Labour Party General Election Manifestos 1900-1997: Volume Two

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTOS 1900–1997

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTOS 1900–1997

Edited by Iain Dale With an introduction by Dennis Kavanagh

London and New York

First published 2000 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE and Politico’s Publishing 8 Artillery Row, Westminster, London SW1P 1RZ Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 2000 Selection and editorial work Iain Dale © 2000 Introduction Dennis Kavanagh All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data British political party manifestos, 1900–1997/edited by Iain Dale. p. cm. Contents: v. 1. Conservative Party general election manifestos/with an introduction by Alistair B.Cooke—v. 2. Labour Party general election manifestos/with an introduction by Dennis Kavanagh—v. 3. Liberal Party general election manifestos/ with an introduction by Duncan Brack. 1. Political parties—Great Britain—Platforms—History—20th century. 2. Great Britain—Politics and government—20th century. I. Dale, Iain. JN1121.B78 2000 324.241′009′04–dc21 99–25226 CIP ISBN Volume 1: 0-415-20589-1 (Print Edition) ISBN Volume 2: 0-415-20590-5 (Print Edition) ISBN Volume 3: 0-415-20591-3 (Print Edition) ISBN Set: 0-415-20588-3 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-02375-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17504-2 (Glassbook Format)

CONTENTS

Editor’s preface

vii

Labour Party Manifestos 1900–1997 DENNIS KAVANAGH

1

General election manifesto 1900

9

General election manifesto 1906

10

General election manifesto January 1910

12

General election manifesto December 1910

14

General election manifesto 1918

16

General election manifesto 1922

19

General election manifesto 1923

23

General election manifesto 1924

27

General election manifesto 1929

32

General election manifesto 1931

39

General election manifesto 1935

45

General election manifesto 1945

49

General election manifesto 1950

61

General election manifesto 1951

73

General election manifesto 1955

79 v

CONTENTS

General election manifesto 1959

89

General election manifesto 1964

103

General election manifesto 1966

127

General election manifesto 1970

153

General election manifesto February 1974

181

General election manifesto October 1974

193

General election manifesto 1979

215

General election manifesto 1983

239

General election manifesto 1987

289

General election manifesto 1992

313

General election manifesto 1997

343

Index

383

vi

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTOS 1900–1997

In compiling and co-publishing this series of twentieth century General Election manifestos I am conscious that I owe a great debt to F.W.S.Craig, the doyen of political reference book compilers. Before his untimely death in 1989 Fred Craig had published three separate collections of manifestos, the latest containing all manifestos published between 1959 and 1987. As we enter the new millennium it seems appropriate to continue Craig’s work by publishing a three volume series containing all the General Election Manifestos of the three main political parties published during the twentieth century. It should be noted that the publication of an official party manifesto is a relatively new invention. At the beginning of the century the Party’s manifesto normally con-sisted of a statement of policy issued by the Leader of the Party in his election address to his own constituents. Nowadays it is not quite so simple. Manifestos go through umpteen drafts and are carefully worded to appeal to the maximum number of electors. The pictures selected often tell the voter more than the words. Since 1950 the various political parties have often issued separate manifestos for Wales and Scotland. Space considerations prevent their reproduction. The manifestos in this collection are reproduced verbatim in their original style. There are naturally changes to the textual layout, particularly for latter day manifestos where the use of pictures is more commonplace. I would like to thank the Labour Party for their co-operation in this project and all those Labour supporters who have been involved in drafting their manifestos down the years. This book is for them. Iain Dale Politico’s Publishing London, 1999

vii

LABOUR PARTY MANIFESTOS 1900–1997 Dennis Kavanagh

General elections are a cornerstone of political democracy. Voters choose between competing candidates and parties for political office. But people need to know what they are voting for and what they are voting against. In the twentieth century the party manifesto has become an indispensable aid in the choosing process. It is a boast of British parties that they are programmatic. They fight general elections on manifestos and, if elected, promise to carry them out. For the most part we think this is a good thing; it lies at the heart of responsible government. For all their waffly prose and qualified promises British party manifestos matter. More than most such documents in other countries they often lead to action if the party forms a government. In many European states with coalition governments a party’s manifesto has to be compromised once it enters government. In the United States a Presidential candidate’s manifesto could commit his party in Congress and, more often than not, he will not have a party majority there. In Britain, the likelihood is that one party forms a government and will have a majority in the House of Commons. It can deliver on its manifesto. Manifestos have been particularly important for the Labour Party. When it was founded in 1900 it was a distinctive party. It was created by groups outside of parliament, by trade unions and socialist societies, people who were largely excluded from political society—or the electorate—at the time. It was also a sectional party. Its 1906 manifesto made clear that it spoke for the aged poor, trade unions and the unemployed. The same document was also clear about its enemies, ‘Landlords, employers, lawyers, brewers and financiers…,’ all represented in the House of Commons. The need was for the trade unions and the working class also to be represented. Most Labour MPs in the House of Commons were similarly interested in a smaller range of issue. Perhaps more than the Liberal or Conservative parties Labour took pride in being a programmatic party. In 1918 it adopted a programme and a constitution. Politics was not just about prudent economic management, wise administration and maintaining peace abroad. Labour supporters were found largely among the poor and they needed state action to provide jobs or maintenance, housing, pensions, school meals and other public services. A manifesto enabled the party to advertise the benefits it offered. But it was also a statement of its identity. The first manifesto (1900) compiled a bold list of a dozen demands, and the radical statement: ‘The object of these measures is to enable 1

DENNIS KAVA NAGH

the people ultimately to obtain the Socialisation of the Means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange, to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire community and the Complete Emancipation of Labour from the Domination of Capitalism and Landlordism’. The manifesto also related to the party’s belief in intra-party democracy.1 The party’s programme and manifesto were the main instruments for allowing members to make policy and make the leaders accountable to the members, in a way that was not so with the Conservative and Liberal Parties. The annual party conference still remains the supreme policy-making body. Resolutions passed by a two-thirds majority at conference become part of the party programme. According to Clause 5 of the party constitution, a joint meeting of the NEC (elected by the conference) and the parliamentary leadership then select items from the programme for the manifesto. It adds that the joint meeting of the two committees shall also define the position of the party to the principal issues raised by the election which are not covered by the manifesto. The theory of intra-party democracy was eloquently stated by Richard Crossman: ‘Our morality requires us to keep faith with our party, recognising that we’ve been sent to parliament to carry the mandate out…. Now, what could be more immoral than entering parliament and failing in our faith to the party outside?’2 Interestingly, Conservative and Liberal manifestos for much the first half of the century were usually the election addresses of the party leader or else a statement by him. In 1945 ‘Winston Churchill’s Declaration of Policy To The Electors’ served as the Conservative manifesto. This reflected the Parliamentary origins of the parties in the nineteenth century. The 1951 Conservative manifesto was written in the first person and again signed by Churchill. Later manifestos still began with a personal statement from the leader and usually had their photograph on the front page. In 1945, by contrast Labour’s manifesto was issued by the NEC and never mentioned the name of the Party Leader Clem Attlee. It was only in the 1970s that the Labour leader made introductory statements and had his photograph on the front cover. A manifesto has also been important in Labour’s thinking about the mandate. Delegates attending the Labour Party conference are mandated or instructed by their trade unions or constituency parties. Essentially the mandate refers to the authority of a government to carry out its election promises—which may or may not be expressed in a manifesto. But in some general elections one issue has predominated and the parties’ positions have been so clearly differentiated on the issue—and recognised as such by many voters—that the outcome is widely regarded as having clear implications for the direction of policy. Free trade in 1906 is a good example. Governments now use the idea of the mandate to justify the battery of items in the manifesto, however minor they may be. As the pledges are fulfilled, so the government’s spokesman claims that he has kept faith with the electorate, regardless of the popularity of the measure. Finally, Labour activists have sometimes spoken of the manifesto as ‘a battering ram of change’. Richard Crossman argued that ministers and civil servants gradually settle into what he called a political routine, the product of events, the burden of work, the need for compromise with interests and other departments and the sheer inertia of the civil service machine. Challenges to this routine have to come from outside parliament. ‘There must’, he states, ‘be a battering ram which requires the Government to make changes’.3 The manifesto commitment, it is suggested, enables the minister to be the initiator in policy. He can use it to galvanise a sceptical civil 2

