A Spectator's Notebook
A VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE-Or a surrender to expediency? The settle- ment of the rail dispute, with its implied promise of settlements on similar lines in other disputes to come, is one of those borderline cases on which pontification is impossible. If Mr. Macleod had suggested a few weeks ago that another 3 per cent. increase in wages all round was the best solution to the wage problem, he would have been denounced by his own party as an appeaser; yet he is now being praised in the party for his common sense and political acumen. And he can reasonably argue that for the first time the principle of relating increased wages to increased efficiency (better, perhaps, to say decreased in- efficiency) has been established. Whether he is justified in this belief, I feel, will have to await the verdict of the next year's working on the railways, and in other State industries—which is another way of saying that the real battle has been post- poned. The Government's reputation is going to depend on the State corporations being able to show, in a few months' time, that this round of wage increases has not been merely a sham to save it from a domestic crisis. If the reforms do not show results, the next crisis will not be evaded.
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