Industry and Reconstruction
Organised labour, acting through the trade unions, has long ago produced its programme of reconstruction for industry ; for Labour the hope has always been in Socialism. It was only to be expected that the other side of industry, representing management, should put forward an alternative plan, under which it needed no great insight to foresee that private enterprise—or at least a direct derivative of private enterprise—would be preserved. Such a plan is set forth in A National Policy for Industry, a pamphlet bearing the signatures of uo distinguished leaders of British industry. The tone of the document is one of enlightenment and reasonable reform. It states with frankness the case for private enterprise and, the preservation of the profit incentive in a-reconstructed Britain It emphasises the threefold responsibility of productive industry to the consuming public, to employees and to shareholders, and on the necessity that it should be animated by a spirit of service to the community as a whole. It fully recognises the beneficent part that is to be played by trade unions and works councils, and requires provision for adequate wages, health, holidays, pensions, education, housing, unemployment and a State system of family allowances. The inevitable reaction of some critics will be to exclaim, " We fear the Greeks, especially when they bring gifts." Such suspicions cannot be simply dismissed as groundless, especially when we remember that self-seeking employers are not incapable of sheltering behind the good intentions of disinterested employers. Yet it is no small thing to get from the management side of industry a manifesto which recognises the need of providing a master plan for industry as a whole, and at the same time of stating in exact terms its obligations to the workers and consumers.
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