LABOUR PA RTY MANIFESTOS 1900–1997

servant or opposing lobby. Crossman’s experience was ‘…if a politician enters Whitehall without a manifesto he is lost; they (the civil servants) will tell him what to do’.4 Arthur Henderson, on becoming Labour’s Foreign Secretary in 1929, ordered a dozen copies of the party’s programme and circulated them to his surprised officials. In March 1974 Tony Benn, newly installed at the Department of Trade and Industry, insisted that his officials read the party manifesto’s section on the National Enterprise Board. He regarded these as policy instructions for his civil servants. In the same government, Mr Callaghan, then Foreign Secretary, actually read out the manifesto’s proposals for re-negotiating the terms of entry into the Common Market to his fellow EEC foreign ministers. The politics of manifestos For much of Labour’s history there have not been battles over manifestos, not withstanding stormy conferences and divisions between left and right factions. In the 1970s and the 1980s, however, internal battles within the party between the left and the right were bitter and were about political power. The divisions coincided substantially with the extra-parliamentary party and PLP, respectively strongholds of the left and the right. The question was: who decides party policy and how could the party guarantee that the manifesto would be implemented when Labour was in office? Traditionally a majority on the NEC had worked in close liaison with and conference supported the parliamentary leadership. The Labour leaders could rely on getting their way over the manifesto.5 This easy alliance began to break down in the late 1960s, as conference was increasingly at odds with Harold Wilson’s Labour government. On trade union reform, incomes policy and US intervention in Vietnam, party conference stridently repudiated the government’s policies. As the executives of some of the major trade unions were moving towards the left, conference became more difficult to ‘manage’ because the unions controlled 90 per cent of the conference vote. Wilson’s defiant reply to hostile votes was that the duty of the government was to govern. From 1976 onwards, Mr Callaghan’s government was also defeated by conference on policies for public spending, price and income, public ownership, and economic strategy. Increasingly, the party spoke with two voices, one from the Labour government, the other from conference and the NEC. It was inevitable that the lack of policy consensus and a complex party structure made the writing of the manifesto a more fraught exercise. Increasingly the NEC, or rather the Research Department, prepared its own draft manifesto, prior to the Clause 5 meeting. It wanted to tie the leadership down to detailed radical policies. The NEC was within its constitutional rights to insist on its role. Lacking authority, the Labour leadership adopted various ruses for outflanking the NEC. One tactic was simply to delay formal consideration of a manifesto until a general election had been announced. By convention, it is up to the party leader to summon the clause 5 committee. In 1964, 1966, and 1970 Mr Wilson convened this only at the end of the parliament, when many members were impatient to be away to their constituencies. Pressure of time enabled him to present the meeting with what, to all intents and purposes, was a fait accompli. If in 1970 the manifesto had a ‘hasty and chaotic birth’, according to Butler and Pinto-Duschinsky the same could be said in 1979.6 3

DENNIS KAVA NAGH

A second ruse was to write a draft manifesto within the leader’s office. Mr Wilson usually managed to get his own draft presented as the working document. In 1979 Mr Callaghan’s draft excluded most of the subjects on which the NEC and Cabinet working groups had not agreed, as well as some on which the groups had agreed but which he found objectionable, for example abolishing the House of Lords. The third tactic was to use a veto. In 1979 Mr Callaghan observed that the manifesto had to be agreed between the NEC and the parliamentary leadership. He interpreted this to mean that if he did not agree with a proposal then it could not be included. Many leftwingers at the meeting were furious at this veto but it was politically difficult to challenge the leader on the eve of the election. Mr Callaghan also softened proposals for compulsory planning agreements with large firms and public ownership of the construction industry. A final device was to impose a guillotine on the clause 5 meeting. Both Mr Wilson in 1970 and Mr Callaghan in 1979 had arranged in advance to hold a press conference which would fall on the day of the joint NEC Cabinet meeting. In 1966, the meeting began at 10:30am and the press conference was scheduled for 6pm. In 1970 the group met at 10am and the press conference was arranged for 2pm. The same pattern occurred in 1979. Pressure for delay usually comes from those who want additional or more specific pledges. But prolonging the meeting beyond the allotted time publicises disagreements when there is great pressure for unity and an inclination to rally behind the party leader. James Callaghan and the PLP paid a heavy price following Labour’s election defeat in 1979. The party conference in October voted (by 3.9 million votes to 3.1 million votes) to give exclusive control for preparing the manifesto to the NEC. This would have required an amendment to Clause 5 and tilted the balance of power towards the extraparliamentary party and away from the PLP. The left had already won the battle to have the leader elected by the work party, not just MPs, and for mandatory reselection of MPs in the lifetime of a parliament In June 1980 a party constitutional commission suggested that an electoral college, drawn from MPs, trade unionists, constituency party representatives and other organs of the movement, should prepare the manifesto. A few months later, at the 1980 party conference the status quo was retained by 3.6 to 3.5 million votes. The membership drew away, just, from the spectacle of the parliamentary leadership having the task of implementing and defending a programme which was largely drawn up by another body. The legacy of this culture shift in the party was reflected in the making and contents of the 1983 election manifesto. The Clause 5 meeting was one of the shortest in the party’s history as Michael Foot, the party leader, forced it through in an hour or so. The radical document Labour’s Programme 1982, was taken on board. There was no alternative version drawn up in the leader’s office. This time the left was able to use the Wilson/Callaghan ruses against the right wing. Only hours remained if the manifesto was to be printed in time. Gerald Kaufman wished to reopen the issues but found little support. He called the document ‘the longest suicide note in history’. It was the party’s most left-wing manifesto in the post-war period. It promised that under a Labour government Britain would leave the EEC in the lifetime of the next parliament, move towards a non-nuclear defence policy, have a massive rise in public spending and a new price commission which could order price freezes and reductions. Assets privatised under the Conservatives would be taken back into 4

LABOUR PA RTY MANIFESTOS 1900–1997

public ownership with no guarantee of full compensation and the Conservative measures on the sale of council houses and trade union reforms would all be reversed. The party would also abolish the House of Lords. Ironically, at 22,000 words, the 1983 document was double the normal length of Labour manifestos. Under Neil Kinnock the parliamentary leadership had begun the process of clawing back much of the autonomy which it had lost as a result of the constitutional changes of the early 1980s. The 1987 manifesto was agreed with little fuss and marked a step back to the middle ground. The parliamentary party and the NEC joint policy committees had already agreed a series of policy statements before the Clause 5 meeting. Mr Kinnock took votes to cut through the discussion and show the strength of his support. On the left Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn wished a future Labour government to withdraw from NATO and close down American bases in Britain but were comprehensively outvoted. Compared with the 1983 programme there were now no proposals to abolish the House of Lords, withdraw from the European Community, close down American nuclear bases in Britain or take over private hospitals. The party still proposed a minimum wage and a substantial increase in old age pensions for couples, a wealth tax and restoration of some state ownership of British Gas and British Telecom. In 1992 the party moved even further to the metaphorical centre. A Kinnock-inspired policy review after the 1987 election defeat dropped the electorally unattractive policies of unilateral nuclear disarmament, restoring trade union legal immunities and extending public ownership. When Benn and Skinner tried to push matters to a vote at the Clause 5 meeting they were often in a minority of two. The manifesto now proposed no state ownership, referred to the European Community in more positive terms, and advocated constitutional reform. Tony Blair had no problems over policy. Indeed he insisted that a draft manifesto actually be put to a ballot of the members in October 1996, in spite of NEC objections that it would undermine the sovereignty of party conference. It also emulated the Contract With America of Newt Gingrich in the United States in 1994. Not surpris-ingly the party membership overwhelmingly approved the draft manifesto: it was a take it or leave it ballot. There were therefore few surprises when it was unveiled for the 1997 general election. At the heart of New Labour: Because Britain Deserves Better were five key pledges, including units in class sizes for under five year olds and in NHS waiting lists, and removing 250,000 under 25 year olds off benefit and into work. Crucially, it also promised to accept the Conservative public spending plans for the next two years and existing income tax rates. The themes of ‘newness’, ‘change’ and ‘modernisation’ were littered throughout the document.7 Changes over time It is no surprise that over a century Labour manifestos have changed in contrast and tone. The most obvious is the increase in length. The Labour manifestos of 1900 and 1906 were less than 200 words each, with many slogans. Contrast this with the 19,000 words of 1997. The increase in length becomes apparent in the 1920s, when Labour had become a potential party of government. It had to set out a broader range of policies and state how it intended to achieve them. The same trend is true of the Conservative and Liberal political parties. There was a four-fold increase in the average length of party manifestos from 1945–59 to 1983–97. 5

DENNIS KAVA NAGH

Labour manifestos also shifted from articulating the interests of a narrow group of supporters. Before 1918 it emphasised the claims of the poor, unemployed, trade unions and tenants. In the 1990s it speaks more of ‘the people’ and ‘families’. The early manifestos reflected the progressive ideas of the time in their hostility to war profiteers, opposition to imperialism and support for independence by the colonies and Ireland, of free trade and rejection of tariffs. From being an anti-establishment party it gradually spoke with more self-assurance. It had evolved from being a voice of protest to being a party of government. By the end of the century Labour wished to establish its credentials as a national party, one which represents all classes and groups in society. The 1997 manifesto claimed that the party had been transformed and it now offered ‘a new centre and centre-left politics’. In many areas there was a break with old Labour policies. Labour wanted people to be able to get on, and make a success of their lives— ‘We want more successful entrepreneurs, not fewer of them’. Yet in recent elections there had been echoes of the earlier sections. In 1959 Britain Belongs to You contrasted the businessmen and land speculators who had ‘never had it so good’ with the plight of the old, unemployed and sick. The 1974 manifestos promised a ‘a redistribution in favour of working people and their families’. The 1992 manifesto pledged ‘…to increase the happiness and prosperity of the poor’. Manifestos increasingly express consensual sentiments and are conveyed in warm words. Labour and Conservative manifestos now each promise prosperity, rising educational standards, opportunity for all, a more active democracy, a new deal for the elderly, maintaining Britain’s influence in the world and protecting Britain’s interests in the European Union. Some of the policies and even some of the wording have already been tested in focus groups with ordinary voters. A manifesto is designed to win votes or at least not to lose them. This means that it must avoid extreme policies. Labour’s left-wing manifestos in 1931 and 1983 were the prelude to its most disastrous election defeats in its history. But in both cases the party was bitterly divided and faced a formidable opposition, in the first a coalition led by the recent Labour leader and in the other Mrs Thatcher who was still basking in the successful campaign in the Falklands. On the other hand Labour’s cautious manifestos of 1970 and 1979 also led to election defeats. In those cases the electorate was voting less on a manifesto than on the record of the Labour government of the day, in the fourth on Labour’s division prior to the 1983 election. Manifestos play only a small part in helping to make up the minds of the voters. In comparison with the Labour exercise the Conservative process is more elitist and has more of a parliamentary, ‘in-group’ character. The party leader presents a clear focus of authority and the party structure presents fewer opportunities for policy disputes to be sustained. The party’s Research Department, in contrast to its Labour counterpart, is under the leader’s jurisdiction. Party conference is not a policy-making body and control is clearly in the hands of the leader and his senior colleagues. Some of Tony Blair’s critics on Labour’s left complain that he wishes to emulate a Tory leader’s control over the manifesto. Conclusion Labour manifestos remain a mix of substance and symbolism. Among the enduring functions of the manifesto we can point to the following: 6

