Lengthen the dole queues
Patrick Cosgrave,
Lord Aldington loved him: that is the epitaph history is most likely to offer on Mr Jack Jones, that earnest, bespectacled figure with the curious speech impediment whose long shadow dominated the approach to this week's House of Commons debate on unemployment. Lord ld Amgton, indeed, first gained for Mr Jones his
Present — and quite undeserved — reputation as some sort of industrial statesman. For, Mr Jones having succeeded Mr Frank Cousins as General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, and having been greeted — with Mr Hugh Scanlon, who reached high office in his union at about the same time as a ferocious and dangerous left-winger, he Promptly went to work with Lord Aldington and devised a scheme to bring some measure of Peace to dockland. Lord Aldington has never since ceased to heap praises on his head, and mall tell anybody who listens what a good and constructive chap Jack is. Is he, though? Mr Jones's claim to statesmanship rests essentially on the fact that he persuaded the trade union movement as a Whole to accept a flat rate limit of £6 per week (whether everybody is entitled to that, or Whether some would get less is a matter of theological dispute encompassable only by the Prime Minister's mind) for a limited period. At the moment of writing the Government is c. onsidering whether the second stage of its Incomes policy should be based on another flat rate figure (whether at or below £6) or if, as Mr. Healey prefers, wage rises should continue to be restricted, but should also be variable as to their maximum; that is the Chancellor, like Mr Heath before him, wants to reward the virtuous 4ncl punish the lazy. Mr Jones does not like this at all. After brooding over the matter for some Weeks he has come up with this package: wages should be subject to a flat rate limit; private e.nterprise is not investing enough in British IndustrY (naturally, since private enterprise is too heavily taxed to have much left over for investment) and should therefore be taxed ,.11Inre; and measures should be taken by the uovernment to relieve unemployment, since trade unionists cannot be expected to tolerate /47age restrictions if large numbers of the brethren are out of work.
Now, though he is not markedly intelligent, r* Healey is a good deal more intelligent than *Jones, and he appreciates perfectly well that the economic philosophy of the General Secretary of the TGWU is a farrago of nonsense. He understands perfectly well, for example, that, if there is a limited amount of tlitmey to go round (as there must be unless go. vernment is willing to print the stuff, and give another vicious twist to the spiral of Inflation) the trade unions — who are, as everYbody admits, vastly stronger in wage negotiations than the employers — have a Perfectly simple choice to make, and one which Is entirely independent of anything government can or wants to do. They can choose to have fewer men at work earning higher wages, °r more men at work learning lower wages.
I happen to believe that governments, and governments alone, cause inflation. That is a well-known monetarist law. But there is an important law on the other side as well. It is this: given that no conceivable economic system can ensure that everybody works, unemployment over and above the natural level (that determined by the fact that some do not want to work, others cannot, and that no conceivable non-totalitarian system can ensure that every able-bodied person works) is caused by trade,unions, and by trade unions alone. When a trade union demands a wage increase which the market — or the financial resources of a given firm or industry — cannot bear, either the increase can be paid to fewer people — a number being made redundant — or what is available is shared out between the existing work force, or the firm goes bankrupt. In making the choice the union is sovereign. And politicians willing to accept responsibility for that choice are stupid.
Mr Jones and his ilk pretend that there is a way, in the course of an anti-inflation programme, of resolving this dilemma between unemployment and wage restriction: they say that the difference can be made up by taxation, by — in that expressive phrase — soaking the rich. However, as Mr Healey has at length grasped, even the confiscation of all earnings in excess of £5,000 a year would make no more than a minuscule contribution to meeting the demands of the more voracious union leaders. And if such leaders, and politicians and commentators as well, have not grasped that fact, then it is perfectly clear that rank and file trade unionists have, as witness their increasing tendency to vote into union office those men dubbed moderate who do understand elementary economics. Trade unionists, being, like the rest of us, no better and no worse — that is to say, being moderately selfish, preferring a bird in the hand to two on the plate next week, willing to let tomorrow take care of itself — love to find in office a government at once committed to that myth called full employment and to reviving British industry: such a government will deal, as Mr Heath's tried to deal, with union bosses who, in turn, will become the dispensers of such patronage as is available to their members who will, in turn, be dependent on them for crumbs. Mr Wilson's government is not quite as badly caught as was Mr Heath's on the horns of this particular dilemma, not because of any virtue it possesses, but because our international creditors will play the game no longer. What is, of course, needed, is a government that does not care about unemployment figures.
It is not, after all, as though Britain had any serious (in the social sense) unemployment problem. The official figures (latest version) tell us that 1,400,000 people are out of a job. Of the 220,000 increase over the previous month's statistics that this figure represents 116,000 are full-time registered sudents on vacation who have no moral right to the dole anyway. Well over fifty thousand more are merely seasonally unemployed. Further, if one takes account of the criticisms of the official statistics regularly put forward by the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and Sir Keith Joseph (who wouid exclude unemployables and those unwilling to work, as well as other categories) one would find it probable that the real figure of those able bodied, willing people who cannot find work of their choice (there is plenty of work around which people are unwilling to do) is well below 1,000,000. That is nothing to get excited about since the natural unemployment level in Britain (and remember that the figures do not, season in and season out, represent the same people but, in the great majority different people) is probably nearer two than one million.
Credit should be given where credit is due. Both Mrs Margaret Thatcher and Sir Geoffrey Howe grasp the essential truth of this analysis, which is the principal thing distinguishing them, in matters of economic analysis, from Mr Edward Heath. (It is not yet clear whether the Shadow Secretary of State for Employment, Mr James Prior,' does understand the. issue). Sir Geoffrey is indeed proving to be a most distinguished, forthright, and erudite Shadow Chancellor, whose long speeches on economic matters are necessary reading for anybody who takes the condition of the country seriously. His solid understanding of the fact that the general economic policy of any government should not, and must not, be altered by increases in unemployment figures — which increase is solely the responsibility of union leaders — is the best guarantee that the next Conservative Government will succeed where the last failed.
I doubt if Mr Jones understands all this. Nonetheless, he instinctively and continually acts in a selfish rather than a statesmanlike way. For example, his commitment to a flat rate increase — applauded in so many quarters as further evidence of his responsibility and patriotism is, as brighter 'men like Mr Hugh Scanlon recognise, simply a device for helping his own members at the expense of everybody else, for it is those belonging to the TGWU who benefit most notably from an inflexible incomes policy. Moreover, if his acceptance as Czar of the national economy lasts very much longer, he will freeze the whole of British industry in its present unchanging, outdated, overmanned, incompetent, uncompetitive position. He can, of course, do that only as long as politicians are foolish enough to recognise his self-importance. Like a huge, inarticulate child Mr Jones thrives on being indulged: when he is defied the best he can do is wave his fist and grab a microphone.
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