LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
MR. MORRISON AT MARGATE
SIR,—Mr. Morrison's courageous speech—for it was courageous—should be read carefully by all lovers of Britain. For the first time he has stated bluntly that he sees the writing on the wall, and he invites all citizens of good will to join the Labour Goverrunent in trying to save the country from the disasters which may be ahead. No longer does he accept the Marxian doctrine of class hatred ; he suggests clearly that unless his parry receives the support of the middle classes, who, he says, have been greatly penalised by recent legislation, he questions the prospect of future prosperity. What he did not say is that he invites them to commit what they believe to be national suicide. State Socialism aims at the goal of nationalising all industry; State control "of all of the • sources of production, distribution and exchange," and it must fail unless it achieves that object. The middle classes, who are largely the employing classes, believe that no large-scale industry (save only monopolies) can be successfully developed on that basis ; and they include probably .a million employers who have successfully built up our national prosperity in our past history.
The Co-operative movement has recently defined its attitude to socialistic control. The National Coal Board has just declared an advance (not the first) of 2s. 6d. a ton in the price of coal, which is, of course, a further handicap on industry. And advocates of private enterprise in this country have watched the gradual abandonment of Communist industrial administration in Russia, as confirmation of their sincere con- viction that no nation can permanently build for prosperity on a socialistic basis Cannot Mr. Morrison and his friends see that it is not possible for the nation to present a united front on this issue, and recognise that only a minority of our citizens believe in it? The Labour Government has already committed the nation to a gigantic experiment which may have the seeds of destruction in it. Does not prudence counsel that it should now call a halt for a decade, until the chickens from the eggs which it has already laid may be hatched? In a nation's history, ten years is not a long time ; if experience proves that Mr. Morrison's critics are mistaken, the full programme that he visualises may fructify, but if he and his friends are living in an unreal world, a temporary halt might be called before irretrievable damage is done.
Meantime his party can be usefully employed in providing the houses which it promised the electorate it would build, and making a belated attempt to bring the nation back to national solvency, two tasks of which there is immediate and desperate need, for, as he says, "we are very short of foreign exchanges, and have to live on credit." His party fnay well ask itself whether the present world conditions are favourable for the further Socialist programme. It may not be wise to endeavour to provide roast pig by burning down the house in which we are living.—
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