Reported in Hansard
Private Enterprise under Labour Government
Sir William Darling (Conservative, Edinburgh, South): “Is it the view of the right hon. Gentleman that the more Socialism there is in this country the more successful private enterprise will be?”
Mr. Harold Wilson (President of the Board of Trade): “On the limited experience of the last few years, that is certainly so.”
(Debate on the Budget, 11/4/49.)
A Tory Faces the Future
Sir Arnold Gridley (Conservative, Stockport): “… We are called upon in this country still to produce to the utmost and we are doing our best to do so.
“But many other countries are engaged in exactly the same practice. While it is one thing for us all to produce, it is quite another thing to sell what the world has produced at a time when the world is becoming satiated in respect of many of its requirements. I could not disagree more with the statement made by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on Thursday. He said: ‘T he outlook is not gloomy at all. The situation today is better than it has ever been for the mass of the people of this country.’ Well, I should not like to make a statement like that to a large public meeting of the ordinary people of this country. I cannot share his optimism, if he considers the outlook for the future is less gloomy, and I fear that there is no sound basis for it.”
(Debate on the Budget, 11/4/49.)
He’s still at it!
Sir Waldron Smithers (Conservative, Orpington): “. . . I see that there are 12,000 dockers out on strike tonight. I wonder whether they realise the desperate situation of this country. What a wonderful gesture it would be if the dockers and others, instead of striking, would say ‘Yes, we will put in half-a-day’s work a week for no pay at all’.”
(Debate on the Budget. 11/4/49.)
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The Lowdown on the Social Services
Sir John Anderson (National Scottish Universities) : “… I was asked on one occasion when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, shortly before I ceased to be Chancellor, whether I was satisfied that we could afford the social services. I said that I had come to the conclusion that we could not afford not to have them. Let us look at the picture in relation to what has been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with which I agree. Much of the heavy expenditure on social services comes back in one form or another very quickly in direct and indirect taxation. That has to be set against the burden. On a long view the improved standard of health and education resulting from the development of the social services ought to increase enormously our productive efficiency as a community.”
(Debate on the Budget, 11/4/49.)
Worthy of Record
Sir Ian Fraser (Conservative, Lonsdale): “… No wealth is created but by the work of the workers . . .”
(Debate on the Budget, 11/4/49)
A Communist’s Concern Over Competition
Mr. Piratin (Communist, Mile End): “Why cannot the hon. Gentleman give a straight answer to a very straight question: Are the Americans subsidising Japanese wool production to the extent of 20 per cent. on yarn and 40 per cent, on cloth,’ as the Question asks? Is that the case, for a well known authority on the matter in this country stated it only last week? If that is the case, what steps does the Minister propose to take in the matter of this unfair competition?”
(Question Time, 14/4/49.)
And a Fellow-Traveller is also Worried
Mr. Platts-Mills (Independent, Finsbury): “Does not my hon. Friend accept this long delay in getting us any right to trade with Western Germany as certain proof that the Americans, holding Western Germany as a puppet, are intending to use her industrial potential as a weapon to knock Britain clean out of the European market?”
(Question Time, 14/4/49.)
A Labourite and Tory Managements
Mr. H. Rhodes (Labour, Ashton-under-Lyne): “… I gather that the right hon. Gentleman did not think the cause of pulling this tight little island through its economic difficulties a high cause. Other people might take exception to what he says, because I take it he included all Tory managements. Well, I am not having that. In my division there are some first-class Tory managements, some of which I hope will vote Labour at the next election in return for the inestimable benefits that this Government has conferred on their business.”
(Debate on the Budget, 12/4/49 )
Another Labourite on Profits
Mr. H. Strauss: “… As I was saying, are profits a good or a bad thing?”
Mr. Howarth (Labour, Walton, Liverpool): “There is no one answer to that question. It all depends. It would be wrong to make profits out of a hospital, for instance. Also, there are many undertakings in local government in respect of which it would be wrong to make profits.”
(Report Stage of the Iron and Steel Bill, 2/5/49.)
Mr. Stokes also says his piece
Mr. R. Stokes (Labour, Ipswich): “… We on this side of the Committee have no objection to making a margin on the right side. What we complain and criticise is the method of disposal. If people make a reasonable profit and handle it properly there is no complaint whatsoever. That is the only way industry can survive, and I have never heard anyone on this side of the House who understands industry or, for that matter, does not, making complaints about a balance on the right side. What we complain about is paying it out the wrong way.”
(Report Stage of the Iron and Steel Bill 2/5/49.)
And a Tory deals with them both!
Mr. H. Macmillan (Conservative, Bromley): “… On this delicate question of profits I feel, in the presence of so many captains of industry on both sides of the House, that I must tread delicately. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) told us that profits were all right so long as they were properly disposed of. Unfortunately he is not here; perhaps he has gone to dispose of some.”
Russian Labour Camps
Mr. Mayhew (Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs): “At the last meeting of the Economic and Social Council, I suggested to the Soviet delegate that the Soviet Government might invite representatives of U.N. to visit the following areas: The great penal area of Karaganda in the Kazakh Desert; the concentration of camps at Dalstroi in the Far East, including the coalmining camp on the Kolyma River ; the Pechora group in the North of Europe ; the Lake Baikal group in Siberia ; the Yagri group in the Archangel region ; and the groups in the Lapland, Novaya Zemlya, Sakhalin, Kamchatka and the Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Arctic regions. I stated that our information suggested that these camps included only a fraction of the total forced
labour population of the Soviet Union. But visits even to these camps would do much to reassure the outside world.
“The Soviet delegate replied very briefly that the Soviet Government would certainly not allow these areas to be inspected by what he chose to describe as ‘American Gauleiters.’ Later in the debate, however, the Soviet delegate put forward a counter-resolution on the subject of forced labour. This called for the establishment of a workers’ committee reporting workers’ organisations throughout the world, including the W.F.T.U., the T.U.C., the A.F.L. and others. This committee, consisting of over 100 workers’ representatives, should study workers’ conditions in various countries of the world. After he had introduced his resolution, the Soviet delegate was naturally asked whether, in carrying out its functions, this workers’ committee would be able to visit Soviet Russia, amongst other countries. At first the Soviet delegate evaded the question, but eventually, under repeated questioning, he confessed that it would not be allowed to visit Soviet Russia. He stated that if the committee were to visit Soviet Russia in the course of its duties, its report would be interminably delayed.”
(On the Motion for the Adjournment, 6/5/1949.)
S.H.