English. M.P. On "THE MIDDLE WAY"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 250, 22 October 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

English. M.P. On "THE MIDDLE WAY"

AT a time when the rival claims of Communist and Fascist ideologies are being so freely canvassed as being the sole alternatives ultimately available as the goal of the evolution of civilised nations, it is refreshing to read a studied attempt to provide a "way out." Mr. Harold Macmillan, M.P., in "The Middle Way" (Macmillan) has written a careful and painstaking study, in which he seta out his scheme for the economic development of Britain, which might be equally applicable to any democratic country. Beginning with an examination of the present social services, Mr. Macmillan considers the expenditure that would be necessary to extend and improve them to what he eonsiders a satisfactory standard, and concludes that the limit of taxable capacity would be reached long before a satisfactory minimum standard could be attained. It is therefore necessary, he concludes, if the social services are to b« developed further, to develop

them by some means other than taxation —i.e., by increasing the capacity of industry by some form of central control, and by ensuring that the consumers' demand shall never fall below a certain minimum. Before considering how this is to be done, Mr. Macmillan examines the distribution of incomes in England, and the incidence of poverty and malnutrition. On the figures of Mr. Seebohm Rowntree and Sir John Boyd Orr, he demonstrates that three-tenths of the population of Britain receives an insufficient quantity of most of the important food constituents, and the diet of a further two-tenths is still deficient in many important respects. Half of the population, in a word, is underfed when judged only on the barest standards of adequacy. How is this to be rectified ? Mr. Macmillan concludes that the distribution of some of the more elementary foodstuffs should be socialised. Milk, butter, potatoes and bread should be distributed by the eentral authority. This, of course, ia Socialism of the most uncompromising kind; but Mr. Macmillan's brand of Socialism is worn with I a difference, as he believes in carrying'

his socialistic operations out in regard to certain commodities only. The elementary foods and also fuel, heat, and water, could be socialised. Then a minimum wage should be introduced into industry, and the minimum wage and the unemployed benefits could be supplemented by free supplies of the essential foodstuffs. In any case, says Mr. Macmillan, it is useless to raise the banner of laisserfaire against such a scheme as this, for on the day when Mr. Chamberlain introduced his Import Duties Act in 1932 the British nation "reached the end of a period both in economics and politics," and the laisser-faire argument was no longer intellectually defensible. Mr. Macmillan's book is one which Is well worth the effort of reading. It is written by an enthusiast, a man of fresh ideas, who is prepared to set out a new line of argument and follow it wherever it appears to lead. His ideas will raise hosts of eritics, but this will not daunt Mr. Macmillan. The task of his critics, both appreciative and destructive, however, would have been made lighter if Mr. Macmillan had been able to present his ideas more systematically.