CAN SOUTH WALES BE SAVED ?-III. HELP AND SELF-HELP

By H. POWYS GREENWOOD

IT will, I hope, be clear from my earlier articles that the situation in South Wales demands much more ener- getic and far-reaching measures than have hitherto been adopted. Every observer, every Welshman, is in agree- ment on this point. But what can be done ? .

The plight of South Wales is due to coal. Yet coal will not provide the way out. New trade agreements, further recovery of oversea trade, attempts by means of subsidy or otherwise to check the switch-over from coal- to oil- burning ships, even drastic measures to encourage the domestic use of smokeless coal—for which the cleanliness of South Wales towns is certainly a good advertisement ; all these would help, but a vast labour surplus must still remain. Then the boom in the next most important South Wales industry—iron and steel—will not last indefinitely, and in the meantime is not substantially increasing employment, The much-discussed Richard Thomas venture at Ebbw Vale may, as we saw, actually reduce employment for the region as a whole. However existing industries are helped—and as far as possible they should be helped—they can do little more than arrest the steady decline.

Only two major economic remedies remain—labour transference and new industries. Whatever patriotic Welshmen may feel, whatever the effects-of depopulation on the coastline, I do not think that anybody who squarely faced the facts in the valleys would venture to stop or even to put a brake upon it. The real hope lies in a development of new industries, .not merely in the Special Area but also along the coastline, on a sufficient scale to absorb a considerable proportion of the surplus on the one hand and to compensate for the drag of population-decline on the other. Given such a development, transference should gradually cease, and indeed a rising demand for labour may well bring back many Welshmen who in the midst of Midland or Home County prosperity still yearn for their native hills.

Measures for the development and attraction of new industries are the central feature of Mr. Malcolm Stewart's recommendations. Mr. Chamberlain has accepted them " in principle " on behalf of the Government. At long last it is being recognised that if we want manufacturers to launch out in certain areas for reasons of social and national policy, we must offer them definite inducements which they cannot find elsewhere.

. But it is difficult to believe that any inducements within the bounds of practical politics would be sufficient to attract manufacturers up into the narrow isolated valleys of South Wales. Sites are few and far between ; both road and rail transport inevitably leave much to be desired ; and, perhaps, above all, remoteness combines with depression to render the atmosphere almost over- powering. As Mr. Stewart points out, industries should be attracted " in the first place to those districts which possess the maximum opportunities for recovery." Only thus can the inducements provided produce their full effect. Broadly speaking, the nearer you get to the coastline, or rather to the excellent main coast-road, the better the conditions from the manufacturer's point of view.

Moreover, Newport, Swansea and particularly Cardiff are all fine towns with plenty of attractions and an active intellectual and social life, and any business man going to South Wales is likely to want to be near them. Here, too, are to be found skilled craftsmen to leaven the unskilled and juvenile labour, which is all that is at present available in the valleys, and here- new industries have practically demonstrated that they can flourish— to take only one example out of many, Cardiff furniture has become famous in a few years. Here, too, a great effort to attract manufacturers is being made ; while I was there a paper-making group decided to start up at Newport, because it could get five million gallons of water a day gratis.

It was obviously an error to exclude these towns from the " Special Area." But the delimitation of the area was admittedly experimental, and it is satisfactory to learn that the Government is contemplating a new definition of the Areas, which should enable South Wales to be treated as the economic unit that it is. For the present the best solution is probably to concentrate on development at the mouths of the valleys, as near the main coastal towns as possible. Welsh miners have always been accustomed to travel considerable distances to their work, so that it will be nothing new for the valley towns to act as dormitories.

From this point of view the trading estate sites near Pontypridd and Port Talbot are well chosen. And the trading estate method is undoubtedly promising. The Pontypridd estate has already a business-like organisa- tion which can canvass and negotiate, arranging all sorts of details for manufacturers, as well as saving them capital outlay on factories and providing cheap services.