LABOUR PA RTY MANIFESTOS 1900–1997

•

• •

•

•

•

It provides a hymn sheet for candidates to sing to at election time. Both the political opposition and the media are quick to exploit disagreements between candidates. A manifesto is an authoritative statement of what the party plans to do in government. For example, in 1997 Gordon Brown’s commitment to accept the existing government spending and tax plans was crucial in heading off accusations that Labour was still a tax and spend party. Adhering to the manifesto is also an important part of being a disciplined political party. It provides a source book for candidates to answer questions from pressure groups. It provides an answer to questions from the policy community. A more critical audience needs to be convinced that a party has thought through its policies on, say, educational standards, combating inflation, or the long-term care of the elderly. It can also strike a popular mood. Let Us Face the Future in 1945 promised social and economic reconstruction. Having won the war, the British people should enjoy the fruits of peace. In 1964 Let’s Go With Labour for the New Britain promised a modernisation of the economy. In 1997 Labour promised that it was a new party and economically safe. Note that all three manifestos followed lengthy periods in which Labour had been out of office. The theme of all three was time for change, the classic appeal of the opposition party. The launch of the manifesto guarantees a party massive publicity. A major party can expect its manifesto to be the lead item on the broadcast bulletins of the day and covered in the national press. In an age of scepticism about politicians, manifestos have to be careful in promising what can be delivered. In 1997 Labour had its five pledges and the Conservative had twenty-five pledges. A manifesto is, in speeches or documents however, only one part of the projected image of a political party. Oppositions invariably claim that a government has broken its promises. No manifesto can anticipate all future developments and events. Labour’s 1966 manifesto did not mention attempted reform of the trade unions or entry to the Common Market or devaluation of the pound.

On the other hand manifestos can also cause problems. In Labour, as we have noted, this is derived from the party’s history of factionalism and a structure which lends itself to disputes. If a party wins an election an ill-considered manifesto can return to haunt it. The trick is to present an attractive and popular document but one which is not too costly or exposes openings for the opposition party. The opposition parties, research institutes, and the media now devote great resources to analysing manifestos and costing them. The 1983 manifesto was thought to be so rash that Conservative officials bought over 3,000 copies and distributed them to business firms. Conservative posters at the same election showed the similarity between Labour and Conservative manifestos. In 1992 great damage was done by Conservative accusations that implementing Labour’s manifesto would cost over £30 billion and translating this sum into income tax increases for ordinary voters.

7

DENNIS KAVA NAGH

References 1 2 3 4 5

On this see Robert McKenzie, British Political Parties, London, 1964. R.H.S.Crossman, Inside View, London, 1972, p. 107. Crossman, p. 87. The Politics of Pensions, Eleanor Rathbone memorial lecture, 1972, p. 24. On this see Kavanagh, ‘The Politics of Manifestos’, Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 34, No. 1, Winter 1981. 6 D.Butler and M.Pinto-Duschinsky, The British General Election of 1970, London, 1971, p. 419. 7 D.Butler and D.Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1997, London, 1997.

8

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1900 Manifesto of the Labour Representation Committee

Date of Election Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

September 28-October 4 15 2 63,304 1.8%

Adequate Maintenance from National Funds for the Aged Poor Public Provision of Better Houses for the People Useful Work for the Unemployed Adequate Maintenance for Children No Compulsory Vaccination Public Control of the liquor Traffic Nationalisation of Land and Railways Relief of Local Rates by Grants from the National Exchequer Legislative Independence for all parts of the Empire Abolition of the Standing Army, and the Establishment of a Citizen Force The People to decide on Peace or War Graduated Income-Tax Shorter Parliaments. Adult Suffrage. Registration Reform. Payment of Members The object of these measures is to enable the people ultimately to obtain the Socialisation of the Means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange, to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire Community, and the Complete Emancipation of labour from the Domination of Capitalism and Landlordism, with the Establishment of Social and Economic Equality between the Sexes.

9

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1906 Manifesto of the Labour Representation Committee

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

January 12-February 7 Keir Hardie 51 30 329,748 5.9%

This election is to decide whether or not Labour is to be fairly represented in Parliament. The House of Commons is supposed to be the people’s House, and yet the people are not there. Landlords, employers, lawyers, brewers, and financiers are there in force. Why not Labour? The Trade Unions ask the same liberty as capital enjoys. They are refused. The aged poor are neglected. The slums remain; overcrowding continues, whilst the land goes to waste. Shopkeepers and traders are overburdened with rates and taxation, whilst the increasing land values, which should relieve the ratepayers, go to people who have not earned them. Wars are fought to make the rich richer, and underfed schoolchildren are still neglected. Chinese Labour is defended because it enriches the mine owners. The unemployed ask for work, the Government gave them a worthless Act, and now, when you are beginning to understand the causes of your poverty, the red herring of Protection is drawn across your path. Protection, as experience shows, is no remedy for poverty and unemployment. It serves to keep you from dealing with the land, housing, old age, and other social problems! You have it in your power to see that Parliament carries out your wishes. The Labour Representation-Executive appeals to you in the name of a million Trade Unionists to 10

1906

forget all the political differences which have kept you apart in the past, and vote for ....................(here was inserted the name of the Labour candidate).

11

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO JANUARY 1910 Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

January 14-February 9 Arthur Henderson 78 40 505,657 7.6%

A general election has been forced upon the country by the action of the House of Lords rejecting the Budget. The great question you are to decide is whether the Peers or the people are to rule this country. Each Session since the last general election important Bills, upon which the House of Commons had spent much time, have been mutilated or destroyed by the House of Lords, an irresponsible body which represents nothing but its own class interests. Not content with this, they now claim the right to decide what taxes shall be paid, upon whom they shall be levied, and for what purpose they shall be spent. They also claim to dictate the date at which Parliament shall be dissolved. The time has come to put an end to their power to override the will of the Commons. The country has allowed landowners to pocket millions of pounds every year in the shape of unearned increment, and yet they object to pay a small tax upon what, in justice, should belong to the State. They wish at all costs to preserve their power to plunder the people. The Labour party welcomes this opportunity to prove that the feudal age is past and that the people are no longer willing to live on the sufferance of the Lords. The issues you have to decide are simple. Our present system of land ownership has devastated our countryside, has imposed heavy burdens upon our industries, has cramped the development of our towns, and has crippled capital and impoverished labour. The Lords must go At this crisis the Labour party merits your support. It comes with great achievements and with a determination to do much more. In 1906 it pledged itself to restore to trade unions the same liberty as capital enjoyed during trade disputes. THAT PLEDGE HAS BEEN FULFILLED

It pledged itself to insist upon old-age pensions. 12

JANUARY 1910 THAT PLEDGE HAS BEEN FULFILLED

It pledged itself to help drastic housing reform. THAT PLEDGE HAS BEEN FULFILLED

It pledged itself to work for the relief of the burdens on persons of small or moderate means by the taxation of unearned incomes and land values. THAT PLEDGE HAS BEEN FULFILLED

It pledged itself to pay special attention to the unemployed, and to compel any and every Government to contribute to the solution of this problem. THAT PLEDGE HAS BEEN FULFILLED

The experience of the last four years has demonstrated the value of the Labour Party acting on independent lines. There still remain many problems to be solved. • • • •

The right to work has still to be won, but is now well within the range of practical politics. The Poor Law must be broken up and pauperism abolished. Old-age pensions must be extended and increased on their present non-contributory basis. Restrictions upon the franchise, including the sex bar, must be swept away.

The working and middle classes are still overburdened with rates and taxes. All these problems will demand the attention of an active, determined, and independent party, drawn from the people and in touch with the people. The Labour Party, therefore, appeals to you to renew your confidence in it, to add to its ranks, and increase its power. Vote for the Labour candidates. The land for the people. The wealth for the wealth producers. Down with privilege. Up with the people.

13

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO DECEMBER 1910 Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

December 2-December 19 G.Barnes 56 42 371,772 7.1%

You are again being asked to return a majority pledged to remove the House of Lords as a block in the working of our Constitution. Do it, and do it emphatically. The Lords must go But you ought not to allow this to cover up the questions in which you are specially interested. The iniquitous Osborne Judgement The iniquitous Osborne Judgement, which deprives organised Labour of the power to protect itself by political action, either locally or nationally, must be reversed. Do you think that you can protect yourselves if the doors of the House of Commons are closed to You? The Osborne Judgement is only the latest example of Judge-made Law, from which you have already suffered so much. Payment of members You should also support payment of Members which, with the reversal of the Osborne Judgement, is now the Charter of the Trade Unionist. The New Parliament will be called upon to deal with the right to work; sickness insurance; land reform; adult suffrage; Poor Law reform; factory inspection; medical treatment for school children. None of these subjects can be properly considered unless there is a strong and independent Party of Labour sitting in the House of Commons. 14

DECEMBER 1910

Let all petty differences go to the four winds. Now is the time to unite. The poverty of one is the poverty of all. Let those who suffer join to remove their suffering. It can be removed in no other way. The Labour Party appeals to you to stand by yourselves and vote for the Labour candidates.

