Cause for cautious optimism
The mineworkers' vote against allowing their leaders "to call a national strike or other industrial action . . . to obtain a satisfactory response to the claim on behalf of all our members" could easily prove to be a watershed in the recent history of this country. It is a powerful rebuke against militant union leadership by the most solid and loyal group of industrial workers. It is a massive endorsement of that mood in the country represented by the Ford workers' decision against strike action and by the gas Workers' return to work. It suggests most strongly that Mr Hugh Scanlon, the engineering workers' leader, was reflecting a ver significant shift of opinion last week when he explored the
ity of a deal with the Government over the Industrial Re ct and entertained the prospect that in the autumn the nion Congress and the Labour Party, at their annual co ces, might begin the processes of coming to terms with Euro . The mineworkers' decisive 'No 'leaves the striking hospital workers and dockers out on a limb. It also ensures that the call for something like a one-day national strike on May 1 will produce in response nothing of the kind. The mineworkers pos sess not only the most formidable industrial strength, as their defeat of the Heath Government last year abundantly proved, but also they possess, as the public's support during that 1972 e demonstrated, a very great moral authority. This authority w enhanced by the scale of their pithead vote in which, by 143,006 to 82,631, they refused to give their union's national executive the authority it sought..
The Prime Minister, in explaining why it was that he had decided to introduce a statutory incomes and prices policy, against his Previous judgement and in contradiction to his electoral promises, gave as a reason the fact that the mineworkers had defeated the Government. This was a brave and honest admission. Now, the mineworkers have shown, in their present vote, that they refuse to seek to inflict a further defeat upon the Government, and theirs is a brave and honest decision. Moreover, it marks a victory for Mr Heath and his counter-inflation policy. It IS the victory which comes from a battle declined, but it is a great victory nonetheless, and all the better for being bloodless. It is the best kinctaLvictory in that, save for a few union militants, no
men are t.h. and all — Government, mineworkers and public — can ety its fruits. Such fruits could be very great, for it may be that this country is, once more, entering upon a sustained Period of economic growth. And if indeed this is the case, then that self-confidence which it has so conspicuously lacked will return, in which event those who have based their attitudes upon a pessimistic assessment of this country's prospects will have to change their minds.
It is possible that too much is being read into the mineworkers' vote and the new situation between the 6overnment and the trade unions which it both expresses and brings about. Watersheds are difficult to recognise before maps are made; and political maps can only be made after events. It may be that What looks like the beginning of a new course, flowing in a new direction, will turn out to be a false start or yet another tributary of national decline. But the fact that watersheds are difficult to recognise, and false claims may easily be made, is no reason for not looking for them, for not thinking we may recognise one now, and for not hoping that we may be about to cross a divide. The mineworkers' vote affords us an opportunity to look on the bright side of things, to congratulate Mr Heath and his Administration, and to envisage an end to the policies of confrontation: we gladly do all three.
There remain some very fundamental problems in the economy to be overcome. Whatever the Government may claim, inflation will not be overcome simply because of a new compliance among
the trade unions. Mr Barber's policy of growth is fine; but it carries with it the political assumption that a higher degree of inflation than has hitherto been thought to be acceptable will in fact be tolerated both by the Government and the governed. The Government will have to steel itself to bring its expenditure more in line with its income; it will have to look again at its silly policies of shovelling cash out indiscriminately both to private and to nationalised industries; and it will have to scrutinise far more closely than it has yet done the extravagances and the inefficiencies contained within the sprawling and spreading and crumbling edifices and jerry-buildings of the welfare state. In its policies the Government would be wise not to pay excessive attention to unemployment. Mobility in employment is required, and there is no sense in subsidising men to remain where there is no demand for their labour than there is in subsidising industries to go where they do not want to go. But if it is desirable that the Government should do rather less than it is doing in terms of regional and industrial subventions, it is even more desirable that it should keep on doing what it has been doing in terms of growth, balance of payments and the floating pound. That is, the Chancellor should stick to the proclamation he made in last year's budget speech, three months before his wholly admirable decision to float the pound: " It is neither necessary nor desirable to distort domestic economies to an unacceptable extent in order to maintain unrealistic exchange rates, whether they are too high or too low." Mr Barber has resisted the efforts of the European countries to bring sterling back on a fixed rate, and he has resisted the demands of the deflationists that he should curb growth, and he has been right on both counts.
There are plenty of dangerous signs about. Food prices are too high, and we may be unable to defeat the dear food policies of the protectionist Europeans (although Mr Godber has, so far, been making quite sound noises). There remain, both in the Industrial Relations Act and in the imposition of Phase 2 and the implications and interpretations of Phase 3 of the prices and inco ,
mes policy far too much scope for confrontation between the Government and the unions. Nevertheless, this week the !country has more cause for cautious optimism than it has enjoyed for many months — possibly indeed for many years, since
• the first days of Mr Wilson's second Administration. For this, the chief credit is due and must go to Mr Heath, whose angry will , may yet serve the nation brilliantly.
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