The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1950-09-07
News and Views ;. -.

Most, if not all, of the British
workers improved status in the
postwar era has come from full
employment and increased produc-
tivity, and not from the bounty Of
government, according to an econ
omic source in London. Main cause
of this salutary trend, the same
source noted, was capital expan-
sion and the nations rehabilitation
program which has brought into
use new machinery, equipment and
construction as well as larger in
ventories of materials, along with
improvements in industrial organ
ization and management. Time
losses from labor disputes, sick
ness and absenteeism dropped,
while working hours and earnings
tended to rise.
In addition, the working people
profited from government food
subsidies and other public grants
for health and education. These
gains, however, have been more
than offset by tax rises which took
an additional 510,000,0C0 pounds
out of the workers pockets.
All of which goes to prove that
whatever economic and social gains
the British workers have scored in
recent years are due to increased
effort and the sweat Of their brow,
and not to a reshuffling of the ma
tional income and special privileges
granted them by government of
their own. 1t is a point which AM
erican workers, too, tempted by
promises of broadened social legis-
lation, might keep in mind.
4 4 i
No wonder, then, that the Brit
ish Trades Union Congress, center
of democratic unionism and back
bone of the Labor party, has found
it advisable to reexamine all the
dogmas concerning naturalization
of industry, controls and economic
planning which constitute labor's
major claim to governmental pow
er.
In report drawn up by a spec
lal committee and to be submitted
as base for discussion at the an
nual TUG convention this month.
the experience of organized laborI
with naturalization, control and
other government measures has
been thoroughly explored. Needless
to say, both naturalization and
controls, which are among the out
standing features of labor's at
tempt to build a democratic-socia |
ist welfare state in Britain, have
been found wanting.
There is, as has often been said
in this space and as the British |
people are finally beginning to
realize, no fast and easy cure for
inherited economic ills. 1t is we'll
understandable, in the light of the
workers advance, that organized
labor should look skeptically upon
further naturalization and instead
it's efforts for the time
being on Strengthening out and i'm
proving that part of the nations
economy already under public con-
.rol.
This is precisely what will be
at the TUG gathering
1T Brighton. The decision will playl
decisive part in shaping the pro-
gram on which the labor movement
lnder Prime Minister Attlee will
1T not too far away date, seek
reelection. 1t will enable labor to
consolidate it's earlier gains while
It the same time drawing a line
against further experimentation inI
he economic fields.
The committee maintains that
lot enough time has elapsed tol
each definite conclusions with re-
,ard to naturalization of basic in
lustry and to justify final apprais-
il. Yet it gives voice to misgivings
" stating that public or common
need not always take the
orm of naturalization of whole
Industries, and there is Important
cope for selective or competitive
'ublic enterprise"
Similarly, the report questions
Indirectly the efficacy of price con-
rol as means toward desirable |
ocial ends, without, however, re-
ommending elimination of the ;
'ractice. While keeping an open {
mind on the methods to be used, its {
uthors suggest that greater at
ention be paid to the consumers i
perhaps by the setting I
p of some form of competitive
ublic system in the distributive
rades. AS to planning, the report {
olds that there has been neither /