15

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1918 Labour’s call to the people

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Saturday 14 December W.Adamson 388 63 2,385,472 22.2%

The Labour Party has left the Coalition, and is appealing to the men and women of the country with a programme that is a challenge to reaction. A peace of reconciliation Victory has been achieved, and Labour claims no mean share in its achievement. Not only have the workers supplied the vast majority of our soldiers and sailors, and sustained the burden of war at home; the democratic diplomacy which found expression in the War Aims of Labour has been one of the most powerful factors in winning the war, and must be the most powerful factor in the rebuilding of the world. The Peace which Labour demands is a Peace of International Co-operation. It declares absolutely against secret diplomacy and any form of economic war, and demands, as an essential part of the Peace Treaty, an International Labour Charter incorporated in the very structure of a League of Free Peoples. Hands off democracy! Labour welcomes the extension of liberty and democracy in Europe. It has warned the Coalition that opposition towards the young democracies of the Continent, and especially that intervention on the side of European reaction, will be disastrous. Labour demands the immediate withdrawal of the Allied forces from Russia. In the interest of worlddemocracy it stands for the immediate restoration of the Workers International. Freedom for Ireland The principles which Labour acclaims as Allied war aims it will apply to our own subject peoples. Freedom for Ireland and India it claims as democratic rights, and it will extend to all subject peoples the right of self-determination within the British Commonwealth of 16

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Free Nations. Labour’s appeal to the people is not a sectional appeal, unless an appeal which excludes only militarists, profiteers, and place-hunters be regarded as sectional. It includes all who are determined that the fruits of victory shall not be wasted in the interests of riches or reaction. Especially does Labour appeal to two sections of the community—to the soldiers and sailors who have fought the nation’s battles abroad, and to the men and women workers at home. No conscription The returning soldier or sailor will find himself once more a worker. His cause is one with that of the workers at home. Civil and industrial liberties have been largely suspended during the war; and soldier and worker want their liberties back now. The Labour Party stands for the destruction of all war-time measures in restraint of civil or industrial liberty, the repeal of the Defence of the Realm Act, the complete abolition of Conscription, and the release of all political prisoners. It stands for free citizenship, a Free Parliament, for Free Speech, and against the domination of the Press by sinister political influences. The land for the workers The Labour Party means to introduce large schemes of land reorganisation, and it is fully aware that this can only be done in the teeth of the most powerful vested interests. Land nationalisation is a vital necessity; the land is the people’s and must be developed so as to afford a high standard of life to a growing rural population not by subsidies or tariffs, but by scientific methods, and the freeing of the soil from landlordism and reaction. A million good houses Labour demands a substantial and permanent improvement in the housing of the whole people. At least a million new houses must be built at once at the State’s expense, and let at fair rents, and these houses must be fit for men and women to live in. Labour will press for a really comprehensive Public Health Act co-ordinating all health authorities, based on prevention rather than cure, and free from servile or inquisitorial features. It will also press for real public education, free and open to all, with maintenance scholarships without distinction of class, and for justice to the teachers, upon whom education finally depends. A levy on capital Labour will resist every attempt to place burdens upon the poor by indirect taxation. Labour is firm against tariffs and for Free Trade. The way to deal with unfair competition of imports made under sweated conditions is not by tariffs, but by international labour legislation, which will make sweating impossible. In paying the War Debt, Labour will place the burden on the broadest backs by a special tax capital. Those who have made fortunes out of the war must pay for the war; and Labour will insist upon heavily graduated direct taxation with a raising of the exemption limit. That is what Labour means by the Conscription of Wealth. 17

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Industrial democracy In industry, Labour demands the immediate nationalisation and democratic control of vital public services, such as mines, railways, shipping, armaments, and electric power; the fullest recognition and utmost extension of trade unionism, both in private employment and in the public services. It works for an altogether higher status for labour, which will mean also better pay and conditions. The national minimum is a first step, and with this must go the abolition of the menace of unemployment, the recognition of the universal right to work or maintenance, the legal limitation of hours of labour, and the drastic amendment of the Acts dealing with factory conditions, safety, and workmen’s compensation. The real Women’s Party Labour has always stood for equal rights for both sexes, when other parties were ignoring or persecuting women. In politics, the Labour Party stands for complete adult suffrage, in industry for equal pay and the organisation of men and women workers in one trade union movement. To the woman worker and to the wife of the working man or the soldier, Labour can make a confident appeal. Better pay and pensions for the workman or soldier mean better conditions for his wife and family. There must be no sex party: the Labour Party is the Women’s Party. Woman is the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the home. Labour stands with the Co-operative Movement in its insistence on reasonable food prices and fair distribution, and in its resistance to unfair taxation. The Labour Party will do all it can to aid co-operators in their struggle for a democratic food organisation and against unfair discrimination. Labour and Co-operation are a single movement, and in the coming battle with reaction they must fight side by side. Labour’s programme is comprehensive and constructive. It is designed to build a new world, and to build it by constitutional means. It is a programme of national and international justice, founded on permanent democratic principles. Even in an election as sinister as this, in which a large part of the nation’s youth is arbitrarily disfranchised by the Government, Labour confidently appeals to the country to support its programme of social justice and economic freedom.

18

LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1922 Labour’s call to the people

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Wednesday 15 November J.Clynes 411 142 4,241,383 29.5%

The Coalition has been destroyed and a Conservative Government has been formed to carry out a policy of naked reaction. Labour is appealing to the men and women of the country on a policy of International Peace and National Reconstruction. Peace and the League of Nations Revision of the Peace Treaties, which have caused greater international wrongs than they removed, is the first step to Peace. German reparations must be brought within Germany’s capacity to pay. Turkey’s relations with Europe and the Freedom of the Straits can only be dealt with in an International Conference attended by representatives of all countries concerned. Labour is working for an all-inclusive League of Nations with power to deal with international disputes by methods of judicial arbitration and conciliation. Through the League of Nations an agreement can be reached for a limitation of armaments, with general disarmament as the goal. Freedom in the Empire Labour advocates the recognition of the real independence of Egypt and self-government for India. Labour demands the prompt and cordial acceptance of the new constitution of the Irish Free State, and supports every effort to make Ireland united, prosperous, and contented.

19

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How to find the money Labour recognises the urgent need of lifting from the trade and industry of the country the deadweight burden of the National Debt. It therefore proposes the creation of a War Debt Redemption Fund, by a special graduated levy on fortunes exceeding £5,000. Labour will not penalise thrift, but will require some restitution from the profiteers out of the huge fortunes made in the war. To secure the necessary annual revenue, Labour advocates a system of taxation which will distribute the burden fairly according to ‘ability to pay’. It proposes an increase of the Death Duties on large estates and of the Super-Tax on large incomes; incomes below £250 a year would be exempt from taxation and there would be a reduction in the tax on all incomes under £500 a year, with a steeper graduation of the scale above that limit. Taxation of Land Values will secure to the community socially-created wealth now diverted to private hands. Labour is in principle opposed to indirect taxation. It stands for an untaxed break-fast table, and wishes to free trade and industry from all burdensome imposts, whether customs, excise, or stamp duties. No ‘penny-wise’ economy Labour attaches the utmost importance to economy in the public administration. But we do not believe in starving the public services, least of all do we countenance the notion of economics at the expense of the poor for the benefit of the rich. Reduced expenditure on the children’s education and health, the safety of the workers, and the well-being of mothers and babies is the costliest kind of waste. By a revision of the National Grants in Aid to local Authorities, we believe an equitable reduction of rates in all the severely pressed districts can be secured. Policy for unemployment Unemployment and low wages, caused largely by the policy of the Liberal and Unionist Government, have brought distress to the bulk of the working people. Labour’s policy is to provide work, or maintenance, for the unemployed by reopening trade with foreign countries, by the national organisation of production, and by a large programme of necessary and useful public works. Agriculture The plight of Agriculture can only be dealt with by a bold policy of reorganisation. Those who produce the nation’s food must not go hungry. Labour proposes to require the landlords to sacrifice rents rather than to ask the farm-workers to accept starvation wages. We advocate the restoration of the Agricultural Wages Board to enforce an adequate national wage standard. 20

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We propose also the establishment of representative Councils of Agriculture to promote all-round improvements in the use of the land, the reduction of transport charges, the development of co-operative methods, and the fostering of rural industries. Revision of the Game Laws, improved school facilities, more and better cottages, increased hospital accommodation, and fuller opportunities of recreation are included in Labour’s rural policy. Industrial reorganisation Labour is resolved to change as speedily as possible by constructive measures the social and economic system which confers unfair privileges on the few, and undeserved hardship on the many. The working of this system has brought unemployment and reduced wages to the workers, suffering and starvation to their families, loss of opportunities for full mental and physical development to their children, anxiety and worry to the salaried and professional workers and small traders. Labour means to bring about a more equitable distribution of the wealth produced by the common effort of the workers by hand and brain. Our industrial policy involves the prompt Nationalisation of Mines, as recommended by the Sankey Commission, and the Nationalisation of Railways, with an increased share of control for the workers, an improved Workmen’s Compensation Act, and other measures for the protection of the workpeople. We oppose all attempts to interfere with the Trade Boards. Houses and health Our social programme includes a national scheme of housing which will end the scandal of a homeless population and replace the slums by decent homes. More generous provision for the Old Age Pensioners has been one of Labour’s constant demands, and is one we shall continue to press. We shall also urge the removal of the present unjust deductions from Old Age Pensions where Friendly Society or Trade Union benefits or small savings exist, whereby thrift is at present penalised. We stand for the complete supersession of the Poor Law and the institution of a system of Pensions for Widowed Mothers. Labour will strive to stop the continued attempts now being made to cut off or cut down the ex-Service men’s pensions; it demands the conversion of conditional into permanent pensions, and it will resist all attempts to transfer the mentally or physically infirm to the Poor Law. In our view, the rule to be applied by the Pensions Ministry throughout its administration should be, ‘Fit for service, fit for pension’. More power to democracy The Labour Party has always declared its opposition to measures which increase the power of the wealthier classes to frustrate the people’s will. The Parliament Act must stand, and there must be no restoration of the Lords’ veto. Our policy is to remove all existing disabilities affecting women as citizens, voters, and workers. Adult suffrage, reform of Parliamentary procedure, and control of Ministers by the House of Commons are included in our programme to make the people’s will effective 21

