LABOR'S NEXT FIVE YEARS

...Quite the contrary wai the problem of lLabor's leaders in framing their second fiveyear program...

...The limitations on a new program for the extension of public ownership are, if less obvious, just as real...

...EVOrS MORE REALISTIC view is evident where the document points with pride to "the new fruitfulrrelaueni with the people of the United States...

...Here is how the Executive Committee of the Party concludes its statement: "In this document we have approached our task in the British spirit —the effort to find practical solutions of practical problems, but no less to aim at a high and comprehensive purpose...

...It is notably more realistic than it was in 194*5, when illusions about Stalin's belief in democracy were rampant...

...ATTENTION HAS TURNED to new forms of Government intervention in industry, and particularly to the "yardstick" type of public competition with private enterprise which is favored by many American progressives...

...In taking over industrial insurance, the Government will acquire the principal companies as they are, with their substantial interests in many other kinds of insurance and will therefore be in a position to compete with the remaining private companies...

...There is a good lesson for Henry Wallace and his friends in the words which follow: "Much of the progress which has been made in European Recovery would have been impossible without American aid...

...That perhaps is the wrong question to ask about anything British, for the institutions of this fortunate people grow and flower more of their own accord than by deliberate intent...

...On the public ownership front the Government moved with equal firmness and dispatch...

...Under the .catchy title, "Labor Believes , in Britain," it has published the program it intends to put into effect if it wins the next General Election...

...That was certainly the view of most trade unions which were consulted during the preparations of the program...

...The Atlantic Pact, linking the old world and the new in the interests of peace and security, is one of the strongest buttresses of the United Nations...

...Sugar, cement, water supplies, and meet wholesaling are earmarked for public ownership Nationalisation of coal will be rounded out...

...Provided business behaves with reasonable energy and public spirit, Labor proposes "to continue the fruitful partnership between private and public industry and the State, begun during the last few years...

...The Party also asks for a mandate to deal with the shipbuilding and chemical industries, if circumstances should make such action seem desirable...

...The Party therefore is very modest in its commitments...

...ad no such condition was demanded by the United States Government...

...A year ago Wallace, b«dly informed as usual, charged that American pressure had forced British Labor to "retreat and retreat and retreat" on" its program of reform and •ocial transformation...

...It is this hard fact which more than any other darkens the horiions of mankind today...

...With the nationalization of steel now being pushed through Parliament, the Party will have the proud record of carrying out ever]/ promise it made to the 1'oters in 1945...

...This interest in the efficiency of private business is, indeed, one which the experience of actual power has thrust upon the Labor Party...

...The sections of the program dealing with domestic policy are inevitably Jess striking...

...Drive and initiative are qualities badly needed in moat British industry, both public and private...

...THE PROGRAM REFLECTS throughout that sound common senso and disdain for theory which have always been the enduring virtues of the British labor movement, and have preserved it from the doctrinal feuds which have cursed Continental labor...

...It has been necessary," the labor leaders say forthrightly, "to pursue measures of collective security with those nationns which will join with us...

...The present program is costing as much as the British people—the most heavily taxed in the world—can afford...

...The Government undertakes to provide it in the public sector, and it is looking with increasing sympathy on the profit motive to provide it in the private sphere...

...Now it faced the consequences of success— the fact that it was unable to offer any further improvements which entail the expenditure of measurable sums of money...

...when it is deemed advantageous, by the nationalisation of other mineral resources — not very substantial in Britain...

...The Soviet Government end its satellites . . . here amply demonstrated their belief that they will tain more by tactics which delay and obstruct a reel peece settlement gad cooperation in recovery than by joint action in achieving these ends...

...Health Minister Aneurin Bevan once compared the Fabian type of gradualist socialism to disarming the capitalist tiger claw by claw...

...It will also, by ownership of these big companies, gain large or controlling interests in many types of enterprise...

...On July 5 last year the most comprehensive program of social security in the world was put into effect—a program that in some respects went fi<rthi<r 4han"the famous Beveridge "cradle-to-grave" plan...

