Production
It is rumoured that one of the subjects discussed at the meeting of the National Joint Advisory Council on Wednesday was a new White Paper on manpower and production to be issued this month. It is hardly credible that any new Government document on these subjects can confine itself solely to a restatement of the overall insuffi- ciency of production and another exhortation to increase it. It is permissible to hope that at least some practical measurer will be forthcoming. But it is too much to hope that they will be acceptable to the rank and file of Labour, for the only immediate remedy is an increase in the duration and intensity of work. The total labour force is about to decline. The improvement of capital equipment, which can increase output per head in the long run, cannot be carried out in a short time. First-class managerial ability is scarce, and again the supply cannot be increased quickly. Even the known distortion of production whereby the former munitions industries are getting more than their share of the available labour cannot be fully corrected except in the course of some months. But in many industries, and notably in coal-mining and transport, output per head could be increased tomorrow by an intensification of effort which is within the capacity of the men. The T.U.C. as well as the British Employers' Confederation are represented on the N.J.A.C. and they are aware of this fact. If they are asked to put a stop to the immediate reduction of working hours and to tighten up labour discipline all round, and if they agree to try it, they will be bold indeed. Official trade union control of workers has not grown stronger lately. The disastrous strike of London lorry drivers is only the latest example of unofficial action. At the time of writing it is still spreading and the ultimate crime of waste of perishable food is looming larger._ At the same time the tempers of many consumers, whose needs Mr. Herbert
Morrison has recently said must always be kept in the forefront, are getting shorter. Now is the right time for the union leaders to reassert control over their members and at the same time to do a service to the whole community at a critical hour. The Government and the employers can meanwhile concentrate their efforts on those industries where high productivity is most urgently needed, or where output per head is known to be well below pre-war. A P.E.P. broad- sheet issued this week draws attention to the fact, that even the basic data on productivity is deficient. , The deficiency must be supplied. and the gaps in our industrial defences which the figures are bound to reveal must be closed as soon as possible.
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