British Labor: A Year of Achievement

...Its public esteem slumped disastrously, until that grey winter day when it lost the Leyton by-election, after having held the seat for Labor for over twenty years...

...Let no one underestimate this task...

...But it must be understood that the government itself cannot act, as education falls within the domain of the counties...

...Bad inequalities arise, too, through the division of state secondary education into three streams— grammar, modern, and technical—into which children are divided at the age of eleven-plus...

...the law protecting tenants against eviction, and the establishment of a system of fair rents under a new Rent Act...

...Division after division was forced through with the knife-edge majority of three against bitter Conservative opposition...

...I do not refer only to what it has done in dramatically improving the balance of payments position (though that alone might have been achievement enough) but even more far-reaching, to its introduction of the National Plan—the first comprehensive economic plan ever put before the British people— and the launching of the Prices and Incomes policy, with the aim of keeping rises in wages and other incomes, and in prices, within the bounds of an agreed noun...

...Mistakes, yes...

...Then followed the subsequent flight from the pound, the desperate action to raise a loan from foreign bankers in order to save the pound, and the restrictive budgetary measures which became essential...

...the plans to build half a million houses a year, partly through using new techniques of production...

...the Government has only to lose one or two by-elections for the majority to disappear altogether...

...So far, it has relied on the pressures of public opinion to keep the claims in check, though action to give the Board legal powers to enforce its decisions is now likely to be taken...

...No one who has thought about it is suggesting that there should have been no restriction at all...

...but the record of progress is already immensely impressive...

...the serious criticism is directed against the way the restricted figure was arbitrarily arrived at, the inadequacy of the proposed measures for integrating the colored immigration, the harsh conditions for deportation...

...A completely new depart...

...The Law Commission was now due to present to Parliament a detailed and imaginative programme of law reform . . . . This list is chiefly concerned with correcting social injustices—some of them most gross injustices...

...In the same way the Prices and Incomes Board is trying to implement its policy with the help of the voluntary agreement of unions and management...

...so little is public opinion behind it for such a purpose, that any step in this direction would probably bring down the Government, with its tiny majority, almost overnight...

...It has aroused suspicions among the left wing of the Labor party for having put steel nationalization back in the queue...

...The critics, who began with nothing good to say for Wilson and his team, are talking differently now...

...A most imaginative 14-point action program has been set in train...

...Of course there are many people who are bitterly dissatisfied with the Labor government's support of U.S...

...a bill to provide new machinery for fixing fair rents was through the Commons and through the Redundancy Payments Bill...

...The managers on the one hand and the unions on the other have been drawn into committees covering all the main industries of the country...

...Or, to take a few other examples, changes in company taxation have been introduced so that firms have been encouraged to use a much higher proportion of their profits for investment, and so that investment in British industry will become more attractive compared with investment overseas...

...it is never as much as mentioned by the critics of the Government...

...The unusual feature of this Plan is that it is to be achieved by consent, not by compulsion or direction...

...The Leyton affair unfortunately got tied up with the colored immigration problem...

...Most people can see that failure to restrict immigration might well have cost this government its life, as the bitter electoral experiences at Smethwick and Leyton indicate...

...People often think of inequality in the British educational system as arising mainly out of the existence of a privileged sector of exclusive schools, known ineptly as "public schools...

...to get a better regional balance to development...

...advance factories are being built for sale or lease to private firms in the Development Districts...

...Perhaps nothing has been so disenchanting as the handling of the immigrant issue, because it appeared to be a blatant surrender to color prejudice...

...ure for this country has been the appointment of a special minister with responsibility for the development of arts and amenities, and another minister for the development of facilities for sports...

...a massive program of legislation has been prepared for the next session of Parliament, and the public impression is that the economic position is at last under control...

...So far, in about nine months of working, the Board has had some successes and some failures...

...Labor has long set its face against this division of children into categories at so young an age...

...In the difficult months that followed, the Government was confronted with a series of dilemmas, and no doubt its decisions were not always the wisest...

...Yet an act of this kind is little understood by the broader public...

...But the vital work of expansion, and expansion in the right directions in accordance with the Plan, has to be carried out by industry, both sides of industry...

...Below there appears another view, considerably more favorable...

...but everyone is agreed that the Government hasn't handled the whole matter happily...

