Likewise with the railways to-day. Now that they are losing more and more of their profitable traffic to road transport concerns and have a very uncertain future, the directors, in public, oppose the whole idea of State railways, but in July, 1942, it was reported that there had been a rise in the prices of railway shares and “the current market explanation . . . was that it was inspired by statements of trade union officials that plans for the unification of the railways under a public board are well under way” (News Chronicle, 8 July, 1942). Obviously some of the railway shareholders thought that unification and a change in the form of control might benefit them, though the City Editor of the News Chronicle himself thought differently. In his view there was “very little reason to suppose that the merging of the railways, if it comes off, will either benefit the stockholders or, indeed, produce substantial working economies.”

On 7 June, 1942, the City editor of the Sunday Express also reported the “slow upward move in home rail stocks,” and said : “The buying is based on the theory that Britain’s railways will never return wholly to private ownership . . . Instead of a fluctuating income dependent on operating results, their (i.e., the shareholders) revenue would be fixed.”

The News Chronicle writer in the article referred to above described the suggested unification of the railway under a public board as “socialisation”, and this brings us to the many Labour Party spokesmen and theorists who hold the same misconception.

A man whose works have had considerable influence in Labour Party circles and in the I.L.P., of which he was a member, is Mr. R. H. Tawney. In his book The Acquisitive Society (George Bell, 1921, pp. 66 and 117), after condemning various formers of private property, he argues that the payment of what he calls “pure interest” will be necessary under “Socialism”. It is justified, he says, provided that the owner of the capital is not allowed to have any share in or responsibility for, the organisation of the industry. The late J. Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Labour Party and for many years a prominent member of the I.L.P., held the same erroneous view as Mr. Tawney. In his Socialism, Critical and Constructive, he wrote :–

“When Labour uses Capital and pays it its market value, property is defensible ; when Capital uses Labour and retains as its reward the maximum share in the product upon which it can keep its grip, property is devoid of a sure defence.” (Cassell’s Pocket Edition, 1929, pp. 302-3.)

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