The proposed munitions factory at Bridgend is being located on the same principle. The valley towns are strongly pressing their claims for others on the ground of greater protection. Possibly the Dowlais site at Merthyr might be used for the purpose, but it is questionable whether concentration further south would not be more effective. The most promising suggestion for the valleys is the erection of oil-from-coal plants, which, moreover, by increasing the consumption of coal would improve valley employment wherever they were located. But as Mr. Malcolm Stewart indicates, this is likely to need more direct and energetic Government action than is needed with the lighter industries, for there are wide differences of opinion on possibilities and even experi- mental work costs a great deal of money.

Here, as elsewhere, perhaps the most urgent need of South Wales is to know where it stands. If little can be done for the tops of the valleys, then it is useless cruelty to let them live on hope deferred. Their inevitable decay should be palliated in every way possible, for example, by financial assistance, by social service, by taking the older men who have been unemployed for long periods off the live register. As a part of a comprehensive and effective policy of planting industries where industries will grow South Wales will accept this, however tragic it may seem.

The first thing to do is to decide on a policy adequate to stimulate and attract industry—incidentally, other suggestions than those in Mr. Stewart's report might well be considered, such as the subsidising of wages during the training period and Sir Harry McGowan's proposal that the State should contribute a proportion of the capital cost of factories and extensions. The next thing is to earry it out. Energetic leadership endowed with the necessary powers is perhaps the most essential factor of all, and Mr. Stewart has plainly hinted that the present administrative arrangements are inadequate.

Leadership is needed to call forth the whole-hearted co-operation of South Wales itself. Vested railway and other interests showed what they could do when they blocked the Severn bridge scheme. South Wales is nothing like as far away as it seems to motorists who wander about through Monmouth and Usk—where one belated lorry driver was convinced he had missed the main road when he had done nothing of the sort—or who negotiate the incredible street of Chepstow and the twists and turns along by the Severn, and the bridge is an obviously essential pre-requisite for adequate industrial development. Mr.. Stewart speaks plainly on the subject, and he also refers to the reluctance of indus- trialists to make the Development Council more repre- sentative.

Then, of course, there is the question of labour unrest. To some extent I think the contention of most of those with whom I discussed the matter is justified—that the London Press splash headlines all over their pages whenever there is a sign of a strike in South Wales, while similar trouble in a Yorkshire pit or at a London 'bus garage goes practically unnoticed. Moreover, unrest has been virtually confined to the coalfield and the newer industries in particular have had none whatever.

The man who did most to convince me that the labour situation is not a real barrier to industrial development.

was a Communist. Arthur Homer is the new Chairman of the South Wales Miners' Federation, and it was not he but a coalowner who told me that he had done more for industrial peace since his election than any of his Labour predecessors. He has crushed the incipient stay-in strike movement ; he settled the Bedwas Colliery trouble by guaranteeing in return for the secret ballot on whether the men should be allowed to join his Federa- tion that there should be no • further strike for five years, and he has co-operated with the Coalowners' Association to get the new and effective conciliation machinery working. As he said, whatever his .political views, his job is to sell labour and to maintain the con- ditions in which it can be sold. • Men like this would react to bold measures. Even today the Labour and Trade . Union movements are actively helping the excellent work of the Development Council and are represented on the Board of the Trading Estate. The more effective the action to which they can point, the easier should be their task of controlling their extremists. After all, the distressed . areas in- evitably foster extremism. As Mr. Horner put it, his good Marxist education forbade _him to blame the capitalists ; he did not even blame the Great Western Railway's action over the Severn bridge. It was all the inevitable result of capitalist contradic- tions and capitalist decline. Will capifalitni accept his verdict ?

I cannot answer that question. Nor can I answer the question which heads -this series of articles. The diffi- culties in the way of saving South Wales are very great. But there can be no excuse for not trying wholeheartedly to overcome them.