Control of the Banks The financial and economic programme is
of quite another order. Broadly the intention is to spend prodi- gally and get the money by drastic taxation of the non- wage-earners. Hours are to be shortened and wages raised. Agricultural land is to be nationalized—with compensation in this and all such cases—" drastic re- organization, with, in most cases, immediate public ownership and control " is to be applied to a wide range of staple industries, including textiles and shipping; nothing apparently ha' ing'been learned from the uniform records of State shipping experiments in Australia, the United States and elsewhere. And the Bank of England and the Joint Stock Banks are to be brought under public' ownership and control, the Governor of the Bank being appointed by the Government and responsible to a Cabinet Minister. For some reorganization of the banking sys- tern of this country, possibly for the introduction of the public utility corporation principle, there is a good deal to be said, but the kind of direct political control the Labour Party appears to contemplate would be an unqualified disaster. The Socialist ideal is frankly a centrally organized and regimented community, which to the genius of this country at any rate is utterly alien. Private initiative and enterprise may call for some degree of direction and co-ordination from the centre, but to ex- change them for the wholesale nationalization of industry —" in most cases immediate "—would be to eliminate qualities essential to efficiency and progress.
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