...Problems remain which cannot be solved merely by drawing upon the theory and propaganda which was so freely produced during Labor's long years in the political wilderness...

...It is this Soviet policy of implacable non-cooperation which breeds the fear of a third world war and haunts the peaceful ambitions of people in every land...

...Americans will turn first to the section on foreign policy...

...With this determined language, one can forgive some Avoids which may be the contributions of Harold Laski in his final year on the Committee: ". . .the Labor Government will persistently seek and exploit every opportunity of persuading the Soviet Government that the advantages to be gained from peaceful cooperation between the communist and non-eommuniit world are immense...

...If put into effect, it will further strenghen the control of the British people over their own social and economic destinies...

...The commanding heights of Big Business power —coal, road and rail transport, electricity, gas and steel—h a v e been stormed, and all but steel have already been taken...

...The administrative resources of the Government are already severely taxed by the large section of the economy now nationalized...

...Outside of a tiny minority of zealots, there is a strong feeling that the Government should give more of its attention to the responsibilities it has already assumed, and less to undertaking new ones...

...The aim to which we dedicate ourselves is to usher in the finest age in our history — a buoyant age of adventure, progress, and initiative, of unity in common purpose and Justified pride in our nation's greatness...

...On the same date there was set in motion a National Health Service unequalled in any other country...

...Much of the credit for this wise and magnanimous outlook on the part of the American people must go to the American trade unions and the work of their representatives on the various bodies concerned with European aid...

...But British business seems rather to resemble a gentle and indolent tabby cat, and the danger now appears rather that it will languish away before Labor is ready to enter it...

...Its cost is likely to increase, particularly because the proportion of the aged in the population is rising steadily...

...If one hazarded a guess, it would be something like a bigger and better Scandinavia, a country in which the state and its agencies exist for the comfort and security of the citizen rather than the citizen for the state...

...FOR A GENERATION Labor's campaign for adequate social services had been its biggest vote-winer...

...Fortunately, this romantic nonsense is unlikely to affect, the policies of the next Labor Government, any more than similar pious sentiments have in the past deflected Ernest Bevin from his steady building of democratic strength in the world...

...This dilemma the Labor planners solved neatly by a proposal which will involve no added expense for the Government, but means substantial benefits for working people...

...It is likely, in fact, that the British labor movement will draw more and •more heavily on its strong Christian and humanitarian traditions, and give its attention increasingly to the reconciliation of modern technical progress wih eternal human values...

...This program will be submitted for approval to the annual Party conference in June, but since the Evecutive Committee is unanimous in its recommendations, they are unlikely to be challenged by any significant section of the Party...

...They propose to nationalize all industrial Insurance —the type of insurance which is sold door-to-door, and for which premiums are collected by house-to-house canvassers weekly or monthly...

...Indeed, the program echoes Sir Stafford Cripps in pointing out that only by steadily boosting their national income can the British people bear the burden of the measures already in force...

...Harold Wilson, youthful President of the Board of Trade, has recently called upon British businessmen to recapture the spirit of the old "merchant adventurers" in invading American markets...

...THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE of the British Labor Party has just finished writing its second five-year ticket...

...The other great section of the British labor movement—the cooperative societies—have large interests in many fields, and must consider carefully whether Government intervention in them is desirable...

...When they sat down to begin work on the program for their second five-year term of office, the leaders of British Labor faced a situation which is still Very remote for American progressives—they had carried through in three years virtually alj the- measures for which they had campaigned in the past half-century...

...As in the United States, the costs of this type of insurance are out of all proportion 10 the benefits when received—and they are often not received at all because of the high rate of lapsed policies...

...The Party states frankly that the Government will not hesitate to intervene further in private business, wherever it is found not to be serving the public interest...

...The British Government made it clear that it would accept no condition which undermined Mr freedom to select our own course...

...Its destination...

...Socialists used to fear that the tiger would turn upon his tormentors and rend them limb from limb...