As I stated last week, the big debate left most
questions unanswered in the public mind. The speeches of Mr. Clement Davies and Sir John Wardlaw Milne, on the Finance Bill, suggested that the country was not yet mobilised for total war, that an -element of inflation perhaps to the extent of some £400 million was concealed in present figures, that stricter rationing is necessary and that sooner or later the Government must have a wage-policy. The Minister of Agriculture regrets the drain of labour from the land, the President of the Board of Trade says that an old industry like coal-mining is helpless when confronted with wage-competition from new munition- industries. If man-power is to be distributed according to the respective pulls of wages, what becomes of planning or patriotism? So the Emergency Powers are at last applied to coal-mining and a National-Service officer is to determine whether a miner should be compelled to continue mining or go elsewhere. Gradually we are being forced to guarantee wages, decasualise labour and subsidise food-prices over a wider and wider area.
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