Industry and the State
Industry and the State : a Conservative View. By Robert Boothby, M.P., Harold Macmillan, M.P., John de V. Loder, M.P., and the Hon. Oliver Stanley, M.P. (Macmillan. 6s.) IT is good for every Government to have a thorn in its flesh. The Opposition ought to be the thorn, but whatever progress the Labour Party may be making in the country the present Opposition is unimpressive and clumsy in the House of Commons. More value than usual must be attached, therefore, to internal attempts to keep the Government moving. The book before us, by four young Unionists, is -a courageous and profoundly interesting attempt to recall the Government to its " first fine careless rapture " when it in effect declared its prime duty to be the reconciliation of Capital and Labour.
The book challenges the Government to dare to say no by making it a present of a policy. For our part we rejoice in independent thinking, and here we certainly have it. Besides, the book is excellently written. We may be allowed to take a sponsor's interest in some of the chapters as they appeared originally in the Spectator. Have we in these young writers another Young England Party or—to go from greater to smaller —a new Fourth Party ? It was the fate of those movements to fail, but they were none the less splendid failures. They left shining trails behind them ; and even when their banners of revolt had been trodden down the leaders of the parties survived to becomes Ministers and even Prime Ministers. The cynic has said that the rebellions were the road to office.
There is a Disraelian touch about the authors' definition of Conservatism as composed of symbolism, empiricism, con- tinuity and realism. One can almost see, with Coningsby, the party politicians agonizing over a slogan and finally hitting upon " Our young Queen and our old institutions." But the authors are perfectly right in their choice. Property implies personal independence and no party could give the democracy a greater gift than that. Past generations have given us political freedom by slow degrees ; now the need is for economic freedom. What a magnificent task for the Unionist Party ! The authors frankly say that the time is past for unalloyed individualism. We have often thought that the intense individualism which guided our industrialists through a laige part of the Victorian Era was a reflex of Darwinism. Darwinism provided easy thinkers with a ready-made justifica- tion for letting the Devil take the hindmost. That was unfair to Darwinism, but it was perhaps an inevitable tendency in men who were in need of an excuse.
The authors having accepted the doctrine of State interven- tion in industry proceed to lay down the lines. They reject Protection, partly because they cannot agree about it and partly because at present it is not practical politics, and they divide the matters in which a Government could help into (1) opportunities and (2) obligations. Under " opportunities they discuss the control of credit and the stabilizing of prices by bodies like the Canadian Wheat Pool and the New Zealand Meat Board. The desideratum is " orderly marketing," as the American phrase is. They point out that combination is the order of the day and that the Government should encourage wise combination, as it has already done in the Mining Industry Act of 1926. Hbrizontal combines are greatly to be preferred to vertical combines.
Thy.11....4" the authors think, should
Now for " obligations." .
create in complete monopolies (such as railways anti gas companies) employees' shares carrying the power to elect directors. In semi-monopolies (such as oil and tobacco combinations) the State could not compel, but it could penalize companies which did not put • their employees on the status enjoyed in the monopolies. In purely competitive industries there could not be much State intervention, but it might be hoped that manual workers would be allowed special facilities for investment and for electing members to the Board., Compulsory arbitration is condemned, but Wages Boards are to be much more freely used. " Every man a capitalist " is in effect the authors' motto. Wages Boards and Trade Boards would become the meeting point for brain and hand capitalists to.discuss their common interests. This part of the hook is the best of all. The authors have a genuine vision : the removal of the present impeding psychological conditions of discontent and suspicion by knocking down the barriers that divide managers from men and Haves from Have-nots.
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