BRITAIN IN THE POST-WAR WORLD

Grey River Argus, 24 March 1947, Page 7

BRITAIN IN THE POST-WAR WORLD

A DEMOCRATIC SOLUTION LONDON, March 16. The debate in the House of Commons on Britain’s economic affairs, which concluded on March 12, has been called the most important debate ever held at Westminster. This may be an overstatement but it would be difficult to rate the importance of this great political event too highly. For it was a political event even more than a discussion on economics. The importance fo the debate arises primarily from the fact that Britain is now facing a decisive in her post-war reconstruction. The first stage in this process has been successfully accomplished. As Sir Stafford Cripps pointed out when he opened the debate, no less than million men and women have been transferred from the armed forces and munitions industries to civilian economy within eighteen months ot the end of Vie war. At the same time, production has been so restorec, that if was possible by the end o_ 1946, to be exporting 113 per cent, cf the pre-war volume of goods. Taking into account the relative degrees of dislocation caused by war, this is an achievement, equalled by no other nation. But from the first it was recognised in Britain that the country faced a short-term and a longterm reconstruction problem. With the completion of the short term with the long-term operation. task, Britain has come face to face The basic problem has been clearlystated in the Economic White Paper: "The central fact of 1947 is that we have not enough resources to do all that we want to do.” The cost of playing a major part in two world wars within one generation has eaten into Britain’s reserves of accumulated wealth. Men and women in their early 30’s in Britain, have spent nearly one-third of their lives at v r ar. This means that in a sense one-third of the nation’s resources during this period has ben turned away from the accumulation cf wealth to its destruction. The long-term problem thus set can only be solved by a process of several years of overhaul and replenishment to expand the pro.ductive capacity of Britain’s economy and amass a new reserve of wealth. The crisis has .been sharply pointed by more immediate difficulties arising out of an unexpectedly severe winter and its impact on the too slender margin of fuel reserves. But this is merely incidental. The real problem is how to re-organise the national economy without cutting the current standard of living to an intolerably harsh extent. Measures for dealing with this physical problem have been proposed and discussed — the drafting of some foreign workers into industry and the revision of priorities in the allocation of new materials are two important steps. What gives the debate on Britain s economy/ its great political important' however, is not the immediate physical problem. This can obviously be solved, just as Britain solved the still greater physical problem of stemming the tide of German aggression in 1940. The importance lies in a decision on the means. A totalitarian solution would be simple. But the British I loyernment has rejected such a solution. The most vital passage in the whole debate seems to be Sir Stafford Cripps statement that “the method of economic planing has to be worked out in accordance with our democratic institutions and ideas, and also, to fit. in with the very complex economic structure built up in this country, 'there is a wide difference between totalitarian and democratic planning. The essence of the former is that the individuals must be completely subjected to the needs of the State, while the latter aims at preserving the maximum freedom of choice, while yet bringing order to the industrial production ‘of the country, so that it may render the maximum service to the country as » whole. We must, therefore, adapt our methods of planning to our means of controlling the economic predicament.. The whole world to-day has a deep interest in the economic reconstruction of Britain. On it depends the future living standards of hundreds of millions of people, both in the British Empire and outside it. But the world has a still greater interest —even if less clearly realised —in the means' by which Britain’s reconstruction is achieved. If decent and liberal standards are to prevail throughout the world, it is necessary to find a way of combining economic planning with political planning. This means avoiding the Scylla of an economy of want with its endemic cycles of slump and unemployment, and the Charybdis of the regimented State. Sii’ Stafford Cripps’ words mean that Britain is- pursuing her great experiment of creating an economy of full employment without regimentation.

No country has had so much experence as Britain in developing the flexibility of control. During the war, the nation’s entire economic resources came under control, and many controls remain. But the British system has never been one of State control. It is a constant process of change and adaptation. Even during the war, controls were constantly undergoing revision. Since the war the process has intensified, and any form of control which ceases to be necessary is scrapped at once. Almost the first thing the Government did at the end of the war was to sweep away a huge mass of restrictions on personal liberty which had been necessary# for the purposes of . military security. At the same time economic and financial controls were scrutinised. The purpose was first to see whether they could be abolished and secondly, to adapt them to peace-time uses. One example is the restriction on foreign exchange. It was l decided that owing to Britain’s shortage of hard currencies, the control of capital movements must continue. But the machinery is revised to make ligitimate transfers poss’ble and to enable such personal amenities as foreign travel to be enjoyed. As with controls, so with all other means of economic reconstruction, the British Government is keeping the ends in view. LTiere are no clearcut distinctions between the means and ends. The one passes into the other, and evil means engineer an evil end. So the decision to seek a democratic solution to Britain’s problem is an event of world-wide political importance which overshadows all the other aspects of the economic debate.