NATIONALISATION.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8200, 28 June 1919, Page 3

NATIONALISATION.

OF THE COAL INDUSTRY. Dicusssing the nationalisation of coal mines, Mr J. B. Condliffe, of Christchurch, now of Gonville and Caius College, wrote- in the 11 Lyttelton Times” recently:—“Nationalisation is, of course, vigorously opposed, all the more because the people of Britain are very suspicious of bureaucratic government after their war experiences. The criticism is directed naturally not against national ownerships, but against national management. Can civil servants be trusted, people are asking, to control such a skilled operation as the winning of coal? Is not bureaucracy and centralisation a synonym for stagnation and waste? And even if one admits the possibility of effective work,-will not the control of big policy questions of management be in the hands of politicians, who are, everyone admits, the worst people to manage such important affairs? Strongest criticism of all, will mere nationalisation cure any of the evils? Will it mean any significant change in the system? Its economies of centralisation may be set off by bad organisation, and will it have done anything to solve the Labor problem? The experience of the Post Office, of our own railways, and coal mines in New Zealand says no. “But the miners of Britain are demanding a new type of nationalisation. National ownership most people assent to; but the proposals for management are intended to meet the criticisms levelled against bureaucratic control and to make an effort

towards solving the Labor problem by giving the privileges (which, of course, implies the responsibilties also) of management to the work people. The miners demand that the State shall own the mines, and that the management shall be given over to committees of the work people and representatives of the State. The matter is still sub judice, and no detailed plans have been put forward for. any of these schemes. Whether compensation is to be paid, and on what basis it should be calculated, the actual formation of the suggested trust, or of the joint control committees or of the works committees under a scheme of nationalisation—• all these have yet to be discussed.”