TO ENTER OR NOT TO ENTER Sir: There has never
been a question on which it has been so difficult to arrive at a reasoned decision as the question of entering the Common Market. Laymen and experts alike are at odds because the whole issue bristles with difficulties, complexities and unknowns. Just what are the simplest terms to which this complicated and intractable problem can be reduced without making nonsense of the issue The most obvious result of entering would be higher food prices and no other result could have such a universal effect. This unwelcome result could be countered if we could be sure of a greater volume of industrial activity and of more efficient productivity; together these could yield higher earnings out of which the higher food prices could be met without causing individual hardship. But from this enhanced and more efficient industrial activity would have to come also our contribution to the Market's cost of operation, and from the enhanced earnings would have to come, via taxation, higher pensions so that pensioners too could face the higher costs without hardship. So far, so good, but what might this enhanced industrial activity bring in its train? The enhancement, which would have to be substantial, might well lead to a demand for more workers of all classes in industry and this could only lead in turn to an increased shortage of doctors, nurses, social workers, and workers in certain important but non-exporting service industries. We could easily be faced with things like increased shortage in housing, hospital buildings, and even in modern prisons. Even now we need more of these and many other things and unless something were done there would be a real danger that our standards of social welfare, social services, and opportunities for the practical exercise of high humanitarian principles might well sink lower, or, at best, fail to achieve.
What is the "something which would have to be done?" It is simply that we would have to be prepared to admit large numbers of foreign workers. Some of these might be readily accepted but in many cases they would be less trainable than our own people. Moreover, for many jobs, for example social welfare work, foreigners would be no use at all.
Would a large influx of foreign workers, even white foreign workers, be willingly accepted in this country? I doubt it: we are not like Europe. The continent of Europe has been fought-over for hundreds of years; land frontiers have changed again and again and as a result there has grown up a tradition of " fluidity " such that workers move easily to other countries to earn a livelihood and are accepted without resentment.. But we are an insular people in whom this tradition of fluidity is totally absent: indeed our attitude, except in certain cases of sheer necessity, verges on the xenophobic. Remember the Italian miners who were brought, or whom it was proposed to bring, to this country just after the war to work in our coal-mines to relieve the desperate shortage of fuel: if my memory is correct not one single Italian was allowed to go underground. Although this attitude ismore i
marked in the trades than n the professions it is to be found in the professions too and sometimes with more justification because osi inferior skills.
It seems clear therefore that if we entered the Market without being prepared to accept a very large inflow of foreign workers we might find ourselves paying too high a price for enhanced prosperity in our manufacturing industries in the form of interior standards in health and welfare services, in many ancillary trades and in many services not directly connected with exports. Moreover it must not be overlooked that this increase in our industrial prosperity would not just drop into our lap. It would have to be fought for in a fiercely competitive Common Market rat race. It is often stressed that entering the Common Market would open up to us free entry to a market of the order of 200,000,000 but no one stresses the obverse to this, namely, tha: the manufacturing and production resources of this same 200,000,000 would have free entry to our market. Another possible outcome that has not been mentioned is that strikes in particular industries might not just be nation-wide but might become Common Market-wide, in which case our only alternative sources of supply would be from the USA or Japan, a very uncomfortable prospect indeed. The peoples of Europe could be held to a ransom on a scale never experienced before.
One further point, can we be certain that the present more rapid development of the Common Market countries will continue under the existing arrangements? Within the Six there has been, until now, a certain feeling of economic euphoria which must have been a powerful factor in giving that extra confidence to surge ahead and take risks in development and investment. But will it last? The only parallel one can think of is the giant multienterprise industrial corporation with highly centralised control and these giants are not always, indeed they may be rarely, as efficient as smaller less-diversified concerns.
The sheer size of the Common Market, still more an enlarged Common Market, is a little frightening. One of the principal aims is to secure uniformity in a .wide variety of practices and procedures, but in many cases this will mean compromise solutions Which while helpful to some countries could be positively more harmful to others. In any 6 or more countries the diversity of industrial, economic, and social .problems is such that compromise solutions centrally decided and administered would almost cerlainly lead to inefficiency or even worse to real trouble. The present Common Market is not yet 'as fully organised and as rigidly and centrally administered as it will ultimately be and there is no telling what troubles, perhaps even actual recessions, in some of the countries may be in store.
While the difficulties of entry stare one in the face it is difficult to visualise what would happen if we didn't enter the Market. Probably our technological tempo would not accelerate so much but it would certainly not stand still; indeed I cannot see why there should be much change either way. We are often told, as though it would confer some great benefits on us, that "Europe needs our technological skills ": I don't really know what this fine-sounding paton-the-back phrase really means but I doubt if there is much more to it than the fact that we might draw a larger income from manufacturing licence fees and these would certainly not reach the level of the additional financies required. I would hazard a guess that " not entering" would mean two things. One would be a very slow change in our industrial pattern towards a more highly scientific, more specialised pattern like that of Switzerland and Sweden but this would take a long time, perhaps something of the order of ten years. The production of highly specialised scientific equipment tends to be capital-intensive rather than labour-intensive and so more of our own labour might gradually become available for an expansion in the many social fields where we are so short at present. The other change which could take place might be a greater concentration on items of capital equipment where quality of design and reliability of performance could be more important than actual cost. This work also can be more capital-intensive than labour-intensive.
With non-entry our standard of material wealth might be somewhat less than if we entered, but in actual fact this might mean little more than having somewhat less gadgetry and somewhat fewer technical amenities at our disposal, and some of these could well be spared. To balance this our way of fife, the general standard of real comfort, compassion, and humanitarian principles in action might all be distinctly higher.
If we stay out we can control our own pace and direction of development but on the other hand we might be missing something of even greater moment. I just don't know and I doubt if anyone can be certain what the outcome of entry would be. But one thing I am sure of is this — our industry will have to become vastly more efficient than it is at present If it is to become productive enough to earn all the additional money the Market would cost us and at the same time be able to release manpower for our underprovided ancillary services. Perhaps some experts can point the way and give us some assurance as to how this could be accomplished; it seems to me to be a very doubtful proposition.
Sir David Anderson Braehead, Helenburgh,
Dunbartonshire.
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