The Industries and Businesses to be Nationalized—Extension of Municipal Enterprise—Control of Capitalistic Industries and Businesses—Labour’s Agricultural Policy—Abolition of Landlordism—Councils for Agriculture—A Legal Minimum Agricultural Wage—Workers’ Control of Agriculture.
We have already given a general outline of Labour’s policy; it now remains to set out its particular proposals in regard to the reconstruction of industry. These we take from Labour and the New Social Order, published in 1918. If, as is not unlikely, readers feel aggrieved by want of definiteness, it is not the fault of the author, but of the Labour Party.
“The Labour Party stands not merely for the principle of the common ownership of the nation’s land, to be applied as suitable opportunities occur, but also, specifically, for the immediate nationalization of railways, mines, and the production of electrical power. We hold that the very foundation of any successful reorganization of British industry must necessarily be found in the provision of the utmost facilities for transport and communication, the production of power at the cheapest possible rate, and the most economical supply of both electrical energy and coal to every corner of the kingdom. Hence the Labour Party stands, unhesitatingly, for the national ownership and administration of the railways and canals, and their union, along with harbours and roads, and the posts and telegraphs—not to say also the great lines of steamers which could at once be owned, if not immediately directly managed in detail, by the Government—in a united national service of Communication and Transport, to be worked, unhampered by capitalist, private or purely local interests (and with a steadily increasing participation of the organized workers in the management, both central and local), exclusively for the common good. If any Government should be so misguided as to propose, when peace comes, to hand the railways back to the shareholders; or should show itself so spendthrift of the nation’s property as to give these shareholders any enlarged franchise by presenting them with the economies of unification or the profits of increased railway rates; or so extravagant as to bestow public funds on the re-equipment of privately-owned lines—all of which things are now being privately intrigued for by the railway interests—the Labour Party will offer any such project the most strenuous opposition. The railways and canals, like the roads, must henceforth belong to the public, and to the public alone.”
“In the production of electricity, for cheap power, light and heating, this country has so far failed, because of hampering private interests, to take advantage of science. Even in the largest cities we still ‘peddle’ our electricity on a contemptibly small scale. What is called for, immediately after the war, is the erection of a score of gigantic ‘super-power stations,’ which could generate, at incredibly cheap rates, enough electricity for the use of every industrial establishment and every private household in Great Britain, the present municipal and joint-stock electrical plants being universally linked up and used for local distribution. This is inevitably the future of electricity. It is plain that so great and so powerful an enterprise affecting every industrial enterprise, and, eventually, every household, must not be allowed to pass into the hands of private capitalists. They are already pressing the Government for the concession, and neither the Liberal nor the Conservative Party has yet made up its mind to a refusal of such a new endowment of profiteering in what will presently be the life-blood of modern productive industry. The Labour Party demands that the production of electricity on the necessary gigantic scale shall be made, from the start (with suitable arrangements for municipal co-operation in local distribution), a national enterprise, to be worked exclusively with the object of supplying the whole kingdom with the cheapest possible power, light and heat.”
“But with railways and the generation of electricity in the hands of the public, it would be criminal folly to leave the present 1,500 colliery companies the power of ‘holding up’ the coal supply. These are now all working under public control, on terms that virtually afford to their shareholders a statutory guarantee of their swollen incomes. The Labour Party demands the immediate nationalization of mines, the extraction of coal and iron being worked as a public service (with a steadily increasing participation in the management, both central and local, of the various grades of persons employed), and the whole business of the retail distribution of household coal being undertaken as a local public service, by the elected municipal or county councils. And there is no reason why coal should fluctuate in price any more than railway fares, or why the consumer should be made to pay more in winter than in summer, or in one town than another. What the Labour Party would aim at is, for household coal of standard quality, a fixed and uniform price for the whole kingdom, payable by rich and poor alike, as unalterable as the penny postage-stamp.”
“But the sphere of immediate nationalization is not restricted to these great industries. We shall never succeed in putting the gigantic system of Health Insurance on a proper footing, or secure a clear field for the beneficent work of the Friendly Societies, or gain a free hand for the necessary development of the urgently called for Ministry of Health and the Local Public Health Service, until the nation expropriates the profit-making industrial insurance companies, which now so tyrannously exploit the people with their wasteful house-to-house industrial life assurance. Only by such an expropriation of life assurance companies can we secure the universal provision, free from the burdensome toll of weekly pence, of the indispensable funeral benefit. Nor is it in any sense a ‘class’ measure. Only by the assumption by a State Department of the whole business of life assurance can the millions of policy-holders of all classes be completely protected against the possibly calamitous results of the depreciation of securities and suspension of bonuses which the war is causing. Only by this means can the great staff of insurance agents find their proper place as civil servants, with equitable conditions of employment, compensation for any disturbance and security of tenure, in a nationally organized public service for the discharge of the steadily increasing functions of the Government in vital statistics and social insurance.”
“In quite another sphere the Labour Party sees the key to temperance reform in taking the entire manufacture and retailing of alcoholic drink out of the hands of those who find profit in promoting the utmost possible consumption. This is essentially a case in which the people, as a whole, must assert its right to full and unfettered power for dealing with the licensing question in accordance with local opinion. For this purpose, localities should have conferred upon them facilities:—
“(a) To prohibit the sale of liquor within their boundaries;
“(b) To reduce the number of licences and regulate the conditions under which they may be held; and
“(c) If a locality decides that licences are to be granted, to determine whether such licences shall be under private or any form of public control.”