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by constitutional means. In accordance with these democratic principles Labour must stand for the control of the Liquor Traffic according to the people’s will. Higher standard of life The task of government is to raise the standard of life and labour for those whose work of hand and brain increases the nation’s wealth. Parliaments have in the past been too much concerned to protect the privileges and extend the power of the rich. Labour wants to increase the happiness and prosperity of the poor, by better housing, better schooling, better living, better health, more leisure, more freedom, more opportunities for enjoying the good things of life. We shall defend the school as we defend the home, and we aim at providing the rising generation with full protection from harmful and degrading moral and social conditions. Against revolution Labour’s programme is the best bulwark against violent upheaval and class wars. Democratic government can be made effective in this country without bloodshed or violence. Labour’s policy is to bring about a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth by constitutional means. This is neither Bolshevism nor Communism, but common sense and justice. This is Labour’s alternative to Reaction and Revolution.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1923 Labour’s appeal to the nation

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 6 December Ramsay MacDonald 422 191 4,438,508 30.5%

After a year of barren effort, the Conservative Government has admitted its inability to cope with the problem of Unemployment, and is seeking to cover up its failure by putting the nation to the trouble and expense of an election on the Tariff issue. Tariffs no remedy The Labour Party challenges the Tariff policy and the whole conception of economic relations underlying it. Tariffs are not a remedy for Unemployment. They are an impediment to the free interchange of goods and services upon which civilised society rests. They foster a spirit of profiteering, materialism and selfishness, poison the life of nations, lead to corruption in politics, promote trusts and monopolies, and impoverish the people. They perpetuate inequalities in the distribution of the world’s wealth won by the labour of hands and brain. These inequalities the Labour Party means to remove. ‘Work or maintenance’ Unemployment is a recurrent feature of the existing economic system, common to every industrialised country, irrespective of whether it has Protection or Free Trade. The Labour Party alone has a positive remedy for it. We denounce as wholly inadequate and belated the programme of winter work produced by the Government, which offers the prospect of employment for only a fraction of the unemployed in a few industries; and in particular provides no relief for women and young persons. Labour’s unemployment programme The Labour Party has urged the immediate adoption of national schemes of productive work, with adequate maintenance for those who cannot obtain employment to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families. The flow of young workers from the 23

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schools must be regulated to relieve the pressure on the labour market, and full educational training, with maintenance, must be provided for the young people who are now exposed to the perils and temptations of the streets. The Labour Programme of National Work includes the establishment of a National System of Electrical Power Supply, the development of Transport by road, rail and canal, and the improvement of national resources by Land Drainage, Reclamation, Afforestation, Town Planning, and Housing Schemes. These not only provide a remedy for the present distress, but are also investments for the future. Help for agriculture Agriculture, as the largest and most essential of the nation’s industries, calls for special measures to restore its prosperity and to give the land workers a living wage. The Labour Policy is one that will develop Agriculture and raise the standard of rural life by establishing machinery for regulating wages with an assured minimum, providing Credit and State Insurance facilities for Farmers and Smallholders, promoting and assisting Co-operative Methods in Production and Distribution, so as to help stabilise prices, and make the fullest use of the results of research. The Land The Labour Party proposes to restore to the people their lost rights in the Land, including Minerals, and to that end will work for re-equipping the Land Valuation Department, securing to the community the economic rent of land, and facilitating the acquisition of land for public use. Peace among the nations Labour’s vision of an ordered world embraces the nations now torn with enmity and strife. It stands, therefore, for a policy of International Co-operation through a strengthened and enlarged League of Nations; the settlement of disputes by conciliation and judicial arbitration; the immediate calling by the British Government of an International Conference (including Germany on terms of equality) to deal with the Revision of the Versailles Treaty, especially Reparations and Debts; and the resumption of free economic and diplomatic relations with Russia. This will pave the way for Disarmament, the only security for the nations. Relief for the taxpayer Labour condemns the failure of the Government to take steps to reduce the deadweight War Debt. No effective reform of the National Finances can be attempted until the steady drain of a million pounds a day in interest is stopped. Treasury experts, in evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, expressed their view that a Tax on War Fortunes could be levied, and have therefore admitted both the principle and its practicability. A labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, in consultation with Treasury experts, would at once work out a scheme 24

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to impose a non-recurring, graduated War Debt Redemption levy on all individual fortunes in excess of £5,000, to be devoted solely to the reduction of the Debt. The saving thus effected, with reduction of expenditure on armaments, other sane economies, and the increased revenue derived from Taxation of Land Values, would make it possible to reduce the burden of Income Tax, abolish not only the Food Duties, but also the Entertainments Tax and the Corporation Profits Tax, as well as provide money for necessary Social Services. The Commonwealth of Co-operative Service The Labour Party is working for the creation of a Commonwealth of Co-operative Service. It believes that so far only a beginning has been made in the scientific organisation of industry. It will apply in a practical spirit the principle of Public Ownership and Control to the Mines, the Railway Service and the Electrical Power Stations, and the development of Municipal Services. It will make work safe for the worker by stricter Inspection of Workplaces, and more effective measures against Accidents and Industrial Diseases. It will provide fuller Compensation for the Workers and improve the Standard of Hours. The aged, the widows, the children Labour Policy is directed to the creation of a humane and civilised society. When Labour rules it will take care that little children shall not needlessly die; it will give to every child equality of opportunity in Education; it will make generous provision for the aged people, the widowed mothers, the sick and disabled citizens. It will abolish the slums, promptly build an adequate supply of decent homes and resist decontrol till the shortage is satisfied. It will place the Drink Traffic under popular control. Ex-service men’s pensions In accordance with its past actions inside and outside Parliament, the Labour Party will do its utmost to see that the Ex-Service men and their dependants have fair play. Equal rights Labour stands for equality between men and women: equal political and legal rights, equal rights and privileges in parenthood, equal pay for equal work. Labour’s practical idealism The Labour Party submits to the men and women of the country its full programme. It urges them to refuse to make this General Election a wretched partisan squabble about mean and huckstering policies. It appeals to all citizens to take a generous and courageous stand for right and justice, to believe in the possibility of building up a sane and ordered society, to oppose the squalid materialism that dominates the world 25

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today, and to hold out their hands in friendship and good-will to the struggling people everywhere who want only freedom, security and a happier life.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1924 Labour’s appeal to the people

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Wednesday 29 October Ramsay MacDonald 512 151 5,489,077 33%

The Labour Government, defeated in the House of Commons by a partisan combination of Liberals and Tories, appeals to the People. Its work for peace The supreme need of this country, as of the whole world, is peace among the nations, and the restoration of industry and commerce. For this the Labour Government has continuously worked; and it has already achieved much. It has insisted on maintaining, in the spirit as in the letter, the honourable binding Treaty with the Irish Free State, no less than the agreement with the Northern Province. It has maintained, and even strengthened the ties of sentiment with the Dominions upon which, rather than upon either force or any Imperialism, the very existence of the British Commonwealth of Nations depends. The embittered relations between France and Germany left by the disastrous tangles of preceding Governments have been improved, and cordial relations established between this country and France. Important steps have been taken at Geneva towards arbitration, security and general disarmament. The Labour Government has refused to exclude from this general pacification the Russian people, with whom it is essential to resume our trade in the interests of our unemployed and the country as a whole. The Treaties with Russia, now awaiting ratification, open up for our fishing industry thousands of square miles of additional fishing ground, and provide for new outlets for our manufactures and our coal. When compensation has been secured to British subjects for their losses in Russia, a third Treaty will be negotiated providing for the raising (from private financiers) by Russia of a loan the interest and sinking fund charges on which shall be guaranteed by Great Britain. It is laid down in Article 12 of the General Treaty that ‘the amount, terms and conditions of the said loan and the purposes to which it shall be applied,’ shall be defined in the future Treaty referred to; 27

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and this Treaty ‘will not come into force until the necessary Parliamentary authority for the guarantee of the said loan has been given.’ Will you allow this work for peace and prosperity to be stopped? Its work for housing In the face of much opposition, the Labour Government has passed into law the Great Housing Charter, the statute that enabled the Local Authorities and the Building Industry to engage in a fifteen years’ uninterrupted building programme, with such generous financial assistance as will provide: 1 2 3

Houses to let at low rents; A separated dwelling for every family in the land; A continuous policy of slum clearance and an ending of overcrowding.

