Editorial: The Labour Party Drops Nationalisation
It is not amazing that the Labour Party should alter its programme—that has happened often—but it is amazing that the chief item in the programme should be quietly replaced, and that the membership not only do not protest, but appear to be unaware of the substitution. The one thing the Labour Party and the I.L.P. have stood for since their earliest days has been nationalisation. No formal statement has been made about dropping it, and certainly no Conference, either of the Labour Party or the I.L.P. has ever endorsed a change of policy, but we now have Mr. Herbert Morrison, Minister of Transport, and Mr. W. Graham. President of the Board of Trade, calmly stating that nationalisation has been abandoned in favour of public corporations under “business” management.
Mr. Graham, President of the Board of Trade, speaking at a Labour demonstration at Stirling on January 30th, 1931, appealed for the support of the Liberal Party on the ground that “the industrial problem is now so grave that the old divisions of parties become meaningless” (Times, Jan. 31st).
He remarked on the tendency towards the formation of trusts and said that Liberals had opposed the Labour Party’s proposals for nationalisation,
“because they usually regarded it as management from WhitehaH. No one now makes such a proposal. I am convinced that in the leading industries, and in due course in others, this trust concentration must shade into public corporation. In short, we must make a business proposition of this economic transition.”
The Liberal Newss-Chronicle wrote approvingly of Mr. Graham’s speech and accepted it as evidence that the Labour Party “is painfully and somewhat confusedly ‘Liberalising’ its policy” (quoted in New Leader, Feb. 6th).
Mr. Morrison’s London Passenger Transport Bill proposes the grouping of London ‘buses, trams and tubes under the control of a board of five members who are to be “persons who have had wide experience, and have shown capacity, in industry, commerce or finance, or in the conduct of public affairs” (Part I, Clause 1, par. 2). They are to be appointed by the Minister of Transport after consultation with the Treasury, but are not to be under any effective control by him. The kind of people Mr. Morrison has in mind is shown by a. speech he made at a staff dinner of the London General Omnibus Company on March 26th, in which he paid tribute to the “ability, courage and initiative” with which Lord Ashfield had controlled the transport companies which he directs (News Chronicle, March 27th). In fact, the trump card Morrison played in the debate in the House was to read a letter from Lord Ashfield, expressing his agreement with the main principle of the Bill.
Mr. Morrison said (Hansard, March 23rd, col. 63) :—
“With the exception of the independent omnibus proprietors, who have very much misunderstood the Bill, and possibly the London County Council none of the existing transport undertakings have really challenged the fundamental economic and administrative basis upon which this Bill proceeds.”
He quoted a Tory leaflet as follows :—”Mr. Morrison has sounded the death-knell of municipal Socialism and nationalisation.”
In the course of his speech Mr. Morrison, said :—
“I then considered, but not for long, whether the new concern should be operated by a State Department. I have a great admiration for the civil service . . . but I have come to the conclusion that the old idea of Departmental nationalisation in the ordinary sense of the term is not the appropriate way for a great business undertaking of this kind. Therefore, I rejected the idea of State Departmental management, and in that sense this Bill is not nineteenth century nationalisation. . . Part of the new thought is my own, but part came from the right hon, gentleman, the late Minister of Transport, and part from members of the Liberal Party in their famous publication ‘Britain’s Industrial Future.'”
At this point a Member of Parliament very pertinently interjected : “Is there any of your own ?”
We would like to ask since when Mr. Morrison’s new views have been the policy of the Labour Party. His statement does not square with the Labour Party’s opposition to the handing over of the Government cable and wireless services io the “Imperial and International Communications Co.” Does it foreshadow the denationalisation of the telegraphs, telephones and postal services ?
Industrial News, published by the Trades Union Congress, contained the following (March 24th) :—
“Nationalisation, under a State Department, Mr. Herbert Morrison said, was a 19lh century conception, and he did not think a vast business undertaking of the kind would be appropriate for politicians to manage. The solution of the problem is to set up a Business Board, which is not a political body or a State Department, and will not even be responsible to the Minister for its day-to-day actions, though he would be, of course, answerable to Parliament, on matters of policy. Salaries, fees and allowances for the Board will be fixed bv the Minister; the Board itself will appoint the appropriate officers for the management of the undertaking ; ‘and, indeed (said Mr. Morrison) we shall take over the officers and staffs of the existing transport undertakings.'”
Mr. E. F. Wise, of the I.L.P., described the Bill as being as nearly as possible “pure Socialism,” and approved the abandonment of the nationalisation schemes that have been the stock-in-trade of the Labour Party and I.L.P, all these years (Hansard, March 23rd, col. 117).
Our position is clear. We have always opposed State capitalism or nationalisation on the ground that it alters the form but not the substance of capitalist ownership and control. The capitalists continue to receive their property incomes on their investments, with the added security which Government guaranteed bonds have as compared with company shares. But we were always told by Labour Party defenders that “nationalisation is Socialism,” or, alternatively, that “nationalisation is an inevitable step towards Socialism.” Now the “inevitable” has been quietly dropped in favour of a new “inevitable” which Mr. Morrison has culled from the Liberals and Tories. The new capitalism is just as objectionable as the old, from a working-class standpoint.
One amusing consequence of the Bill is that the Tory capitalists who control the Common Council of the City of London are supporting Mr. Morrison (their interest, no doubt, being in the financial provisions of the scheme), while the Tories who control the London Countv Council (their chief interest being in the rates) are opposing municipal ownership. The Labour members on the L.C.C., who for years have told the workers to be proud of “their” municipal trams, are backing Morrison against ihe Tories (Star, Feb. 5th, and Daily Telgraph, April 1st).
The change of policy has been carried through so discreetly that even some of the Labour Party “intellectuals” have been caught napping, although they are notoriously quick at trimming to any new wind that blows. Professor Laski, who has of late given less attention to misrepresenting Marx in order to write popular potted biographies for Odham’s Dailv Herald, dealt on April 4th with President Hoover, of the U.S.A. Laski usually has his ear very close to the ground, but on this occasion he was several weeks behind the times. While Morrison and his I.L.P. supporters were proclaiming the new creed of salvation through control by business men, Laski was writing that Hoover’s outlook is “pathetic” “because the creed that business men are the salvation of mankind has so completely broken down.”