Junking the Rubric
Tin: current anti-Gaitskell line on the Left is (as Tom Baistow puts it in our correspon- dence columns) 'that by the time—perhaps un- comfortably nearer than we think—Russia is a serious competitor in vital export markets the current bickering about public ownership will seem as quaint as the chimney-boy controversy.' It will; but not for the reason Mr. Baistow hopes. Public ownership is not a Socialist device. It was known in Britain long before what passes for Socialism here today was ever heard of. Conserva- tives have long accepted that all industries have to he subjected to some State control, and some industries to a lot of State control—either because private enterprise lacks. the means to develop them, as in the case of nuclear power; or because of the public service element which makes them unprofitable, as in the case of the railways.
Even in industries which are outwardly run by private enterprise, the degree of State control today, direct and indirect, is such that if any Conservative had suggested it thirty years ago he would have been denounced as a bolshie in dis- guise. The Left is under the happy illusion that the successes of public ownership elsewhere will ultimately. justify their campaign to retain. Clause Four of the party constitution. But while they are wrangling over Clause Four, Conservative Ministers are quietly using their powers—in the aircraft industry, for one; and in the direction of new factories to depressed areas—to get on with
the job, while the Opposition tears itself to pieces.
True, there is an emotional bias against nationalisation on the Conservatives' side, but this evidently is easily overcome whenever the need is thought to have arisen. Their real objection to nationalisation is not that it is wicked but that it is inefficient. They want to complete the hand: ing back of steel to private enterprise for much the same reason that ICI, say, likes to break itself up into small and largely self-governing units; because it works better that way. If it didn't. they wouldn't.
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