Unions' Disunion
Union after union has made its ill-tempered contribution to the protest against the three members of the General Council of the T.U.C. who have accepted places on the Iron and Steel Board. Mr. Jack Owen has been given a fortnight by his union to reconsider his decision. The other two, Sir Lincoln Evans and Mr. Andrew Naesmith, are close to retirement age, and would be leaving the Council this year anyway, so they have less to worry about. The Bevanite wing of the Labour Party, which has been fairly quiet, is once more presented with something to shout about, and cries of treason are rising. The net result of all this is to increase the distance between the T.U.C.'s head and its partisan limbs. for the head decided long ago that its proper mature acceptance of responsibility involved not only the safeguarding of trade unionists' interests but also a reasonable co-operation with the Government of the day, even when that Government puts into law by consti- tutional process proposals to which the T.U.C. in its political aspect may be opposed. But it was the T.U.C. itself which was among the first to advocate, as an alternative to national- isation, the control of the iron and steel industry by just such a statutory board as has been formed, and there is nothing strange in three of its members accepting seats on that board. Even if these three men had been fully opposed to the de- nationalisation of the industry, they could still, knowing the interests of the industry as a whole and so of the country to be of overriding importance, have accepted the invitations in good faith. Trade unionists who still think simply in terms of unending struggle against the wicked capitalists naturally will not countenance such an argument. But what they and the Bevanites have really been saying is this : so long as Labour is not in power supporters of Labour are in duty bound to sabotage the policies of the Government. This is an un- pleasant and unprofitable doctrine. There is more good sense in that old horse the T.U.C. than in many of the wild men who lash it.
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