NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE fact that the British Four-Year Plan is hedged about with conditions and reservations is perhaps its main virtue. Whether the cause of caution is the wish to avoid interference with individual liberty in the name of a paper scheme, or a doubt whether the extension of the period of increased effort and sacrifice for four more years is possible, or an appreciation of the pitfalls of prophecy on such a vast scale, caution is both realistic and just. But since—even in the dangerous and obscure field of national economic planning— there is nothing to be said for infirmity of purpose, all that can be done to make this dream of 1953 come true must be done. A plan is in any case called for in the Convention for Economic Co-opera- tion. It is also common knowledge that the present Government has been considering the possibility of four-year plans throughout its life, although nothing solid has been previously published apart from the annual Economic Surveys. And common sense requires that foresight shall be exercised in all possible cases where the development of industry is concerned. But it is essential that nobody in this country, or in the other countries participating in O.E.E.C., or, above all, in the United States, should become dis- illusioned if the plan is upset—even drastically upset. The fore- word points out that the first stage of revision in the light of the programmes of the other participating countries is already in pro- gress, and consequently the figures now published, having been submitted on October 1st, are already going out of date. Attention is drawn in several places to the fact that the figures of the overseas balance of payments are based on the prices ruling at the middle of 1948. That is the most ticklish assumption of all, since the favourable balance of Ltoo,000,000 forecast for 1952-53 amounts to only 4 per cent. of total British receipts from abroad, a narrow margin of error indeed. Finally, there is the proviso that the British people as a whole must increase their output per head, make the fullest possible use of the enlarged and improved capital equipment they will be given, and at the same time resist the urge to increase their consumption beyond the permitted percentage. It can be done. But it would be a mistake for anyone to think it can be done by means of another poster campaign. The hardest task of all will be to bring the plan home to the man at the bench.