Meanwhile, the Rent Restriction Acts (which practically expire next year) have to be continued and amended; and the Bill to prevent profiteering in building materials has still to be passed. It depends on the result of the Election whether this great Housing Policy will be carried out. The first Labour budget In Finance, the Labour Government has achieved a marked success. Whilst subjecting to the most competent examination its own and all other schemes for dealing with the War Debt, and the terrible burden upon industry of a tribute of £1,000,000 per day, the Labour Government has swept away no less than £30,000,000 a year of taxes on the people’s food (just six times as much in eight months as the Liberal Government did in eight years). The Labour Government has abolished the irritating Inhabited House Duty, which no other Government had dared to do, and has taken the first step towards the Abolition of the Entertainment Tax. It has found means to change the whole spirit of the administration of the War Pensions Ministry, to increase in many thousands of cases the pittance that the preceding Governments had allotted to those Ex-Service Men who had suffered in the War, and to the parents and dependants of those who have fallen. Above all, the Labour Government has found means to stop the contemptible deduction from the weekly ten shillings of many thousands of Old-Age Pensioners, which the Liberal Government instituted, and the Unionist Government persisted in maintaining; whilst nearly 200,000 more old people, to whom the pension has been hitherto denied, have been admitted to the pension fold. Is it not because the Liberals and Unionists fear the Second Labour Budget that an excuse has been found for giving the Labour Government no further chance? What it has done for education Labour’s intention to ‘give every child equality of opportunity in education’ has begun to be fulfilled in the drastic change of the policy of the preceding Government. The Labour Government has been insisting on smaller classes, an increase in the number of fully-qualified teachers, new schools, maintenance for the poorer children, more free places in Secondary Schools and Scholarships to the University: all practical steps towards the ideal of securing to all children the same chance of advanced education as the children of the rich. The 28

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Labour Government has been steadily working towards progressively higher qualifications for teachers; and, consequently, of no niggardly treatment of teachers’ salaries. Shall this policy now be reversed? Labour and the countryside The Labour Government has consistently acted on the conviction that Agricultural Prosperity is vital to the nation. It has helped the farmers by loans to their Co-operative enterprises, by assistance to their Credit Societies, by increased grants for Agricultural Education and Research. It has offered a substantial grant for the development of the Sugar Beet Industry in this country. It has included exceptional provision, on a generous scale, for a vast increase of cottages in the rural areas at low rents, which will lessen the evil of the tied-cottage system. It has, after great difficulty and opposition from both the other Parties, got District Wages Committees and an Agricultural Wages Board once more set up by law, in the hope of obtaining and maintaining a decent Standard of Life for the labourers. Unemployment Apart from the necessary transformation of the whole industrial system, the only practicable way of dealing satisfactorily with Unemployment is the working out of a constructive policy of National Development, along with the restoration, through pacification, of the production and trade of other nations. It is along these lines that the Labour Government has made progress. Meanwhile the Government has stimulated useful enterprises and helped works of further relief in all directions. During the past nine months, in the face of continued depression in Textile, Engineering, Shipbuilding and other industries, the number of unemployed has been reduced by considerably over 100,000, and, indeed, by many more when allowance is made for the increased number of workers brought on to the live register as a result of the extension of the Insurance Act, and who had not previously been recorded as unemployed. The great works, notably in the way of building, involving furnishing, etc., and in the way of iron and steel and engineering for the electrical and mining developments, should provide work for a much larger proportion of the unemployed. For the others, Labour’s slogan still remains ‘Work or Maintenance’. By the drastic revision of the Unemployment Insurance Acts last August, (1) the ‘gap’ has been abolished and the Benefits made continuous: (2) the arbitrary refusals of Benefit by the preceding Governments to something like one-fifth of the claimants have been stopped; (3) the weekly amount has been increased by about 25 per cent. The increased financial assistance provided by the Labour Government in aid of approved schemes of work and the improvements in the Unemployment Insurance Acts have together substantially relieved the heavy burdens previously borne by Local Authorities. What the Liberals and Tories have combined to stop All the Labour Government’s other Bills before Parliament, great or small, are now summarily brought to an end. The great Factory Acts Amendment Bill, the Bill to prevent Profiteering in Building Materials, the Forty-Eight Hours (Washington Convention) Bill, the Bill to 29

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secure Wages for Shipwrecked Seamen, the Bill to prevent Frauds in the Sale of Bread, and various others, are stopped. But besides these Bills actually introduced, the work for the next Session has been going on steadily. The measures still in one or other stage of preparation for the next twelve months include proposals for: •

• •

•

•

•

The reorganisation of the whole Mining Industry (in conjunction with By-Products and Power Stations), on the lines of National Ownership, equitable treatment for all interests concerned, security both for the taxpayer and the consumer, wages under properly-arrived at National Agreements, and participation in administration, both national and local, by the various grades and sections of those engaged in the industry. The continuance and amendment of the Rent Restriction Acts with a view to providing adequate protection for tenants. A drastic dealing with the whole Poor Law System, so as to secure the economy and efficiency of unified administration in each locality, and complete and honourable provision for the sick and infirm, the aged, the children and the ablebodied unemployed apart from the workhouse and pauperism. The Taxation of Land Values and such a dealing with Agricultural Land as will secure its maximum productivity, and with urban land and building sites as would protect the occupying tenants and secure its best use. The development of the present chaotic Electrical Generating Stations on the lines of a National System, uniformly standardised with transmission lines linking up town and country, with the primary object of providing cheap power for industry— instead of profit for shareholders—and cheap and convenient light for householders everywhere. With regard to the measures to be taken in the national interest against the evils and burdens connected with the administration of the Licensing Laws, the first step, it is clear, in the present state of the controversy, is a full and impartial inquiry by a Royal Commission. This the Labour Government had arranged to begin next Spring.

In addition to these measures the following proposals are being considered and prepared for: •

•

•

A systematic reorganisation, in the national interest and on terms fair to all concerned, of the whole system of Transport, including the more rapid development of an entirely Unified Railway and Canal System in National Ownership and under exclusively Public Control, with fuller use of electric power and in more intimate connection not only with the ports, but also with the increasing road motor service. Without greater and cheaper transport facilities, the British producers of every kind will find it ever harder to compete with their rivals. The Prevention of Profiteering and Exploitation by Rings, Trusts and Monopolies, not merely in building materials, but also in foodstuffs and household necessities, in conjunction with concerted arrangements with the Dominions and other Governments for bulk importing and systematically organised distribution from port to consumer, as a means towards establishing reasonable and stable prices. A substantial improvement of the Workmen’s Compensation Acts, which the Tory Government denied to injured workers. 30

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•

•

The Prevention of Excessive Hours of Labour in the distributive trade, in the mercantile marine, and in other occupations (including those of women) omitted from the Washington Eight-Hours Convention: together with proposals for such a further development of the system of Trade Boards as will prevent the still existing evils of Sweating. Whether any of these projects can be proceeded with, and which of them, and to what extent, depends on the electors’ response to the present appeal. A word to the women

Is it nothing to you that the Labour Government’s successful work for Peace, its great programme of Housebuilding, its sweeping reduction in the Food Taxes, its forward policy for the Children’s Schooling, should be interrupted, and that the Bill giving Votes for Women at 21 on the same terms as men should be killed? But there is more to be said. During the past few months the detailed working out of the Labour Government’s measure giving Pensions for Widowed Mothers with Children has reached an advanced stage. In the very next Session it was to have been laid before Parliament. This is what the Liberals and Tories have combined to stop. It depends on this Election whether the Labour Government can secure this great reform. The spirit that giveth life It is along such lines as those marked out in this Appeal, and in the spirit of public service herein indicated, that the Labour Party, in conformity with its consistent public declarations, would work in Parliament towards the transformation, gradual as it must be, of the existing economic and industrial system into a genuine Commonwealth of Labour. We know the facts. We realise the difficulties. The path to our goal is long and narrow and sometimes so hard to travel that men and women faint by the way. But we have faith in humanity. We refuse to believe that there is nothing to be done but conserve the present order, which is disorder; or that the misery, the demoralisation and the ruin that it causes to innocent men and women and children can be remedied by the perpetual repetition of the abstract principles of Individualism. We appeal to the People to support us in our steadfast march—taking each step only after careful examination, making sure of each advance as we go, and using each success as the beginning of further achievements towards a really Socialist Commonwealth, in which there shall at least be opportunity for Good Will to conquer Hate and Strife, and for Brotherhood, if not to supersede Greed, at least to set due bounds to that competition which leads only to loss and death.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1929 Labour’s appeal to the nation

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 30 May Ramsay MacDonald 571 288 8,389,512 37.1%

The long-awaited opportunity has now come for the Nation to give its verdict on the present Government. By its inaction during four critical years it has multiplied our difficulties and increased our dangers. Unemployment is more acute than when Labour left office. International relations are worse. Vast areas of the country are derelict. The posters on our hoard-ings announcing the grim truth that ‘a million of our fellow countrymen are needing food and clothing’ tell how the Government has failed. In the face of such a state of things this Tory Government has sat supinely with folded arms without a policy, without a vision, waiting for Providence or charity to do its work. For nine months the Government watched the paralysing struggle in the Coal Industry. It aided and abetted the mine owners when they locked out the men, and provoked the industrial unrest that led to the General Strike, for which the Government was mainly responsible. The Government’s further record is that it has helped its friends by remissions of taxation, whilst it has robbed the funds of the workers’ National Health Insurance Societies, reduced Unemployment Benefits, and thrown thousands of workless men and women on to the Poor law. Tories tax the poor The Tory Government has added £38,000,000 to indirect taxation, which is an increased burden on the wage-earners, shop-keepers and lower middle classes. In its only Budget the Labour Government reduced the Food Taxes by £25,000,000. Now that the Election is in sight the Tory Chancellor has repealed what was left of the Tea Duty but has retained the duties on sugar, coffee and cocoa and other foods. This remission only amounts to one-sixth of the additional indirect taxation he has added in the last four years. Whilst every economic influence has been tending to reduce the cost of living the Government’s policy has been to put obstacles in the way. It means to continue 32

