BRITISH LABOUR’S LACK OF AN ECONOMIC POLICY

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 March 1947, Page 8

BRITISH LABOUR’S LACK OF AN ECONOMIC POLICY

[N.Z.I’.A. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT] . LONDON. March 17. . “Where do we stand after this : grand economic inquest?” says the ; Economist, discussing the economic i debate in the House of Commons. “The Government prescription, it is plain, is treatment- as before, only more so. They propose to go on as they have been doing, only with a frown upon their brows instead of a song in their hearts. ‘‘lndeed, they have learned in these i last few months that they are politically incapable of doing anything else. . Every avenue to positive policy is ’ blocked to them. They cannot accept ' a realistic financial policy because ’ that would involve abandoning Dr Dalton’s policy of over cheap money, and partly because they could not , face the odium of deliberately setting I out to reduce the money incomes of , the wage-earners. i “They cannot pursue a positive labour policy because the trade unions will not have it. They cannot : call industry to their aid because that J would mean abandoning the national- ’ isation programme. They cannot embark upon a great campaign of > moral leadership because Mr Attlee ; is Mr Attlee.

“All they can do is to stand pat upon a series of administrative experiments inherited from the Coalition as modified by the pressure of events in the last 18 months and excuse themselves by newly discovered limitations of democratic planning. They are in fact taking up exactly the same attitude towards economic problems that Mr Chamberlain took up towards the war in the winter of 1939-40. “Now, as then, the sticking point has not yet been reached, and until it has there is little chance of a change in policy. Now, as then, there will be no prospect of a radical escape from things as they are until politicians similarly are willing to forget their party programmes and theii’ personal ambitions. The sticking point may come this autumn or it may wait until 1948. But it is surely coming.”