ENGLAND IF UNDER SOCIALISM

Evening Star, Issue 21881, 19 November 1934, Page 14

ENGLAND IF UNDER SOCIALISM

REVOLUTSSM COMPLETED .Mr G. 11. Mitchison is a lawyer, a Labour candidate, and a Left Wing Socialist. He has worked out, in a book, ‘ The First Workers’ Government,' a plan for socialising this country within the term of a single Parliament (writes Harold Stauuard, in the London ‘ Daily Telegraph ’). It is a plan which has received the endorsement of the Socialist leaders.* Mr Lansbury dwells on the value of the hook as showing how the transition to Socialism can be made. Sir Charles Trevelyan hails the work as providing “ the form and shape ” in which Socialism must be introduced into this country. Sir Stafford Cripps, who contributes an introduction, goes even further. The scheme of the hook, he writes, is one which he and many others “ desire to see brought into operation at the earliest possible moment.” Its imaginary history, supposedly written about 1980, of the Socialist revolution, which is assumed to have taken place between 1936 and 1941, presents, in Sir Stafford’s view, “ a picture of what I very much hope will happen in the •near future in this country.” The book is thus accepted by the Socialist leaders as a full and fair transition of their aspirations . into practice. I therefore regard it as worthy of some examination. Before a Socialist Parliament can be elected the country must be _ converted to Socialism, and Mr Mitchison’s account of how it was done will not be overlooked by trade unionists. A man with a genius for propaganda pulls all the little Socialist groups in the country together, and with their aid stampedes the Labour Party. Later the stranglehold over Labour is rendered even more complete, and Mr Mitchison makes it clear that his policy is to impose the system which functions, at any. rate in theory, in Soviet Russia upon the industrial structure of this country. Now Government in Russia is centalised, and a centralised Government exercises its authority through its local officers. It follows that the economic organisation of a socialised England must be by regions, whereas the trade unions cover not regions, but industries. Socialism thus destroys the foundation of the trade union system. But Mr Mitchison imagines that the unions will take their destruction calmly, because they will realise • that their function must be different when there are no longer any private employers for them to deal with. So in Mr Mitchison’s England the unit of industry becomes the factory, and the trade union is a sort of federal assembly of factories. The Government recognises this body in determining conditions _ of labour, and Mr Mitchison describes this arrangement as “ workers’ control.” The control is, of course, illusory. Real control is in the hands of the central Government working through its local agents. The method by which this Government establishes itself in power is very instructive. The regime owes its existence to a wave of Socialist fanaticism, which is ’ subsequently maintained 1 by management and propaganda. But there is one person in England whom these influences cannot touch. That person is the King. The King must therefore be bullied into surrender of his constitutional rights.

Thus, the main function of Mr Mitchison’s Prime Minister is to behave offensively ,to his Sovereign. He pointedly ignores the Crown in making his appointments. Then there is a diversion. A Commissioner (Mr Mitchison is fond of Commissioners—Soviet Commissars in English dress) is appointed to take over control of credit, currency, , and foreign exchanges. It is seriously’ stated that the appointment of this person, “ who might be and was Intended to be a member of Parliament,” and whose business is to destroy the existing financial system, is acceptable to financiers in London and abroad because it averts panic I FINANCING BIG SCHEMES. The next step is to abolish that other citadel of capitalism, the House of Lords. The Lords wish to discuss the Bill, and must, therefore, be swamped by , new creations. The King’s consent is extorted, the House of Lords abolished, and the new governmental machine is set up. At its centre is a Cabinet of eight members. They _ are concerned with policy, all administrative work being performed by secretaries. The new Cabinet’s first job is to socialise the banks and the land. Here, however, there is a departure from Russian precedent.

In spite of some protests from the more extreme elements of the party, the compensation is paid to stockholders and landlords. For twenty years they receive their old dividends and rents in the form of annuities. Then the annuities diminish, and in five more years come to an end.

