TORY PROGRAMME
THE statement of industrial policy which the Conservative Party has issued this week under the title " The Industrial Charter " is a document of considerable interest and importance. Among other characteristics, good and otherwise, it possesses one outstanding merit, that it removes the last excuse for labelling the Conservative Party as at present constituted as reactionary. Indi- vidual reactionaries there may be and are in the party ranks, but this document leaves them no ground for thinking they can keep the party where it was instead of where it ought to be. The In- dustrial Charter makes no particular claim about facing the future, but it does face the present in a serious and candid spirit, and with a marked preference for the progressive over the static. That is particularly true of the section dealing with employer and em- ployed. The Charter is as zealous as any Labour programme would be to guard the worker's reasonable rights. To frame a high- employment policy (the exaggeration inherent in the term " full employment " is eschewed) must be the constant study of a central planning-staff, for the authors concede as fully as Sir John Anderson did in his Stamp Memorial Lecture on Monday the con- tinued need for Government planning on a considerable scale. It would give every worker a definite contract of service, and the interesting suggestion is made that the period of notice in the event of dismissal should be proportionate to the length of time he has been employed by the firm concerned. That gives him status and also reasonable security. There remains the question of incentive, as the Charter puts it, " to do the job well and get a better one." Here the more reactionary trade unions are challenged at once. There must be one rate for the job, whether the workers are men or women, so long as the job is properly done, but " justice is frustrated by exact equality of reward to all, but it is found where there is equality of opportunity and incentive to win a variety of rewards."
That indicates the general principle, but the forms of incentive are discussed fully and suggestively. It is submitted, reasonably enough, that as security and assurance of steady employment are established some existing restrictive practices must be dropped. The principle that extra effort should command extra reward is sound but inconclusive, for a decision as to what is " extra " depends on decision as to what the datum-line should be. But for a larger association of the worker with detailed conduct of a busi- ness, for his admission to a fuller knowledge of its financial position and its difficulties over such matters as raw materials there is everything to be said. So, equally, there is for the contention that the road must be both theoretically and actually open for the worker to pass from the lowest position in the works to an ultimate place on the Board of Directors, though with the rational proviso that workers should not be appointed to such positions simply because they are wage-earners but because their proved and demon- strated efficiency shows them to be qualified for the higher responsibilities. They can only do that if adequate facilities for education are available, as it is urged that they should be. It is an interesting -coincidence that the publication of the Conservative proposals for special training in the art of management preceded by a day the announcement of the Ministry of Education's plans for the provision of such training. At the same time the Conserva- tives desire to see a wider extension of the system of joint produc- tion committees (which, as their name implies, exist to promote co-operation in the improvement of production, not to •discuss wages or, except incidentally, conditions of work).
A great deal more is discussed and suggested in this field. Condemnation of restrictive practices is applied as much to pro- ducers' monopolies and cartels as to trade union practices, and means are proposed of dealing effectively with the former. The need for planning at the centre is recognised, but domination by Whitehall denounced. The Government should simply lay down general principles and leave it to the industries affected to carry them out, in detail. Even raw materials could be allocated en bloc, the work of sub-allocation, down to the individual firm, being left again to the industry itself. There are manifest dangers here, and it is doubtful whether they could be obviated by throwing on the Government the responsibility of seeing that the schemes thus framed worked fairly as between firm and firm or between producer and consumer. On the all-important question of a wage-fixing policy the Conservatives have nothing more useful to say than the present Government. They advocate the Coalition White Paper policy, which Mr. Dalton has already accepted, of balancing the Budget over a term of years, not necessarily in each single year, and spending freely in periods of slump. They have coined some useful slogans—" Our policy is to humanise, not to nationalise " ; " Socialists believe in giving people orders; Conservatives believe in giving people opportunity "—but as regards the former they admit that they would not reverse the nationalisation of the coal-mines or the Bank of England or (apparently) the railways, and as regards the latter they lay it down explicitly that " we will not remove the control from any necessity of life until we are certain that it is within reach of every family." Say not even the publicans the same?
That question is raised on almost every page of this always meri- torious and frequently stimulating document. " The industrial Charter " suffers from the defects which are a part of its undoubted merits. What is in effect set forth is a policy for all sensible men, and quite a number of sensible men exist outside the ranks of the Conservative Party. If it be asked what there is here which con- stitutes an alternative programme for an alternative government the answer must be " Not much." On one or two points, such as the proposed repeal of about half of last year's Trade Disputes Act the Conservatives would alienate Labour, though no doubt carry- ing the Liberals with them. But in most cases the difference with Labour is more.of degree than of fundamental principle. On Imperial Preference, for example, it is affirmed that " we are in no position to dismantle these defences without adequate promises of reductions in trade barriers by other nations." Sir Stafford Cripps has used language almost identical. Altogether " The Industrial Charter " recalls irresistibly Macaulay's classic definition of Right and Left:
" Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to 'whatever is ancient, and who even when convinced by over- powering reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find every- where another class of men sanguine in hope, bold in specula- tion, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend improvements and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement. In the senti- ments of both classes there is something to approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the common frontier."
The last sentence is profoundly true. The men behind " The In- dustrial Charter " are very near to a great many men on the other side of the common frontier '(how near to the common frontier is Mr. Churchill?), which means, or may well mean, that the document is not distinctive enough to make an effective party programme. That, with some qualifications, it would make an admirable rallying-ground for moderate men of all parties can hardly be contested.--That raises interesting, and perhaps impor- tant, questions. But they are much more easily asked than answered.
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