NATIONALISATION.

Northern Advocate, 21 January 1920, Page 3

NATIONALISATION.

POINTS IN OPPOSITION

Labour t meaning by that expression the mass of workers, is not the producer of capital, because capital is due to saving, and the mass of workers do not save (writes Mr Harold F. Wyatt in an article on "The Perils of Bolshevism" in the "Nineteenth Century"). There is, of course, the further fallacy involved in the question t that manual labour alone is competent to create wealth, whereas it can in truth produce nohing of value without the aid of brains and of a wage fund. The point, however, on which we here lay stress is merely the last, namely, the absolute necessity for capital # that is of previous saving.

Now let us suppose that England is turned into a Socialistic State, or to come nearer to what is actually proposed, that every industry in Great Britain is nationalised (Ireland, of course, would escape treatment). Who, then would do the saving? It is a pertinent question ,is it not? Assuming that all profits of all industries went to the "workers," either directly or through the Government clearly those industries would offer no field for investment. If there were any capitalists left, they would have to invest in other countries than this. Again, then, who would do the saving? Let us have an answer from someone. The State? How much annually is the State to save? Less than before? Then the wage fund would be depleted to that extent, and wages would have to fall to that extent. More than before? Or as much as before? Then where would be the advantage supposed to attach to the substitution of State ownership for private ownership? The working man is being told incessantly that the profits of the capitalist are the source of all his troubles, and that could those profits be but abolished he would, so to speak, roll in wealth and ease. Yet up to now those savings, termed profits, are the sole supply of the wage fund. Substitute then the State for the capitalist, and then either the State has to save, or there will be no wage fund. The thing is clear.

This very obvious truth has been hidden hitherto, because so long as some or most industries worked at a profit which was saved it was possible to apply a part of those savings to make good the deficit in other industries which were being worked at a loss. This is indeed the true inwardness of a State subsidy. But when the profits of all industries are ab-j sorbed \>y that body of workers, and in consequence there are no savings at all then evidently there will be no | wage'fund. Very little capital, indeed, in this country could survive the expropriation of all investors in its industries. If, on the other hand, it were proposed to buy all such out, an absurd operation is suggested. How is the State to pay these expropriated investors their interest out of the non-existen profits of those industries? Or if the State saved enough by cutting down wages to find that interest, then how is it also to save sufficient to provide a wage fund? The irresistible inference from these certainties is that there is no scintilla of possibility that the nationalisation of industries could result in any increase of reward to the wageearner. There is, however, an enormous probability that it would arrest the saving of wealth, and thus bring about in a very short time his total I ruin.