...One of the main legislative acts of the year has been the Finance Act of 1965, and one of its features was the Capital Gains Tax...

...Yet none of these is the Government's really outstanding contribution...

...policy in Vietnam...

...feeling about the influx of immigrants was rising and Labor, which had opposed restrictions, was being sharply criticized...

...failures, no doubt...

...The Plan has a fourfold purpose— to put right the balance of payments...

...This sense of confidence is all the more remarkable when one thinks back to a year ago...

...Harold Wilson seems to increase in impressiveness almost daily...

...No one is clear as to precisely what should have been done...

...One thing this government understands really well—indeed, any socialist government worth the name could hardly fail to do so—is that if people are to co-operate in an economic plan, they must receive fair treatment...

...it would be fruitless to repeat all the arguments pro and con here...

...The latest opinion polls show it fluctuating between eleven and eighteen per cent ahead of the Conservatives...

...To overthrow Labor would certainly not have helped the immigrants, any more than if no action had been taken and passions allowed to mount to the point of racial violence...

...machinery for economic planning in the regions has been established...

...The Minister therefore "requests local education authorities to prepare and submit to him plans for reorganizing secondary education in their areas on comprehensive lines...

...easier and cheaper credit has been made available for exports, and Government money has been provided for market research and trade missions...

...The Government infuriated our foreign trade allies by imposing a surcharge on imports without consulting them adequately...

...Yet the mere idea of restricting colored immigrants has provoked great bitterness...

...But whether the British government is right or wrong in this, I am convinced that they are acting with the utmost sincerity and after most careful thought...

...Similarly, the Government has stated categorically that it is its intention to abolish segregation and the 11-plus examination and to reorganize secondary education along comprehensive lines...

...policy in Vietnam...

...It is, anyway, doubtful whether this Government could survive an attempt to use force in Rhodesia...

...There has even been—at last— the abolition of the death penalty, and the setting up of a Law Commission to overhaul Britain's archaic system of law...

...Rarely has Parliament been so busy or have Members of Parliament worked so hard...

...the powers of the National Research Development Corporation has been ex panded...

...It has deeply upset many friends by its arbitrary restriction of immigration...

...It shocked its own supporters when it postponed the increases in old-age pensions (the increases have since been implemented) while allowing sharp rises in MP's salaries—whatever the objective justifi cation for this act, a bad psychological mistake...

...its answer has been the "comprehensive school," in which all types of children are educated together, provision being made within the school for different aptitudes...

...It was an unhappy beginning for a government pledged to expansion, modernization and imaginative social reform...

...Then the story was one of an £800,000,000 deficit in the balance of payments which was revealed as soon as Labor took office...

...The result was the most radical reform of the taxation system of this country which has taken place for half a century...

...What it is trying to do is immensely difficult—to create a climate of opinion in which even hardbitten trade unionists and traders will agree to moderate their own claims for the sake of the public advantage...

...They had kept their pledge to give help to those who lost their jobs because of industrial changes...

...Any significant wage claim or price increase can be referred to the Board for scrutiny...

...In this same speech, which was delivered by Wilson to the accompaniment of immense enthusiasm at the Party Conference in October, he said: In a little over eight months we have succeeded in carrying through the Houses of Parliament 65 bills, two more than the Tories managed in the previous session with a majority of 100, 14 more than the average for the 13 (Tory) years 1951 to 1964...

...The Act has been described by one of the MP's who took a leading part in the debates, as "a great Act of Parliament which musters all the potentialities of taxation policy in the interests of social equity and economic development...

...for example, to help exports, refunds have been made to exporters worth over £ 80 million a year...

...Of course, a whole range of purposive Government actions have also to be taken...

...It has come in for severe criticism for supporting U.S...

...By the end of the second session" (that is, next summer) claimed Harold Wilson, "the Government would have carried into law almost all its specific election pledges...

...DISSENT remains open on this, as on other questions, to a wide range of opinion.— EnrroRs Britain has had a Labor government for more than a year, and only now does its position seem secure...

...But far greater inequalities are due to the terrible shortage of teachers, which means oversized classes, and to the utterly inadequate school buildings in which so many children are today being taught...

...The preparation and operation of the National Plan is the work of a new government department, the Department of Economic Affairs, which sprang into being on the morrow of the Labor government's coming into office...