Why this generosity? The reason is that Mr Mitchison, who overlooks nothing, has to finance his schemes. He is ; indeed, at pains to repudiate anything so orthodox as a balanced Budget during the period of transition, but he wants £700,000,000 from direct taxation.

The annuities, combined with 100 per cent, death duties on estates in excess of £20,000 and 100 per cent, tax on any income in excess of £IO,OOO, enable him to get it, and much of what he gives with one hand is taken away with the other. Besides, there is always legislation to reduce the' volume of rents and dividends and therefore of the annuities.

And when legislation fails there are the tribunals. These bodies have nothing to do with Courts of Law as at present understood. They are set up and staffed by the “ Minister of Justice ” to impose arbitrary interpretations on Acts of Parliament.

Thus, dividends are to be wiped out after twenty-five years. But what about dividends on trade union investments? The tribunals will look after them. On the other hand, rents are to be controlled, but some landlords will nevertheless draw large sums. The tribunals will look after them, too. The tribunals are in fact the Ogpu of the, new despotism. Thus strongly established, the Government proceeds to abolish the Means I'est, to award 20s a week to the unemployed, enact a minimum wage of 40s for a forty-hour week, and create employment by a great programme of public works. The way is now clear for the Planning and Finance Acts—the first passed in 1937 and the second in 1938—by which Parliament is supposed to give its approval to the wholesale socialisation of industry, including coal, iron and steel, cotton, transport, and the retail trade. , The Acts are necessarily skeletons. Discussion, though permitted, has to be kept within narrow limits, and in the safe region of generalities. Details, the matters to which Parliament .addresses itself >vhen it-goes into eoni-

mittee, and through control of which it exercises its legislative sovereignty, are not mentioned. They are dealt with by Orders in Council.

The explanation of the new industrial structure takes a good part of the book of 500 pages, and is intended to suggest that Socialists have thought it all out very thoroughly. In fact, there is no real thinking at all. _ There is merely a mass of detail, painstakingly collected and then forced into the Soviet mould. What of the men and women who are, after all, the final concern of Governments? It is here that Mr .Mitchison spins his most Ingenious sophistries. By playing with words, pushing forward such terms as Socialism, regional commissions, ■workers' control and co-operation as and when required, he creates the illusion that everybody gets what he wants. _ When the strength and determination of the Socialist revolution has to be emphasised, we meet with the central government. When there is a risk that the central government will appear too despotic, the regional commissions are brought into the foreground. COGS ON WHEELS. Their authority in turn is tempered by the factory organisations, and when the average_ worker asks where he or she comes in, there is always that blessed word co-operation. Actually the whole thing is illusion. Mr Mitchison’s social order is not a vital thing at all, but a piece of mechanisation impressively systematic on paper, but unrelated to life. Men and w’omen in this socialised England have no lives of their own—even education becomes a machine for manufacturing Socialists. They are mere cogs on wheels, and are expected to feel satisfied with their condition when they contemplate the neatness and ingenuity with which the wheels are geared together. - Is the book dangerous? Personally, I think not; but then I am a Rightwing intellectual, _ and one of the few things that a Right-wing intellectual cannot do is to take a Left-wing intellectual seriously. The doctrinairism which handles social issues with strict logic, and forgets all about flesh and blood, strikes people like me as ridiculous.

I think that this disregard of the human element would bring Mr Mitchison’s airy structure to ruin before its foundations were laid, and that if such a Government as he imagines were set up. it would collapse in the first month of its existence through the storm of indignation aroused by its treatment of the Crown. I think, too, that the existing system would fail to topple over like the walls of Jericho as soon as Mr Mitchison’s little Lenins blew their trumpets. England is not Russia, and our system is not permeated by corruption, laziness, and ignorance. I think, further, that our trade unionists are on the whole shrewd folk, not prepared to drop the bone in their mouths for the very questionable shadow-bone in the Socialist river.