Labor Prepares for Elections

...Whatever shortcomings the Labor party may have, it is preferred to a Conservative government—especially since the Conservatives are now associated with a recurrence of the dreaded scourge of unemployment...

...Thus the country's entire political apparatus is being oiled for action in the spring...

...There have been moments of acute anxiety among Labor party leaders about their trade-union colleagues...

...The British trade-union movement is one of those institutions which everyone really takes for granted...

...He simply restated his loyalty to Labor party policy decisions without managing to mention the actual phrase "steel nationalization...

...He also might start a deep controversy within the Steel Workers Union, which no union leader would welcome...

...Officially, of course, no one has uttered a word so far...

...The party is committed to re-nationalizing the steel plants and taking up where it left off when the Conservatives won power in 1951...

...He doesn't like the idea of the steel industry going back under nationalized control—but he recognizes that the issue is now "political dynamite...

...It is only in the past few weeks, however, that Harry Douglass, the big, plain-speaking Steel Union chief has explained his position on this issue...

...Everyone knows that of the 8.3 million workers who are members of the 185 trade unions affiliated with the British Trades Union Congress, well over two-thirds can be relied on to vote Labor—unless something quite catastrophic should happen to the good name of the Labor party...

...There is no doubt that Douglass is talking and writing tongue-in-cheek...

...No matter what the Macmillan Government does to improve the economic climate in Britain, it will not be able to escape the black indictment from the unions: "You brought back unemployment...

...It may even be fair to say that if there is one thing which has welded relations between the trade unions and the Labor party it is the emergence of over half-a-million unemployed under the Conservative Government...

...But the controversy is more mufiSed than it was, and one has the impression that both groups inside the Labor party are anxious to conceal their differences now that the election is so near...

...but it has become an accepted tradition in Britain that governments, successful or otherwise, do not run to the limit of a five-year term...

...The creaky machinery of constituency organizations (in both major parties) is being tended by urgent injunctions from party headquarters, funds are being collected, pamphlets are being printed, and party agents are being set in place...

...In this setting nothing is more intriguing than the position of the trade-union movement, traditionally the sheet anchor of Labor...

...Perhaps the Labor party has much to be thankful for in this...

...In fact, many of the tmions which belong to the TUC are not even affiliated to the Labor party, i.e., they do not contribute to the party's central funds in any official way...

...Everyone knows that it is "solidly for Labor...

...It was this very point which was flung at the party bosses during the epic controversies a few years ago over Aneurin Bevan and his left-wing group...

...Only 87 unions are directly associated with the Labor party—with a membership of 5.6 million paying a political levy to the party which, in 1957, amounted to $581,506.80...

...The unions will continue to protest against nationalizing this or that industry...

...For although it was the trade unions' desire for representation in Parliament which originally gave birth to the Labor party in 1900, the unions, like all parents, have tended to be more conservative than their offspring...

...and they will continue to urge that unemployment safeguards must be written into any free trade pact into which Britain enters...

...Such differences as there are today emerge over issues like nationalization, a national pension fund for all industrial workers—in private firms as well as state-run organizations—and relations between Britain and Europe over free trade...

...Nevertheless, the differences of view which exist within the Labor party are being stated in the private salons where the union leaders and party chiefs gather...

...But there will never be any real doubt as to where the loyal weight of the trade unions will rest on election day...

...Political and union wings of Opposition party link arms for upcoming ballot contest LABOR PREPARES FOR ELECTIONS By Geoffrey Goodman LONDON ALMOST ALL the political pundits in Britain are now convinced that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's Government is preparing the way for a General Election, possibly in the spring of this year...

...GEOFFREY GOODMAM is currently the labor and industrial correspondent of the London Daily Herald...

...It is simply the "feeling"' that has come over Britain with the flickerings of Macmillan's brows and the twitching of Labor party leader Hugh Gaitskell's nose as they scent the smoke of battles ahead...

...The unions are still not altogether enchanted at the idea of extending nationalization, and there has been a serious division of opinion between the party and the Steel Workers Union over the future of the steel industry...

...But much of this family quarrelling seems to have faded out these days...

...The rollicking rows over Bevan have all died down since he became such a respectable and respected member of the "Shadow Cabinet...

...And the significance of the trade-union contribution to the party is a point which some trade-union leaders never fail to rub home when there is any controversy between the unions and the party...

...Invariably the Prime Minister chooses a politically convenient moment to seek the dissolution of Parliament, rather than risk the possibilities of outrageous fortune coinciding with the end of his government's term in office...

...But throughout the last few years of policy-making in preparation for this election, the Steel Workers' leaders have remained tightlipped over nationalization...

...No issue is more symptomatic of the unions' attitude toward Labor: whatever misgivings the unions may have over items in the Labor party program, they are not prepared to give comfort to the enemy by open warfare at this stage of the electoral game...

...Already close to $280,000 has been donated by unions in "special grants" to the party's fighting fund, quite apart from the regular political levy...

...Constitutionally the present Conservative Government could continue in office up till 1960...

...For despite the doubts that the trade unions may have about the ability of a Gaitskell government to transform Britain's economic condition, they do fervently believe that a Labor government, operating physical controls and shrewd fiscal devises on Keynesian lines, will be more helpful to the employment situation than a. Conservative government which is deflating the economy...

...From time to time these lend encouragement to Conservative party adherents who still dream of the day when the unions can be wooed away from the Labor party, but it is a pretty hopeless dream...

...If he openly opposed the party's declared policy, he might easily raise a storm—which the Conservatives would gleefully whip up—that could sweep away Labor's chances of winning the election...

...It has clearly covered over the gaps and plastered the cracks in its own edifice...

...This is not true, of course, about all unions, but it is certainly true of the majority...

...They have been taunted for their silence and openly attacked by some Socialist MPs...

...It is something which the local parties with equal pungence never forget to attack whenever they feel that the unions are calling too much of the tune for having paid the piper...

...Indeed, at the recent Labor party conference one witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of Bevan, the party treasurer, appealing to the trade union leaders to dig deeply into their coffers to provide bounty for the election campaign fund...

...There are no longer any deep divisions of opinion between the trade unions and the party leadership about policy, though there are differences of emphasis and interpretation...

...It has certainly provided the emotional background against which it can appeal to the trade unions for loyalty and support...

...So Douglass pledges loyalty—in the interests of peace and goodwill...

...This is of course by far the largest source of income for the Labor party, comparing with a mere $86,800 received from local parties in 1957...

...they will continue to cast doubts on the efficacy of having an all-embracing national pension fund, as envisaged by the Labor party's superannuation plan...

...But all this does not mean that relations are always smooth and easy between the "industrial wing"' and the "political wing" of the Labor party...

...And he has had striking success...

...It is now so mature an animal, so conditioned in its ways and mannerisms by the long decades of industrial advance, that elections tend to come and go without causing even the flicker of an eyeball by the old war horse...

...All these factors tend to provide a ready-made foundation for sniping between the two wings whenever the political climate is propitious for domestic squabbling...