never been any real scarcity of good ideas for dealing with this or that part of our economic dilemma. What a council like the NEDC, representative of Government and the two sides of industry. should be able to do is to fit the pieces into the
jigsaw puzzle, to say, 'If you do that. do this'—to achieve, in fact, some kind of common national objective.
Perhaps, with the election pending, it is too much to hope that eyes can be lifted far enough above the controversy to such a national aim. Neither unions, employers, nor even Mr. Maud- ling and his colleagues are political neuters. It would be a pity, even a tragedy, if the concept of Neddy foundered in the rather artificial poli- tical weather which will exist for the next year or more A government of either political corn- plexion should try again with it after the elec tion, for it is the right method. The NIC is only. a make-do-and-mend set which a Chancellor might use for a little patching when all else had failed.
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