BLACKEST PEACE-TIME WEEK

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 February 1947, Page 7

BLACKEST PEACE-TIME WEEK

British Government Under Fire [N.Z.P.A. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT] (Recd. 10.0 a.m.) LONDON, February 10. With, millions of people temporarily unemployed and with hundreds of thousands more expecting shortly to he out of work, due to the lack of basic supplies from the silent factories, Britain began to-day its blackest peace-time week. It is not know nhow long unemployment will continue —it will be at least until the weather improves—and the cumulative effect on the country’s economic position can only be guessed for the time being.

■The electricity cuts which began to-day come on the top of a 26 per cent, reduction in coal supplies to industry. Together they strike at the heart of British industry. Production Fall. One opinion (that of the Financial Times) is that on a conservative computation the two together will probably reduce overall productivity by one-quarter to one-third of the level of the last three months of 1946 —that is while the immediate emergency continues. It is also estimated that when the severe weather passes and more normal conditions are resumed and stocks at the power stations are replenished, the continuing coal shortage will keep down production by probably 15 to 20 per cent. —again a conservative figure. ■ This then—or something much like it— is the bill that Britain will have to foot as a result of the present emergency—the word emergency is apparently preferred by some Cabinet Ministers to crisis. It comes on top of all her other many and varied difficulties and at the moment it threatens to be accompanied by political bitterness.

Though there is a national realisation that the immediate need is for a concerted effort to get through this immediate black period and frequent statements are being made that now is not the time for party warfare, criticism of the Government and of Mr. Shinwell, the Minister of Fuel, in particular, is being denounced by the Left as a “Tory plot.” To the charge that Mr. Shinwell gambled on the weather, that he muddled optimistically, treated Parliament casually and spent his time on producing a bill to nationalise electricity when he should have been thinking of coal first and last, the reply is made that the present position is a legacy of long years of Tory inefficiency, that (in the words of the Daily Herald), “it was under the Tory-sponsored private enterprise that the pits were allowed to fail in mechanical efficiency; under private enterprise that the wages in mines were such as to make the sons of miners seek work elsewhere.” The Labour view is also that the nationalisation of the coal mines came only in the nick of time and that it is already producing results. Ground for Both Criticisms. To the general public there appears to be grounds for both criticisms. The history of the coal mines during the years between the wars when laboui’ was cheap and plentiful was unaccompanied in any general way by modernisation of the mines and many pits became hopelessly out of date by modern technical standards. When France fell in 1940 and Britain’s coal export markets closed, many young miners were allowed to leave the pits to join the services. This had a lasting effect on output and the coal supply

caused acute concern during the war. When Labour came to power many people felt that the nationalisation of the coal mines was the best course that it could take.

This “gloomy heritage” of the Labour Party, as it has been called, is recognised but the charge now being made against Labour is that since the Government took over the mines its planning has been at fault. It has come not only from the Right. While such an objective newspaper as The Times says the difficulties and effects of this brutal cut “show plainly the improvidence of having postponed radical action until it was almost too late,” and the Observer says that it is obvious that there was not enough foresight in planning to prepare during the warmer months for a hard winter, Reynolds News, the cooperative prc-Government newspaper also has criticisms to make. While supporting the Labour Party, it says: “The Government must bear some responsibility for the situation. The Minister of Fuel worked on too narrow a margin and their plans have been thrown completely out of gear by the prolonged spell of bitter weather. More could have been done to cut out bureaucracy and red tape in the day-to-day allocation of supplies. Bold decisions to restrict unessential uses of fuel at an earlier stage might at least have alleviated the situation and prevented the panic atmosphere of the last few days.” Political Aspects., Whether the present situation will have political as well as economic results is a question being constantly asked. It is not so much a matter of resignations, but whether the Government may have to curtail its party programme of socialisation and nationalisation. Whether Britain can afford the Government’s heavy programme with its mounting bureaucracy at a time when, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dr. Dalton, said, the country is “living on tick,” when as Lord Woolton points out Britain is “running into debt to other nations to the extent of £27,000,000 a month” —that is the question which many people are increasingly asking. The remark by the AttorneyGeneral, Sir Hartley Sha’wcross, that the Labour Government would fail and there would be an end to “any idea of Socialism in our time” if the fuel situation were not overcome and coal production improved, has not passed unnoticed in this respect.

It is the more significant perhaps in view of the comments, such as those by the Labour member, Mr. Douglas Jay, who told the House of Commons last week that the coal problems will be reopened next winter more painfully still unless foresight and abstinence prevail even after this crisis has been met.