It should be observed that while, under the terms of the Act, the stockholders have no voice whatever in the management, “they would have the right, if the Board should default on its financial obligations as laid down in the Act, to apply to the High Court for the appointment of a receiver . . . It is a primary requirement of the Act that the Board should fulfil its financial obligations and conduct the undertakings in such a manner and fix such fares and charges as to secure that the revenues shall be sufficient to meet all prescribed charges (Times, 30 July, 1943).

Here, then, we have an example of a so-called public service, in which priority is given to meeting obligations to the capitalist investors – yet some misguided people refer to it as “socialisation” (one of them is Mr. Herbert Morrison, a leading member of the Labour Party, who was responsible for the original scheme). Another prominent Labour Party member, the late Right Honourable H.B. Lees Smith, who was P.M.G. in the Labour Government 1929-1931, wrote an article in the Spectator (26 December, 1931), in which he discussed a proposal to put the Post Office, or at least the telephones, under a “public corporation like the Port of London Authority or the Electricity Commissioners, which are largely immune from Parliamentary control or interference.”

He wrote this : “There is no reason in principle why the Labour Party should not accept this proposal, for it carries out the latest development in Socialist theory. As long as an undertaking is carried on, without any vestige of private profit, by a body acting on behalf of the public, it is an example of Socialism. Any inquiry into suggestions along these lines will be interesting, but those who undertake it should bear in mind that they are not examining the question of private enterprise versus Socialism, but of one form of Socialism versus another form of Socialism.”

He continued : “The form of Socialism that is contained in such public corporations as the Port of London Authority has proved itself to have great advantages . . .”

It will be seen that when the late Mr. Lees Smith talked of “no vestige of private profit” he was merely drawing a distinction between the interest the stockholders receive from holdings they have in a public corporation and the profit they would receive on shares in a private company – from the point of view of the capitalists a distinction without any real difference.

In the Port of London Authority to which he referred as a form of “socialism” the Dock Companies were given stock to the value of about £22 millions in exchange for their properties, the stock carrying interest some at 3 per cent, and some at 4 per cent.

An interesting sidelight on this is that in earlier days when the Labour Party favoured outright nationalisation on Post Office lines, and was opposed to Public Utility Corporations, the Port of London Authority was denounced by Mr. Herbert Morrison as a form of capitalism ! In a letter to the Daily Herald (30 July, 1923), he protested against Labour Party supporters expressing approval of the P.L.A., and wrote : “The P.L.A. was established by Mr. Lloyd George some years ago to enable the capitalists of the Port to have the advantages of public credit and to do for themselves collectively what they and a number of private companies have been unable to do with success individually . . . The Port of London Authority is a capitalistic Soviet . . . the constitution of which is thoroughly objectionable from the Labour and Socialist point of view, and which has certainly not been as friendly to the workers of the Port of London as it might have been.”

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