...I venture to predict that history will mark down this Labor government as one of Britain's greatest...

...The drive towards equality is also to be seen in education...

...they are not just following America's lead out of feebleness or sycophancy...

...The new members of this staff shared one quality—they were dedicated to the idea of working out a comprehensive strategy for economic growth, based not on compulsion but on persuasion...

...This is perhaps its greatest failure so far...

...In other words, the method is the classic method of democratic socialism...

...Since Labor came into office, it has carried out a most energetic program for rapidly increasing the size of the teacher force—the aim is to double the numbers in training within the next eight years...

...A commission is now being set up charged with the task of recommending how these special schools should be integrated into the state system...

...Yet in feeling the Government is riding high...

...Whether people like the man or not, the consensus of opinion in this country is that, as a Prime Minister, Harold Wilson is a success...

...the drive towards planning must be accompanied by a drive towards equality...

...They had honoured their pledge about the Trades Disputes Bill, and introduced a new Monopolies Bill to curb the abuses of monopoly power...

...Yet the more one tries to analyze this problem hard-headedly, and to define seriously what should have been done, the more difficult it becomes...

...I have deliberately avoided the two most controversial issues of international policy of the last year—Vietnam and Rhodesia...

...it is undoubtedly a remarkable experiment...

...nearly all the major towns are "going comprehensive...

...There have in fact been a whole range of individual acts for which the Government can be criticized, and many people who are by nature oppositionminded have been saying they are "disenchanted...

...it often went on all night...

...Similarly, although there is some criticism that troops were not sent in to crush the Smith regime in Rhodesia at once, and that to rely on economic sanctions is a sign of hypocrisy and faint-heartedness, most people in Britain are convinced that no good will come from setting in train a new war in central Africa, for that may well be the result of any form of military intervention there...

...These committees are composed of management, unions, and Government, together with independent members under an independent chairman...

...Even to say that evokes an air of unreality, because the parliamentary majority is balanced on a knife-edge of three votes...

...and to ensure that the fruits of future growth are used in accordance with a civilized and just standard...

...The other is one of quite remarkable achievement...

...to speed the rate of economic growth (the target is a 25 per cent increase in output by 1970...

...The method is not compulsion, but patient persuasion, not reliance on private initiative and incentives but on public planning and guidance, not favoring private enterprise but public enterprise in all its variety of forms, always trying to improve the lot of the poorest and weakest, and to introduce the spirit of equality into the very fabric of social life...

...It recruited a high-powered staff, many of them new to government service and drawn from industry or the universities...

...Industrial Training Boards are being set up to meet the shortage of skilled workers...

...Approximately threequarters of our secondary school children live in areas where the movement towards comprehensive schooling has already begun...

...They work on measures to increase exports and replace imports, to encourage greater standardi zation and longer production runs, and to building up larger units which can compete more effectively in world markets...

...Turning back to the domestic scene, what does all the feverish activity of the first year boil down to...

...But for anyone who has eyes to see, the mistakes and failures which can be chalked up against this Labor government are only one side, one small side, of the picture...

...The debate on the Bill lasted for over two hundred hours...

...The Government had carried out their pledges to introduce free or concessionary bus fares for pensioners, raised pensions, abolished the earnings rule for widows and increased the pension of the "ten shilling widow," it had abolished the prescription charge and given families security of tenure in their own homes...

...The Board then investigates all the circumstances and presents a report on it...

...As the economic deficit moves slowly but surely into economic surplus, and as we put into effect measure after measure in fulfillment of the mandate for which we asked in our election manifesto, so will this discredited Tory Party be reduced to a querulous and impotent irrelevance...

...What justifies my phrase "remarkable achievement" is its handling of the economic situation—that most central of all of Britain's problems today...

...There have been many other excit ing developments—the proposals for setting up a Land Commission to acquire development land and to impose on it a development levy of 40 per cent...

...It is an attempt to take a country, which was falling sadly behind in almost every aspect of economic and social life, and to infuse into it a new dynamism...

...The net result of all this activity is the feeling, now widespread, that at last we have a Government with a real grip on the situation, and a Prime Minister who knows what he is doing...

...In our fall 1965 issue we printed a highly critical report by Michael Rustin on the record of the British Labor government...

...This does not, yet, deal with the difficult question of the independent "public schools...

...There are now, already, 250 comprehensive schools...