Passing comments
Unsolicited Testimonial to Mr. Gaitskell
When I was reading in a public library, a lady next to me reading the Daily Telegraph approved so much of what she read that she had to unburden herself immediately; and I was the nearest person. I haven’t checked on all her facts, but the substance of what she said was this:
“Thank goodness someone’s talking sense at last—Mr. Gaitskell is saying they ought to give the workers bonus shares if the work is going well. Now that’s what I’ve always said—I had some shares in the South Metropolitan Gas Co. during the war and they used to give the workers bonus shares and it always kept them satisfied—they never had a strike all during the war! That’s just what I’ve always said—keep the workers contented and you won’t get any trouble. And I see Mr. Gaitskell has been saying we shouldn’t have any more taxation on the important people—the people with capital and the people who provide work. Because if you tax them they’re not going to stay in this country are they? And if they go how should we get on?—because they provide all the work.”
I feel sure that Mr. Gaitskell will be glad to know that, although he may not be very popular with the trade unions, his proposals have drawn forth the admiration of at least one shareholder.
State Capitalism
As the nationalised industries continue to publish each year their reports, showing how much interest has been paid to people who are called (for some reason unknown) “ex”-shareholders, it should become obvious to the most fervent nationalises that whatever nationalisation is or is not. it is not Socialism, and that the workers in nationalised industries cannot be said, by any stretch of the imagination, to be either the owners or the controllers of their industries. These facts, which the Socialist Party has been trying to propagate for the last half-century, have at fast reached the edges of that bastion of ignorance, the Labour Party. Among the first to make a public recantation is a Labour M.P., Fred Longden, who has just published a book of essays.
Lucrative Stockholding
In it he says that nationalisation “does not disturb the present social order.” It “does not dislocate the pyramid-like build of society. Its horizontal classes and perpendicular grades and castes remain intact with greater security than ever. Stockholding is sounder and more lucrative. Management rests in the hands of a Board that is more distant from the worker and consumer than ever. This is ’democracy’ with a very remote control. It is not Socialism.” (“The Proletarian Heritage,” quoted in Reynolds News, 12.8.51.)
With your last sentence, Mr. Longden, we couldn’t agree more. But what a pity it is that you have spent your political life in the Labour movement working to bring about that state of affairs you now so justly criticise. Still, we don’t want to harp too much on your past misdeeds. If you really want to bring about a Socialist society, you can still join with all the other people who want to do so. Apply at your nearest branch of the Socialist Party.
Never Say Die
Mr. Longden has at least been honest enough to admit that he was wrong, now that it is clear beyond any possibility of doubt that nationalisation is not Socialism. But there are others who are incorrigible —chief among them being the Stalinists. With them the evidence counts for nothing. Theoretical argument, practical demonstration, both leave them cold. Ignoring the experience of the coalminers, the gasworkers, the railwaymen, the Daily Worker continues to cheer on nationalisation projects wherever they appear. In Persia, a nationalisation demonstration evoked the approving comment, “Smallest hint of government weakness in face of imperialist pressure brings the crowds out to show the people’s determination to force oil nationalisation through” (11.7.51). And when the secretary of the “Northern Rhodesian African Congress” demands the nationalisation of the Northern Rhodesian copper mines, the Daily Worker headlines it “Africans want copper mines” (23.7.51). The Africans may want the copper mines. But if they do, they’re certainly going a queer way about it.
It’s What Yon Wanted
Even when trade unionists see that nationalisation has left them exactly where they were before, any attacks they make on the new state-directors, any claims they bring forward for higher pay, are greeted with a reproachful “well, you wanted nationalisation yourself.” The head of the British Electricity Authority, Lord Citrine, went along to the annual conference of the Amalgamated Engineering Union recently, berated those delegates who had attacked the B.E.A. administration, and ended up by appealing to “the trade unions, which were really responsible for bringing about nationalisation, to ‘give us a little help occasionally, and perhaps a little more charity when public utterances are made’.” (Daily Herald, 22.6.51.) And the trade unions cannot deny the charge that they helped to bring about nationalisation.
Labour “Socialism” in Action
From the Daily Herald (2.8.51): “The fall in share values, following Mr. Gaitskell’s announcement a week ago that dividends are to be limited, is only one-third of their rise during the past three and a half months. With that statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer torpedoed a half-hearted Tory attack in the Commons yesterday.” But what an interesting commentary it makes on Mr. Gaitskell’s claim to be a Socialist when he publicly boasts that he isn’t half as hard on the shareholders, on those who live on the labour of others, as his opponents make out. In fact the Stock Exchange, despite the loud cries of anguish which were heard in Lombard Street when the slight dividend restriction was first announced, soon came to see what a mild measure it was. Even the small drop in share values which actually took place was not long-lived. Two and a half weeks after the original announcement the Sunday Express (12.8.51) said: “All but one-tenth of the losses has been regained. And from the way things are going it won’t be long before the remaining tenth is made good.”
Which, in practice, amounts to another vote of confidence by the shareholders in the Labour Government.
Discovery
Another of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s remarks during the Commons debate on August 1st was this: “Figures of the distribution of property do not bear out any suggestion that ordinary shares are held in large quantities by the poorer section of the community.”
This must rank as the understatement of the month.
How to Fight Wars—1
From the Daily Graphic (24.7.51): “At Verdun in 1916 Petain flung back the German hordes with a scornful ‘Ils ne passeront pas’ (they shall not pass). Nor did they, although half a million men died round the shell-torn forts in five months.” Half a million men died, but not Petain, who became a General largely on the strength of that battle. (And if it was Petain who “flung back the German hordes,” what were all these other Frenchmen doing there?) Petain survived the men under his command for thirty-five years, dying at the age of ninety-five.
How to Fight Wars—2
General Kurt Student, formerly supreme commander of Hitler’s airborne troops, wrote an article in the Sunday Express last May 27th. He said: “For me, as commander of the German airborne troops, the Battle of Crete in 1941 carries bitter memories. I miscalculated when I suggested this attack, which resulted in the loss of so many valuable parachutists that it meant the end of the German airborne landing forces, which I had created.” Many parachutists were lost. But modern war has its compensations. General Student is still with us. And ten years after his miscalculations at Crete, the General is still fit enough to write articles for the papers.
A. W. E.