1 JUNE 1944, Page 3

WORK AND THE CONSUMER

HE White Paper on " Employment Policy " (not, be it noted, on unemployment—the difference between a positive and a negative attitude) must not be considered in isolation. A Govern- ment which within twelve months can approve in principle a far- reaching social security programme, carry through the House of Commons a measure reshaping -the whole educational system of the country, frame a plan for a comprehensive National Health Service, and now produce an employment policy designed to ensure more or less congenial work for everyone prepared to work industriously and honestly, may deserve some of the hard things said about it, but certainly does not deserve them all. This extensive and imaginative programme, moreover, must be ap- proached from the other end as well, from the standpoint, that is, of the individual citizen whom it is meant to benefit. In his life the four 'features of the Government's plan are seen to be com- pletely interdependent. More comprehensive and more efficient health services, from his childhood up, will enable him while at school to take fuller advantage of the better teaching which it is the purpose of Mr. Butler to provide, and in later life to put in more efficient work at whatever calling he may select. Output will thereby be increased, as the need for developing the expqrt trade urgently demands, and with employment steady the social security scheme, indispensable for mitigating the results of unemploythent due to local or seasonal causes, or changes of taste or habit, will have no difficulty in keeping solvent. Rarely if ever has any Government in this country contemplated legislation involving social reform on such a scale in so brief a space of Parliamentary time ; it may be questioned whether today a party government could have attempted it and succeeded.

The new White Paper, therefore, must be regarded as embodying the latest, though not of necessity the last, of a series of far-reaching and closely-related measures whose sole purpose is to advance the physical, material and mental welfare of the mass of individual citizens who make up the population of this country. Its great merit is that it recognises, and frankly states, that employment cannot be guaranteed by any mere manipulation from Whitehall, important as it is that Whitehall should, more in the future than in the past, be bringing the best brains in the country to bear On the problem. The public must co-operate by accepting cheerfully the continuance of controls of which it would gladly be rid, the trade unions must be reasonable in the matter of restrictive customs and the employers show themselves broadminded in such matters as the ready acceptance of trainees new to their particular trade. So far as the public generally is concerned, it is to be hoped that it will be resolutely deaf to criticism of the Government scheme in the form of complaints of " more bureaucracy." Bureaucracy, if it means anything in this connexion, means simply organisation, and without organisation, intelligent, far-reaching and compre- hensive, it is hopeless to attempt such an enterprise as the steady maintenance of employment at something over a 90 per cent. level. If there is organisation there must be organisers, but they will all be under the constant and vigilant scrutiny of an elected Parlia- ment. What the plan entails is a willing self-discipline accepted without reluctance in the public interest—which means, of course, everyone's individual interest. American suggestions that the White Paper foreshadows " authoritarianism " at one end of the scale and " enslavement " at the other are grotesquely wide of the mark. Democracy organising itself is not authoritarianism.

The essence of the Government's proposals, the main- tenance at the maximum level of the demand for goods and services, and the deliberate stimulation of that demand when it shows signs of flagging, is likely to be generally approved, though there is, of course, one all-important sphere, the export trade, in which control of demand is not in the hands of the British Government ; all the Government can do—and that it states that it is already doing—is to conduct discussions directed to removing every available obstacle to the free flow of international trade. For this country the export trade is vital ; we need to increase our exports by so per cent. to pay our way in a world in which we have disposed of practically the whole of our oversell investments, and for that reason the home demand for consumer's golads must be kept rigidly in check, by the continuance of most or all of the existing controls, during the transition period in which the output will be insufficient to supply both the home and the export markets. But that, after all, is only a temporary necessity. The fundamental question Lord Woolton had to face, and which has been faced with resolution and vision, is whether a slump in demand—mainly home demand—can be countered at the outset, before it has time (unemployment in one trade resulting in a lessened demand for the products of other trades, with conse- quent unemployment and reduced demand there, and so on) to produce its cumulative and disastrous effect ; the speed with which action must be taken is shown by the statement that in 1920-21 unemployment rose from 5 to 15 per cent. in four months. The Government sees the key of the situation in spending—spending, of course, of a sensible character and within reasonable limits. If employment is to be kept steady factories must be kept running, and if orders for their products show signs of slackening steps must be taken to provide more orders. The methods by which that is to be effected cannot be enumerated in detail here. The most important is the planning of public works by the Government and local authorities in such a way that in a given—e.g., a five-year— period there are always less essential projects which can be held back while general employment is good, and brought forward as soon as there are signs of slump.

That is one manifestly necessary step which has constantly been recommended by progressive writers on the unemployment problem. What is more original, and more courageous, is the series of measures the Government proposes for the maintenance of private spending. The principle of evening out demand is unre- servedly accepted. If the public appears to have too little money to spend taxation must be reduced, even if it means that the Budget in that year will not balance ; there must be a balance over a period of years, but that can be achieved if taxation is kept high, even higher than the national expenditure requires, in prosperous times, so that there can be remission when private spending needs stimu- lation. Still more resourceful is the suggestion that contributions under the social security plan be adjusted in the same way, the standard rate (assessed on the basis of a 'forecast of the average level of unemployment) being raised when the total volume of unemployment is low, showing that an adequate demand for goods exists, and lowered when unemployment rises, so as to leave contributors with more purchasing-power in their pockets. But all such proposals for maintaining consumption, and other proposals for controlling public and private investment, so that industries already adequate to any reasonable demand shall not be so expanded that the total volume of their products stands no chance of being absorbed, are dependent on a reasonable stability of price levels. If wages are to be forced ceaselessly upwards regardless of consequences the consequences will soon be such that they will have to be regarded, for the resultant inflation will be fatal to the whole steady-employment programme. Stagnation in wage-rates is not suggested, but an attempt is made to establish the principle that an increase in wages shall be related to increased productivity resulting from increased efficiency and effort. Equally any attempt by manufacturers to raise prices unjustifiably by means of rings or other devices would be fatal to the plan.

There are no doubt many features in this most notable scheme which call for close examination and perhaps for criticism. Carefully as the proposals designed to facilitate the mobility of labour have been drafted, the fact remains that men with families, or even men without families, cannot be arbitrarily moved about the country like pieces on a chess-board ; human prejudices, of which innate conservatism is often one, are factors not to be ignored. On the other hand, the idea of bringing work to the people, as by offering effective inducements to diverse industries to establish themselves in what have been hitherto the semi-derelict " special areas " deserve all praise. That, however, involves a Government decision, far too long delayed, on the Barlow Com- mission's report on the location of industry, and on that decision will depend in turn extensive housing and transport programmes. There is lost time to make up here, but if the Government is in earnest, as it must be assumed to be, over the proposals set out in the Employment Policy White Paper, it cannot hesitate about the steps needed to give its policy effect.