“Other main industries, especially those now becoming monopolized, should be nationalized as opportunity offers. Moreover, the Labour Party holds that the municipalities should not confine their activities to the necessarily costly services of education, sanitation and police; nor yet rest content with acquiring control of the local water, gas, electricity and tramways; but that every facility should be afforded to them to acquire (easily, quickly and cheaply) all the land they require, and to extend their enterprises in housing and town planning, parks and public libraries, the provision of music and the organization of recreation; and also to undertake, besides the retailing of coal, other services of common utility, particularly the local supply of milk, wherever this is not already fully and satisfactorily organized by a Co-operative Society.”
“Meanwhile, however, we ought not to throw away the valuable experience now gained by the Government in its assumption of the importation of wheat, wool, metals and other commodities, and in its control of the shipping, woollen, leather, clothing, boot and shoe, milling, baking, butchering, and other industries. The Labour Party holds that, whatever may have been the shortcomings of the Government importation and control, it has demonstrably prevented a lot of ‘profiteering.’ Nor can it end immediately on the declaration of peace. The people will be extremely foolish if they ever allow their indispensable industries to slip back into the unfettered control of private capitalists, who are, actually at the instance of the Government itself, now rapidly combining trade by trade, into monopolist Trusts, which may presently become as ruthless in their extortion as the worst American examples. Standing as it does for the democratic control of industry, the Labour Party would think twice before it sanctioned any abandonment of the present profitable centralization of purchase of raw material; of the present carefully organized ‘rationing,’ by joint committees of the trades concerned, of the several establishments with the materials they require; of the present elaborate system of ‘costing’ and public audit of manufacturers’ accounts, so as to stop the waste heretofore caused by the mechanical inefficiency of the more backward firms; of the present salutary publicity of manufacturing processes and expenses thereby ensured; and, on the information thus obtained (in order never again to revert to the old-time profiteering) of the present rigid fixing, for standardized products, of maximum prices at the factory, at the warehouse of the wholesale trader, and in the retail shop. This question of the retail prices of household commodities is emphatically the most practical of all political issues to the woman elector. The male politicians have too long neglected the grievances of the small household, which is the prey of every profiteering combination; and neither the Liberal nor the Conservative Party promises, in this respect, any amendment. This, too, is in no sense a ‘class’ measure. It is, so the Labour Party holds, just as much the function of Government, and just as necessary a part of the democratic regulation of industry, to safeguard the interests of the community as a whole, and those of all grades and sections of private consumers, in the matter of prices, as it is by the Factory and Trade Boards Acts, to protect the rights of the wage-earning producers in the matter of wages, hours of labour and sanitation.”
An official pamphlet called the Labour Party and the Countryside states Labour’s agricultural policy “as settled by representatives of the Party’s 300,000 affiliated agricultural members.” With pride it is announced that members engaged in industry and living in towns had no finger in it. It is claimed to be the fruit of practical experience—the conclusion of experts. Endorsed by the National Executive of the Labour Party, it is stated to crystallize the principles upon which the Party will deal with agricultural and rural problems. The basis is to be the non-sectarian principle of “increased production of food stuffs by the employment of more British labour on better cultivated British land.” The Coalition Government is charged with repudiating this principle and with having perpetrated in 1921 a shameless and scandalous deceit in “scrapping” the Corn Production Acts, 1917 and 1920.
First and foremost, land is to be nationalized. Many evils and much oppression are attributed to private ownership. Landlords have obstructed every measure of land reform; thwarted food production; obstructed housing, small holdings and land reclamation; demanded extortionate prices for land for public needs and appropriated as unearned increment a large part of the value of every tenant’s improvement. “For the Labour Party” therefore “the substitution of public for private ownership in land (subject to equitable treatment of each person whose property is required for the public good and to a proper security of tenure for the home and the homestead) underlies in principle all its specific proposals.”
Councils for agriculture are to be constituted for each county, one-third thereof elected by farmers, another one-third by farm labourers and the remaining one-third nominated “by the various public authorities in the county, including the county council, to represent the public interest.” Some good work is credited to the existing county agricultural committees, but they are condemned as hampered by their constitution. Members of the councils would receive travelling expenses and payment for time spent on public service. The primary duty of each council would be to supervise farming in the county and secure and maintain an all round improvement in cultivation, an increase in the area under plough and an aggregate increase in the production of food stuffs. In the event of bad farming, councils would have power to take over the land and cultivate it in the public interest. A Central National Council of Agriculture would advise the Minister of Agriculture.
A legal minimum wage (whether on a national or district basis is not stated, but presumably the latter) and standard conditions of employment are to be established for every farm, market garden and fruit orchard worker and gardener in domestic employment, to all of whom the National Unemployment Insurance Scheme would be extended. This in the first instance is to be effected by re-establishing the National Wages Board and County Wages Committees of the Ministry of Agriculture, the abolition of which in 1921 is characterized as a “flagrant breach of faith.” The fund out of which increased wages are to be paid is to be created out of the profits of better farming, increased production, organized marketing, less costly transport, lower retail prices of farmers’ supplies and the elimination of profits now taken by unnecessary middlemen. A national scheme of insurance managed on a co-operative basis by agriculturalists themselves is to be established against the risk of unfavourable weather and sudden falls in world prices.
“Democratic control” is to be introduced into the agricultural industry as in other industries, “to supersede the economic dependence of the agricultural worker on the farmer for employment and livelihood with the implication of inferiority involved.” The operation of the councils of agriculture is to be a step towards that end. But the statement of policy is prudently non-committal and the full meaning of “democratic control” and its implications, so far as agriculture is concerned, receives no explanation.