The Press FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1974. Election prospects in Britain

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33454, 8 February 1974, Page 8

The Press FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1974. Election prospects in Britain

The British coalminers’ decision to strike has forced Mr Heath to call the General Election he has been trying to avoid. The ban on overtime imposed by the National Union of Mineworkers 12 weeks ago failed to bring the economy to its knees or to make the Government yield to the union’s demands. Now the miners have voted overwhelmingly for a strike, and their executive officers have ordered that all British mines be shut down from midnight on Saturday. Mr Heath has insisted that, within the limits set under phase three of his policy to control inflation, he could not meet the miners’ demands for a pay increase. He can scarcely give in now, even to avoid a devastating strike, if he wants his economic policy to survive.

An election will be fought on the Government’s economic policy and the union's challenge to it. Mr Heath can appeal to anxiety about inflatio . by telling the voters that controlling it is important enough to justify postponing the remedy for what most admit is a social injustice — the underpayment of the miners. He can also appeal to public distrust of strong unions by fighting the election on the issue of “ who is to govern the country? ” Mr Wilson is already campaigning on the idea of “ back to work with Labour, ” and promising to settle the dispute on the miners’ terms. Such a campaign might take advantage of the feeling that the Government has been unnecessarily rigid, and that the sensible alternative to a prolonged strike would have been to yield to the miners. Neither party can guarantee an end to Britain’s troubles. Mr Heath, returned to office, would be in a better position than he is now to force the miners to return to work on terms that would not add fuel to the fires of inflation. At the same time, however, this might increase social tension in Britain to an alarming extent. The miners, and union members sympathetic to their cause, would feel that an injustice had been done to them, and might intensify their struggle against the Government. A Labour victory would placate the unions but would still arouse resentment among other social groups. Labour’s preliminary manifesto admirably aspires to create a more egalitarian society in Britain, — an undertaking which could be implemented only by increasing the taxes of the moderately well-off. The truly wealthy are not so numerous that even punitive taxation of them alone would yield enough to finance Labour’s measures. Labour also intends to control inflation by relying on voluntary restraint on the part of unions which, — although they are no longer insisting that free bargaining must determine the level of wages — have shown little inclination to accept a reasonable policy on incomes. A settlement of the present dispute on the miners’ terms might stimulate other unions to press for greater increases of pay for their own members. Britain’s society is cohesive enough to survive the threat of upheaval inherent in hyper-inflation; but it is also a conservative society which views with alarm the prospect of even greater inflation than in the last four years. A Conservative victory, provided it were followed by a genuine attempt to eradicate the basic causes of industrial unrest, would probably have less serious social and economic consequences than a Labour victory, followed by runaway inflation. The miners, given a clear demonstration that the country supported Mr Heath's efforts to control inflation, might accept — as their predecessors had to accept in 1926 — less than they are at present asking for. The Government would have to promise to increase their wages immediately to the limit admissible under phase three and to satisfy, as soon as possible, all the miners’ grievances. Were Mr Heath to admit that he has failed in his attempt to solve Britain's problems by returning to a freer economic system, and were he to adjust his other policies accordingly, Britain might yet escape being crippled economically or torn apart socially. An election success for Mr Heath would condemn Britain to a grim future if he is not capable of abandoning attitudes which a great number of Britons think unsympathetic or unjust.