Tory Socialism in Britain

...Hence the approval for Joint Production Com¦ittees, guaranteed work week, holiday with pay and •imilar proposals...

...PRINCIPLES Versus EXPEDIENCY pOR Gtd's sake, what has happened to us...

...That nefarious policy to which I refer is the unwillingness of our government to face the brutal fact that no great issue was ever settled upon a basil of expediency...

...if the people of New York want Socialism, then Tammany Han will give it to them...

...Being bored, 1 listened to the radio and I heard just two kinds of programs...

...We talked about the kind of school-ma'ams who should replace the old Nazi teachers and there was not a topic connected with "the world after the war" which was not approached from every angle except the most important of all—how we were first of all going to defeat those Germans and those Japanese, who are still more than a match for us on almost every battlefront, and who may still win this war unless the benighted Russians do the trick for us and lick them and.invade their cities and hang their war-criminals for us, • * • IF you think that I am exaggerating, read your newspapers tomorrow mornipg...

...Since the wartime coupon system the Conservatives I have lost ten districts...

...These general statements were followed by debates about the best kind of school bioks from which .......we should teach the unretK'.ntent Xazis ham to...

...in October 1941...

...UfliKN thrown against the larger canvas, there are two important explanations for this stand by the dominant party of Great Britain...

...Like its stand on international cartels, its attitude towards monopoly is too coyly naive...

...The rest of the time was devoted to discussions of our world after the war...

...We have never let it be known: these are the principles for which we are sacrificing the lives of thousands of our youngsters who so despemtetjrwiimed" to ItVeafid who 'were TrnveVfTveif * a chance because it was not found to be expedient 'for us to associate ourselves with those who might, if we had allowed them to do to, have been willing to fight on their side...

...our unwillingness to make a bold declaration of the principles for which we are fighting—the decency of the human race and the integrity of the individual...

...I would like to propose a candidate of my own - a man (if he exists) who has striken the word "expediency" out of his dirtionsry but who shall have underscored the word "principle...

...It does favor control over the location of new industries, as outlined in the Barlow Parliamentary Commission report...

...There were discussions about the most desirable method of cutting up Germany (that has by no means been defeated) so that this sort of thing could never happen again...

...They plump for technical education, for holidays with pay, for the guaranteed work week, and for equal pay for equal work 'by women...

...Recently at Skiptnn, a normally Conservative district, the winner was a member of the new Common Wealth party...

...The plan proposed the compulsory organization of all business into trade associations, with a peak council "exercising rule-making powers hitherto exercised by Parliament...

...This group - of industrialists have been the leaders in the drive4 far "self-government of industry"—actually a plsn for the organization of an economic corporative state in Britain...

...We have practiced expediency in Japan, in Spain, in Italy, in dealing with the French, in dealing with every nation on the face of the earth...

...I Coalition QRITAIN'S "coupon" election system, whereby each party pledges ** not to run candidates in the other's district, shows signs of wear and tear...

...Dissatisfaction with the Conservative's post-war plans is sending independents into the by-elections...

...The words of the report state that "the real task of industry is to create plenty for every household . . . work ought to mean more to the worker than...

...In Great Britain the Tory Party seems to feel that If the people of England want some form of Socialism, then they will promise it to them...

...The situation has grown so serious that this week Churchill inervened in the West Derby contest snd stmt a letter to the Marquess of Huntington who is being opposed by nn independent Laborite...

...The Conservative statement admits that the State may have to sponsor public works to maintain employment and proposes that the Government should finance the bulk purchase of universally desirable household articles with a view to encouraging the manufacture of consumption goods...

...Aware that monopolies may restrict production or impose exorbitant prices, the Tory report proposes some machinery whereby charges against trusts could be "authoritatively examined...

...democratically...

...Then and then only can the magnificent courage of our soldiers and sailors and air-men bring tit that victory which will be ours the moment we realize that battles nrn won with principles and not with a half-hearted lipservice to an easy-going policy of expediency...

...First, the parly understands what the people expect and is seeking 10 promise it to them...

...The report seems to be a compromise between the old die-hard elements of the party led by Sir John Anderson and the younger Tories led by Quentin Hogg who use a progressive rhetoric...

...Or that we have **4 • whole slew of British industrialists, from the 'deration of British Industries and other groups, ffJPl here seeking to sign trade agreements...

...This fall there will be another election...

...The most comprehensive plan for the private organization of the English economy was put forth a little more than a year ago by 120 leading industrialists entitled A National Puliqy for Indultiy...

...The Tory party fails, however, to state even that conclusion so boldly...

...That is the word all of us should keep well in mind just now...

...Work is s political document and because it has to make varied appeals it hedges on a number of important issues and does not reflect so sharply the ideas ¦et forth by the dominant industrial and financial groups that run the party...

...If she cannot gain that trade by cooperation, the will attempt it by seeking to organize other countries against the United States in the matter of trade...

...but this trade is less dependent on her own effort, for real free trade is a nineteenth century anachronism, than on the cooperation of other nations...

...It accepts a prolongation of wartime controls as a necessity "during the transitional period...

...Fir it' was taken for granted that this war had already been won and that it was merely a matter of weeks or perhaps months when our troops would triumphantly march down the streets of Berlin ajid of Tokyo, and this time, so we were warned, we must net repeat the mistake of Versailles...

