Without going into detailed comparisons which would undoubtedly be difficult and probably inconclusive, there is a factor which goes far to explain the position. It is that the large and wealthy organisations have the money and the scope to devote considerable attention to picking the ablest and most healthy workers and then to train them for the work they are required to do. These organisations often have entrance examinations and medical examinations to weed out the less suitable applicants, and when the best men and women have been picked they are given training at considerable expense. Once this is done the employers naturally want to retain the trained employees and are prepared to pay higher wages in order to do so. In other words, those private monopolies and State organisations and the co-operatives and other firms which pay special attention to welfare schemes (for the purpose, of course, of increasing the efficiency and output of their employees) are not getting workers of merely average skill and ability but workers of more than average skill and ability. As they are purchasing labour-power above the average level they must pay more than the average wage to get and keep it. The fact will not be overlooked that the workers who fail to secure entry to such organisations are forced to seek employment in the lower-paid occupations. Furthermore, with the raising of the school-leaving age and the consequent flooding of the labour market with more and more young workers with the necessary qualifications to enter the employments demanding higher schooling the competition for better paid employment will be keener and the wage levels will tend to be depressed accordingly.

We now come to another aspect of nationalisation schemes. Admitting that perhaps nationalisation has not benefited the workers to any appreciable extent, its advocates say it will be different when a Labour Government takes over.

This was partly answered by what occurred when the last Labour Government was in office in 1929-1931.

There were seven Labour Party representatives on the Civil Service Royal Commission, 1929-1931, three of them Labour M.P.’s, and they along with the non-Labour Party members of the Commission signed the Report which held that Government employees must not be paid more than is paid for comparable work by private employers (Report, paragraphs 306-317).

As that Labour Government did not have a clear majority Labour Party supporters may claim that it would be different if they did have a majority. This will, of course, not explain away the action of the seven members of the Royal Commission, but we may go further and ask how in any event could the employees be benefited.

Under Labour Party proposals the interests of the capitalists whose concerns are taken over are to be safeguarded by continuing to provide them with interest on their investments. From what source then would come the additional money required to raise the wages above the level of private industry? Furthermore, what would be the feelings of workers in private industry who had voted for a Labour Government if told that not all, but only some, of the workers were to gain from the advent of Labour Government, not the workers as a whole but only those in nationalised industries?

These are only a few of the insoluble problems that face the Labour Party, or any other party, when it tries to administer the capitalist system of society. Either capitalism must be ended ­– which involves abolishing not only capitalist control of industry but also capitalist ownership – or capitalism must continue and with it the exploitation of the workers.

Another aspect of nationalisation as it affects the workers is their position in relation to strikes. Whatever the precise legal position may be, no Government will in fact permit its own employees to strike, and unions of Government employees tacitly accept this by ruling out strikes from their activities. But, as the Labour Daily Herald pointed out many years ago, before it became the official Labour organ, if the price of nationalisation is giving up the strike then “under capitalism a nationalised industry would actually be worse off than those left in private hands” (13 September, 1922). At that time, at least as far as the Daily Herald was concerned, the true position was more clearly seen and expressed than it is to-day in Labour Party circles. An editorial in the issue of 12 April, 1924, correctly summed up the position :–

“We do not believe that there is any fundamental distinction so long as the wage system exists, between the relationship of a private employer to his workers and the relationship of a Municipality or State to its workers. In each case the latter sell their labour-power, and their capacity to sell it at a fair price depends on their capacity, through their trade union, to refuse to work.”

Except that there can be nothing “fair” about the terms on which the workers are exploited, socialists would endorse the view expressed here. It is certain that with the growth of large-scale industry, whether in the form of State departments, public utility board or private monopolies, the demand will increasingly be made by the employers that strikes in such industries be made entirely illegal or at least made illegal unless the dispute has first been submitted to arbitration. There are indications that the officials of the larger unions would not be averse to the latter proposal.

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