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this policy. The Tory plan for solving Unemployment and improving trade—called ‘Safeguarding’ was denounced by the Prime Minister in 1923 as ‘pottering along’. He was right, as experience shows. ‘Safeguarded’ countries have unemployment, low wages and sweating, poverty, generally corrupt politics, and high costs of living. The old bogey In order to hide their record of incompetence and reaction, Tory leaders are trying to frighten the electors with horrifying pictures of the disasters which would come upon the country if a Labour Government were returned. It was such scaremongering tactics as this which gave the Tories a majority at the last Election. We do not believe that the voters will be misled a second time by such discreditable deception. We warn the electors against the misrepresentations of Socialism and the aims and Policy of the Labour Party, which are already pouring from our opponents. The Labour Party is neither Bolshevik nor Communist. It is opposed to force, revolution and confiscation as means of establishing the New Social Order. It believes in ordered progress and in democratic methods. Unemployment The Labour Party gives an unqualified pledge to deal immediately and practically with this question. Its record on Unemployment is a guarantee that this pledge will be kept. Only by the unceasing advocacy of Labour have the claims of the Unemployed been forced to the forefront of political issues in the teeth of the opposition and neglect of the Liberal and Tory Parties. When the Labour Government was in office it announced to Parliament schemes of a comprehensive and far-reaching character which it had already begun to put into effect. Immediately afterwards both Parties united and defeated the Government! They could not tolerate its continued success. Labour’s plans Our schemes for dealing with Unemployment have been before the country for years before the Liberal Party—in the hope of reviving its declining fortunes—appropriated some of them and proclaimed them as original. They are three-fold in character. 1 National Development and Trade Prosperity Labour will undertake: • • • • •

Housing and Slum Clearance; Land Drainage and Reclamation; Electrification; The Reorganisation of Railways and Transport; New Roads and Road and Bridge Improvements; 33

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• •

Afforestation associated with Small Holdings; Training and assistance by agreements with the Dominions for those who wish to try their fortunes in new lands.

The most important attack upon Unemployment is to restore prosperity to the depressed industries, and develop our country. This programme will not only provide employment for large numbers of those who are now out of work, but its reaction on other industries will be immediate and beneficial. There is a great market at home which can be developed by increasing the purchasing power of the working classes. There is a greater market overseas, especially in India and the Crown Colonies, where there are enormous populations with a very low standard of living and vast undeveloped resources. A Labour Government will set to work at once by using Export Credits and Trade Facilities Guarantees, to stimulate the depressed export trades of Iron and Steel, Engineering, and Textile Manufactures. Shipbuilding and Shipping will immediately be benefited by an increase of foreign trade, and the improved employment in these industries will be a great addition to the purchasing power in the home market. 2

Maintenance

The Labour Party’s plan for dealing with Unemployment is to provide work; but pending the absorption of the unemployed in regular occupations it will take steps to relieve the present distress. It will also amend the Unemployment Insurance Act so as to afford more generous maintenance for the unemployed, and will remove those qualifications which deprive them of payments to which they are entitled. 3

The Young and the Old

A Labour Government would also relieve the congestion in the labour market. Every year about 400,000 young persons, inadequately educated and inadequately trained, are brought into the labour market; while at the other end there are thousands of aged persons now compelled by poverty to struggle for employment who would be willing to retire if proper provision were made for them. The Party would extend the school age to fifteen with the necessary Maintenance Grants and provide Adequate Pensions for Aged Workers. The Coal Industry The state of the Coal Mining Industry is so tragic that measures would be immediately undertaken to alleviate the distress in the coal fields, organise the industry from top to bottom both on its productive and marketing sides, and shorten the hours of labour. A Labour majority would Nationalise the Mines and Minerals as the only condition for satisfactory working. It would develop the scientific utilisation of coal and its valuable by-products, now largely wasted.

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Housing The Labour Party is the Party of the Workers’ Home. In 1924, it revived the policy of building Houses to be let and not sold. It will return to that policy until there are enough Houses let at Working-class Rents. It will deal drastically with the Slum disgrace and will provide the necessary money grants for both purposes. In the meantime it will protect tenants by continuing the Rent Restriction Acts. International peace Peace is one of the greatest issues of the Election. The Labour Government found Europe distracted by hostility and left it in a peaceful frame of mind. The Party’s record when in office entitles it to the confidence of all lovers of peace. It desires to resume its work and to regain for this country the proud position it held in 1924. The Tory Government has hampered Disarmament, and systematically obstructed the work of the League of Nations and of the International Labour Office. Labour’s policy is precisely the opposite. It will establish the largest possible measure of political and economic co-operation amongst the nations, and give the fullest and most cordial support to the League and the International Labour Office. Labour stands for Arbitration and Disarmament. It will accept the general Act of Arbitration, Conciliation and Judicial Settlement approved by the League. A drastic reduction of armaments is long overdue. Labour welcomes the initiative of the United States. It will press for the speedy completion of the Disarmament Treaty and the convocation of a General Disarmament Conference. Labour will re-establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Russia. Labour and agriculture Labour is deeply concerned about Agriculture which, having been a plaything of both the older Parties, is now facing very critical times both for farmers and workers. An Agricultural Policy must be co-ordinated with a Town Policy. Farming must be made to pay. Landlordism has ceased to be able to perform its functions and it cannot be allowed to go on starving the Land of capital and the countryside of cultivation and people, and generally obstructing national need and development. The Land must therefore pass under Public Control. Meanwhile, Farmers should have Security of Tenure; Fair Rents; Capital and Credit Assistance; A system of Organised Marketing; and Stability in the Prices of main crops and products. Workers should have a Minimum Wage; Unemployment Insurance; Easier Access to Holdings; and Better and Untied Cottages. A Labour Government would work with representatives of all the interests concerned to gain these objects. Education The Labour Party has always been committed to securing Equal Educational Opportunities for every child. It will raise the school-leaving age to fifteen with the requisite Maintenance Grants and at once develop facilities for Free Secondary 35

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Education. Labour will open the road, to whoever is able to take it, from the Nursery School to the University. Labour’s taxation policy The Party stands for a system of Taxation which will distribute the burden fairly according to ‘ability to pay’. It will abolish Taxes on Food and other necessaries, and provide what revenue is needed by Death Duties on large estates and by graduating the Income Tax and Sur-Tax with a view to relieving the smaller, while increasing the contribution from the larger, incomes. The Labour Party will carry still further the differentiation between ‘earned’ and ‘unearned’ incomes. Taxation of land values The Party will deal drastically with the scandal of the appropriation of Land Values by private landowners. It will take steps to secure for the community the increased value of land which is created by industry and the expenditure of public money. Extension and improvement of pensions The grave injustices of the existing Widows’, Orphans’ and Old Age Pensions Acts would be immediately remedied, and as soon as the urgent legislation to deal with Unemployment had been carried through, a comprehensive co-ordination and extension of all the Pensions Schemes would be undertaken so as to give the opportunity to many classes of persons now excluded to come in. The limit of seven years which has meant so much injustice to ex-Service Men will be removed, so that cases may still be considered. Industrial and domestic Among the other measures which a Labour Government would enact are the Factories Bill, the Ratification of the Washington Eight Hours’ Convention, and the amendment of the Workmen’s Compensation Acts and the Trade Union Law. It will also, as promised, appoint Committees of Inquiry into the causes of depression in the Cotton and Iron and Steel Industries with a view to their reorganisation. It would take steps to prevent the Profiteering in Food, and in Building Materials, and would watch the operations of Trusts and Combines, so that combinations, which enhance prices unreasonably or refuse to supply or to sell to persons who will not deal exclusively with them, may be made subject to law. It would support the creation of separate legislative assemblies in Scotland, Wales and England, with autonomous powers in matters of local concern. In order to prepare the way for the Reform of the licensing Laws, the first necessary step is a full and impartial inquiry, which a Labour Government would institute at once by Royal Commission.

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An appeal to the women The Labour Party makes its appeal to the Women Voters with the fullest confidence. It was advocating the cause of Equal Citizenship when the Tory and Liberal Parties were either utterly hostile or hopelessly divided on the question. Although Equal Fran-chise has been secured after a protracted struggle, the fight for women’s emancipation is not yet finished. There are other anomalies and injustices—legal, social and economic —especially affecting women and children which must be dealt with. The Labour Party recognises that the burden of social injustice and economic exploitation fails with special severity on women, and that women are very seriously affected by Unemployment, Low Wages, Bad Housing and by any restriction of the necessary public expenditure on Education and on the Health and Welfare of Mothers and Children. The prevention of Maternal Mortality will be an immediate concern of a Labour Government. The Labour Party in its legislative and administrative policy would seek to pursue and apply the principle of equal treatment for men and women. Moreover, there is the important question of universal peace, vital to all, which requires to be organised on a permanent basis so as to terminate for ever the futility of a civilised country squandering human life and wasting its national resources in war. No pledges we cannot fulfil We shall not deceive the people by saying that the task of National and Social Reconstruction is easy, or that it can be accomplished in a day or a year. But the Labour Party does pledge itself to undertake this great work with energy and enthusiasm, and it confidently believes that, if it has a majority, in the full lifetime of a Parliament great advance in industrial prosperity, in social wellbeing, and in a more just distribution of the fruits of labour, can be made. The choice of the electors At this Election, voters have to choose not only the representatives of constituencies, but a Government. A Labour Government is the only alternative to the present Tory Government. The Liberal Party, as its leaders admit, can be no more than a small minority in the new Parliament. The electors who desire to save the country from the disaster of continued Tory rule must therefore vote for Labour Candidates. Wanted! A majority! Along this path Labour will advance. The Labour Programme of peaceful but determined National Development and Reconstruction leading towards the Socialist and Co-operative Commonwealth is the only alternative to Reaction and Revolution. On this Programme Labour asks for the support of men and women of good will of all classes. Labour wants to make its contribution to the removal of poverty and the injustices which today are diseases in 37