...Since the general election in 1935, the Tories hsve lost 23 seats in by-elections...

...As the .Yew Statesman comments: "It offers a specious facade of welfare, behind which the familisr powerKlrurture of the pre-war world shell govern in dustry with a minimum of interference...

...The first kind informed our esteemed public that a war bond was the best possible investment for the future...

...J» the post-war role of the State, the report is CP1*' In a speech last March Prime Minister gWefcffl, looking into the future, stated that them w»old be a wide field of industry in which State enterIllinminiHnnTiiiiiMimiiMiininntniniuHiniiiHiiiiiinmiiiNimfnMuiiiimftHninMiiiiiMifinniHifimnii w#^#" prises would play a large part...

...Surprisingly there has been no Word cabled to the American press by London correspondents about this important document, although it has been out about a month...

...For the sake of expediency we have allowed our best opportunities to pass by until now at last we are faced with a disgraceful disaster which it the direct outcome of...

...Senior Ministers in the Cabinet are also being permitted to electioneer for Tory candidates...

...On the role of the State the powerful industrial forces have been squirming for some time They know quite wcll-^and their statements are quit*' candid on this subject- that the economy must be organized, but they fear the rise of independent forces, through the political arena, to tell them what to do...

...it is diftVult to see how the machinery for this can work "unless there is an Economic General Staff and a Minister with adequate powers...

...Copies of the report have not, as yet, been received here and this discussion (, based on articles about (.he document that have appeared in the English press, notably the New Staiesmae and Nation, which is skeptical of the report, and The Spectator, which is favorable...

...iiyfl...

...And as the New Statr Mine n notes sardonically, "as for trade unions, so necessary are they that they would have to be created if they did not exist...

...The program is the product of the committee on postwar problems set up by the Conservative and Unionist Party organisation (the official name of the Tory party...

...The Tories propose Joint Production Committees and like the idea of an employee sitting on the Board of Directors...

...And what cartels fit that definition...

...The general political restiveness msy lesd to the end of the coalition agreement an dto a general national election, bad on postwar issues...

...It is no accident that Sir Andrew Duncan, the Minister of Supply (a cabinet post) and the former ¦md of the British Iron and Steel combine was in this country recently reeking to negotiate some trade •"d cartel deals with American firms...

...What it adds up to, in the Conservative report, as well as the proposals of industry, is that power shall reside where it did before...

...It so happens that these last ten days I have had to "take things a bit easy," as the doctors tell you to do when they don't know what else to advise...

...Conservative Party report straightfacedly states i that international cartels covering industrial proJP» are a positive advantage to consumers as well 2.** Producers "provided always that their regulating #***'*'•* »• steadily expansionist and not selfishly reactionist...

...Have we become so completely blinded by our years of material prosperity that spiritually we are dead beyond the hope of resurrection...

...A number of these schemes, under the heading of "self-government in industry," have been proposed...

...But more important, its attitude towards labor and reform reflects Britain's (hanged position in the world market and underscores British capitalism's need to consolidate its position at home...

...At first glance, as the New Statesmen observes, "one notes relative humanity and enlightenment in its approach to many of the problems of industry...

...But on the whole it demands a free field for private enterprise...

...a colorless means of earnhig enough U> live on...

...And while trade must be organized abroad, the economy is being organized at home...

...Britain cannot regain even her former prosperity without a large foreign trade...

...Besides this report of "the 120" there have been several additional reports, one from Nuffield College, endowed by the English motors magnate Lord Nuffield, one from Unilever, the giant fats trust, another from Samuel Conrttiald, the head of the giant rayon trust In general, the three outlines limit areas for government ownership, and propose certain areas for private organization of business, with sweeping law-making powers...

...Pot the recent Conservative statement on pent-war problems entitled Work reads as If the Tories had swallowed sections of the tfajftt program whole...

...But as The >'/)< i latar t ouimentn...

...Not a word about the desperate situation into which- we have somehow wriggled ourselves because we at home are lacking in that moral courage which alone can bring us victiry...

...F< r the sake of that expediency, we have ,nadc every kind of sacrifice to our national telf-rcspei t and have betrayed our destiny...

...Those bonds in another ten years would make all of us rich and happy and we could buy ice-boxes and cars and mink coats and have all the luxuries which are the birthright of everybody who believes in the American way of life...

...Ip this whole picture labor is considered an element whose support must be won to the program of an organized economy at home and organized trade abroad, ¦tor must be a stabilizing factor in the market at fy *"d lend political support to the trane program ¦mind...

...In the last two decades there has arisen a group of national monopolies, against the older financial groups whose main income was dividends from • Investment, insurance and financing...

...Trade must be organized and Britain seeks joint trade pacts with the United States and other countries...

...It is not a detailed program of legislation, but an attempt to sketch the aims of the Conservative Party...

...Expediency," according to Noah Webster" is Ihe "subordination of moral principle in the means for the sake of facilitating an end or purpose...

...In the end, the assembly line may still enable us to defeat our enemies but in the mean tune, we shall have sacrificed hundreds of thoussnda of lives that could have been saved had we hud the courage of our convictions and had we been willing to give up that nefarious policy which is at the bottom of our failure to defeat our enemies...