Jones the philosopher-king

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH

The last day before parliament broke up for its Easter holiday was marked by one of those debates which remind one irresistibly of the public bar of a railway hotel on a Saturday morning. The topic of the day was the pro- posed salary increases for chairmen of state industries, on Mr Willie Hamilton's adjourn- ment motion disapproving of them. Here we have Mr Hamilton himself, quoting, as it happens. from the Labour party's Economic Brief of last NoVember: 'Why, for example, should a man who had the luck to inherit a particular mental or in- tellectual skill be paid so much more than someone who did not? Why should a man do- ing the most menial kind of work often in the worst sort of working conditions need so much less financial incentive than a man in a highly responsible, and generally highly con- genial, job?'

If Mr Hamilton or the Labour party does not know the answer to that question, then they can scarcely know the answer to any- thing. Much is said against saloon-bar poli- tics, but I 'have always found them distinctly preferable to 'the politics of the public bar. Within the democratic context, however, there can be no doubt that Mr Hamilton is quite right when he says that a majority of voters (whom he whimsically identifies as 'lower paid workers') will regard the Aubrey Jones recommendations increasing top chairmen's salaries from £12,500 to £20,000 in three stages as 'unjust, inequitable and discriminating in favour of the "haves" against the "have- nots." ' If the Tories were more given to political theory, they would identify this phenomenon as one of the inherent contradictions of demo- cratic socialism. By pandering to the voters in this matter—as they are prepared to do in so many less honourable enterprises—they could effectively ensure that nationalised in- dustries ground to a halt in an orgy of in- competence and corruption. But, of course, the Conservative party isn't like that. Tories have so far convinced themselves of the high moral content to be found in words like 'efficiency,' incentives' and 'realistic salaries' that they are even prepared to apply such health-giving properties to the serpent at their breast. Indeed, Mr Edward Taylor, the Tory' 'Member for Cathcart, was positively embarrassing in the warmth with which he greeted Mrs Castle's acceptance of the Jones proposals.

There are four criteria for wage increases listed in the White Paper—increased produc, tivity, national interest, poverty and having 'fallen seriously out of line with the level of remuneration for similar work.' It was on the last consideration that chairmen were to be allowed their 60 per cent increases. Mrs Castle: however, confused the issues still further by suggesting a totally different criterion, wage differential:

'I am constantly being presented with ex- amples at -work level of how, for example, the differentials applying to supervisors have

nad inroads made in them by wage awards given to chaps under them. In those circum- stances, I am asked to widen the differential • are we to say that there is some level of salary at which the differential principle should not apply?'

Overcome by the profundity of this dis- covery, Mrs Castle later formulated it anew: 'The Opposition continue their chanting about our wicked prices and incomes policy. But we have still to discuss and resolve in the House the basis on which equity and justice can be done in an age when differentials arc bound to be paramount.'

'Paramount?' asked Mr John Biffen. the Conservative Member for Oswestry and one of the most astute of the Conservative econo- mists. 'Yes, paramount,' replied Mrs Castle defiantly. If she really meant it, of course, then the prices and incomes policy really has had a coach and horses driven through it. As soon as any lower-paid worker is allowed a wage increase on compassionate grounds, everyone above him will have to have a similar increase to preserve the differential.

One could, if one wished,, develop this to show that the traditional trade union adher- ence to a system of differentials is yet another inherent contradiction in the idea of trade union socialism—which Tories, if they were more in- terested in politics, might try to exploit. But it would be a waste of time to do this when discussing the much larger contradiction en- shrined in the idea of a prices and incomes policy. The philosophy behind it was mag- nificently described in a recent article by Mr George Cattell, of the Department of Em- ployment and Productivity, which appeared in the Times Business News and was probably thrown away by most readers. He argued on ,the assumption that everybody in England was working at maximum efficiency and that management was characterised by total in- telligence and disinterestedness. Under these circumstances, the functions of a prices and incomes board, he says, are to take possession of-the entire national cake, cut it up and parcel it out according to social priorities.

Now, as we all know, Mr Aubrey Jones's Prices and Incomes Board does nothing of the kind. Its function is chiefly to lend what moral weight it has to the employers' side during the normal processes of collective bar- gaining. Soon, even this marginal use is to be counterbalanced by Mr George Woodcock's Commission for Industrial Relations. It also acts as an efficiency consultant, sug- gesting various ways in which employers can slip productivity deals into wage bargains. Not a totally useless occupation, on balance, and arguably one that justifies its annual cost of £757,000, but scarcely fit employment for a philosopher-king. Mr Aubrey Jones some- how has to reconcile his rather lofty ideas of what the chairman of a prices and incomes board should be with the undignified reality of what he is—a persistent, if largely ineffec- tive, advocate of productivity agreements on the outer fringe of wage bargaining. He summed up his concept of a productivity bar- gain to the southern regional advisory com-

mittee of the TUC last December, when he said that it was essential that 'while these rewards

accrue in part to those directly benefiting from them, they also accrue to those unable to bene- fit from them.'

At the annual general meeting of the Soap and Detergent Industry Association a month previously, he was even more explicit: ' "Pro- ductivity"—a word to conjure with; a word with much promise in it—that is why I, for one, have used it; but also a word which, if misunderstood, could lead us at a gathering pace down a slippery slope.' This slippery slope, which soap and detergent manufacturers should be on their guard against, would lead them into a stagnant pool of unemployed, for which Mr Jones hopes to substitute 'an active labour market'—surely one of the choicest euphemisms since 'planned growth of in- comes' to describe a wages freeze. It would also lead to unfairness, and fairness is the greatest attribute of the mediaeval king:. 'fair- ness requires that time workers be taken into account in the pay arrangements made for piece workers. This is the essence of a pro- ductivity bargain-- it takes into account others in the factory than those whose work is directly related to output.'

A prices and incomes board, then, is the one ray of light in a dark world. It will en- sure fairness and decency in everyday affairs, and no doubt prove conducive to sobriety of dress and behaviour in the young. The alterna- tive to it is massive unemployment or a floating pound. 'Let me add that I am not an advocate of a floating pound.' says Jones. 'I believe in endeavouring to reduce as much as one can the uncertainties of this life, and one strand of certainty and predictability is a fixed exchange rate. This, then, I would keep.'

So it is back to the standing inquiry on the university teachers' pay which Mr Jones chairs, and general surveillance over the inquiry into the pay and duties of lighthouse keepers, prices of toilet preparations and of non-alloy bright steel bars, to name only a few of the reports which are going to electrify us all in the coming months. It is easy to make fun of the ridiculous details which pour from such sublime inten- tions, and of the way in which he is always pushing at the frontiers of government indif- ference to extend his moral empire and even to equip it with moral teeth. The last report on university teachers solemnly suggested that they should receive a discretionary bonus with- in 4 per cent of the university salary bill to be determined, among other criteria, by 'the quality of an individual's teaching. as revealed, among other measurements, by a carefully drafted questionnaire to students.' The Jones- hunters immediately saw this as a ruthless at- tempt to harness the student power movement to the prices and incomes board in its battle to keep down the price of toilet preparations, introduce an active labour market and defend the parity of the pound. A more charitable in- terpretation might have been that he hoped to inspire a cartoon by Giles in the Daily Express, thereby winning a little free pub- licity for his tireless endeavours.

But humour is not among the weapons in his armoury, any more than it was among St Augustine's when he set out to convert the English. True saintliness often seems to require an imperfect sense of the ridiculous.