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society. Both the other Parties have been tried and have failed. The state of the country is the monument of their failure. We pledge ourselves to give unsparingly the best we can of our energy, experience and knowledge, to the great task of making Britain a happier and more contented land, and establishing peace in the world.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1931 Labour’s call to action: the nation’s opportunity

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Tuesday 27 October Arthur Henderson 515 52 6,649,630 30.6%

A decisive opportunity is given to the nation to reconstruct the foundations of its life. The Capitalist system has broken down even in those countries where its authority was thought to be most secure. It fails to give employment to many millions of willing workers. It accumulates vast stocks of commodities which it is unable to distribute. To re-establish its position, it now demands from the unemployed and the wage-earner the surrender of their hard-won standard of life; and it seeks to force the Government of this country to restrict or abandon those social services which the Labour Party believes to be an essential condition of a democratic society. False front of ‘unity’ The Labour Government was sacrificed to the clamour of Bankers and Financiers. Because it placed the needs of the workers before the demands of the rich, a so-called ‘National’ Government was installed in its place to wrest from Parliament the authority to satisfy them. The policy of that Government has proved a disastrous failure. Formed to maintain that gold standard which it declared in panic-stricken accents to be the indispensable condition of national safety, within less than three weeks it aban-doned that standard with the insolent explanation that industry would benefit by the change. Having failed completely in its original object, it now seeks from the electorate a mandate for the impossible task of rebuilding Capitalism. Composed of men who differ profoundly on all the main principles of public policy, unable to agree upon any of the essential methods by which to restore prosperity to the nation, this ill-assorted association of life-long antagonists seeks a blank cheque from the people for purposes it is unable to define. Acutely 39

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divided within itself; headed by men who are now acting in direct contradiction to their own previous convictions, certain, in the near future, to split into fragments, it makes the shameless pretence of being the instrument of national unity. The Labour Party is confident that the country will not be deceived by claims so arrogant and so dishonest. We must plan or perish The Labour Party seeks a majority from the electorate upon the basis of a coherent and definite programme. It reaffirms its conviction that Socialism provides the only solution for the evils resulting from unregulated competition and the domination of vested interests. It presses for the extension of publicly-owned industries and services operated solely in the interests of the people. It works for the substitution of co-ordinated planning for the anarchy of individualistic enterprise. Labour insists that we must plan our civilisation or perish. Labour government’s record The Labour Party reaffirms its faith in the considered principles of its programme of 1929 laid down in Labour and the Nation. Despite the unexampled difficulties confronted by the Party when, as a Minority Government, and in the face of a world economic crisis, it took office two years ago, it made a substantial beginning in translating that programme into Acts of Parliament. Its policy of national development resulted not only in economic public works of unprecedented magnitude, but also in strenuous attempts, by legislation and otherwise, to improve the efficiency of our agricultural, transport, coal and other chief industries. The Labour Government made important improvements in Unemployment Insurance and the consequent transfer of heavy burdens from the Poor Law. There were wide extensions of housing and pensions legislation, and the vigorous promotion of education and the health services. In the international field Labour’s record was preeminent. This record was achieved under the intolerable restrictions of its minority position in the House of Commons. Frustrated by political intrigues and the class-conscious hostility of the House of Lords and undermined by the organised pressure of business interests, it now asks for power to press forward rapidly to the fulfilment of its programme. In that endeavour it will tolerate no opposition from the House of Lords to the considered mandate of the People; and it will seek such emergency powers as are necessary to the full attainment of its objectives. Socialist reconstruction imperative The Labour Party recognises that the present situation calls for bold and rapid action. The decay of capitalist civilisation brooks no delay. Measures of Socialist reconstruction must be vigorously pressed forward. That is the task to which Labour will lay its hand. 40

1931

The banking system The Labour Party is convinced, in the light particularly of experience since 1925, that the banking and credit system of the country can no longer be left in private hands. It must be brought directly under national ownership and control. The Labour Party further is convinced of the need to form a National Investment Board with statutory powers for the control of domestic and foreign investment. It would seek powers from the new Parliament to effect this transformation. Aiming at a monetary policy which will stabilise prices, the Labour Party condemns either currency inflation or a new and disastrous attempt at deflation to force sterling back to the old gold parity. It will take a vigorous initiative in calling an International Conference to arrive at a concerted monetary policy. It will seek thereby to make the resources of civilisation available for peoples who to-day in the new world, as in the old, are starving in the midst of plenty. The Labour Party has never failed to insist upon the intimate relation between war debts, reparations and economic depression. It believes that the general acceptance of President Hoover’s Moratorium on War Debts permits a reconsideration of the whole question. It seeks an immediate reopening of negotiations between the signatories of the Young Plan and the United States with a view to attaining the conditions in which Inter-Allied War Debts and Reparations may be cancelled. Tariffs no cure The Labour Party has no confidence in any attempt to bolster up a bankrupt Capitalism by a system of tariffs. Tariffs would artificially increase the cost of living. They would enrich private interests at the expense of the Nation. They would prejudice the prospect of international co-operation. In the circumstances produced by our depart-ure from the gold standard, they have no relevance to economic need. In the face of the millions unemployed in high-tariff America and Germany, they are clearly no cure for unemployment. They would permanently injure our shipping and export trades and conceal our need for greater efficiency in industrial organisation. The Labour Party urges a better way. It urges the definite planning of industry and trade so as to produce the highest standard of life for the Nation. As a first step, it proposes to reorganise the most important basic industries—Power, Transport, Iron and Steel—as public services owned and controlled in the national interest, with such a regulation of prices as will enable British industry to compete effectively in the markets of the world. Wherever necessary, Import Boards will be created for foodstuffs, raw materials, and manufactured goods with all adequate powers of regulation and purchase. For the proper and organised conduct of export, machinery will be set up in connection with the principal industries.

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Efficiency in industry The Labour Party demands efficiency. Any special assistance to industry must be conditional upon the acceptance of the necessary measure of public ownership or control. Labour will insist upon the adoption of efficient methods of production so as to secure good conditions of employment for the worker. The consumer must be protected by effective regulation of prices. Labour in power will remove the unjustified restrictions upon Trade Union activity introduced by the Tory Government in 1927; and it will press forward with legislation upon such matters as Workmen’s Compensation and the Conditions and Hours of Labour. Because it appreciates the vital importance of the Co-operative Movement, the Labour Party will work in full alliance with co-operators, utilising their long experience and specialised knowledge. The tragic position of the Coal Industry reveals the complete inability of private ownership to organise it as a national asset and Labour in power will proceed at the first opportunity to the unification of the industry under public ownership and control. International disarmament The Labour Party has always been in the van of the Movement for International Peace; and it is universally recognised that its record, as a Government, above all in solving disarmament by Arbitration, gave to Great Britain the moral leadership of the World. Labour will seek to make that record even more distinguished. It will seek, at the Disarmament Conference next February, to put forward proposals for drastic and far-reaching reductions by international agreement, in the numbers and equipment of all armed forces, and in all expenditure upon them. Labour insists that without this policy of disarmament there cannot be either peace or security. Labour will, as in the past, lend its full support to the use of the valuable machinery of the League of Nations in every phase of international activity. The countryside The Labour Government had already made a real beginning towards the scientific reorganisation of agriculture. The Labour Party will seek to press forward that development. It holds that, for this purpose, the land must be publicly owned and controlled, and much more fully utilised for food production and the provision of employment under good conditions. To achieve this end, full use must be made of the Acts passed under its auspices. The necessary machinery must be set up to make possible that comprehensive plan of development under which alone agriculture can become a prosperous industry. The Labour Party emphasises its insistence that the condition of the farm-worker must be improved, especially by provision for Unemployment Insurance, a National Wages Board to control county wage machinery, and the abolition of the tied cottage.

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India The Labour Party places on record its conviction that the summoning of the Round Table Conference by the Labour Government in 1930 opened a new epoch in the history of our relations with India. It is convinced that its reassembly offers a unique opportunity to establish a new era of friendly partnership between the two peoples. While recognising the difficulties to be surmounted, the Labour Party will offer stern opposition to those who seek to prevent the Conference from bearing its full result. If returned to power, Labour will leave no stone unturned to bring the Conference to a successful issue. The Government’s cuts The Labour Ministers resigned because they refused to abandon Labour’s cardinal principle that proper provision for the unemployed is a social duty and a national responsibility. Sound public policy demands the absorption of the unemployed into normal work; while that is being effected, adequate maintenance should be provided. The Labour Party protests against the reduction in the rates of unemployment benefit and the increase in contributions. It denounces the introduction of Poor Law Tests and machinery into the administration of Unemployment Insurance. It pledges itself to reverse immediately the harsh policy of the present Government. The social services Labour accepts a balanced Budget as the first condition of sound national finance, but it condemns the Economy Act as an unjustified means of attaining this end. It pledges itself to maintain and develop the social services and to deal with the Rents Problem. It will restore, as rapidly as the claims of the unemployed and other depressed sections of the community permit, the remuneration of teachers and other public servants. Labour asks for power It is for these ends that the Labour Party asks for power at the forthcoming Election. It warns the Nation that the alternative is the continuance in office of a Government harsh in purpose and incompetent in method, whose failure to produce a constructive policy offers no prospect of hope. Dominated as that Government is by the selfish interests of big business and finance, its return would encourage ruinous attacks on wages. Its victory would perpetuate the degradation and misery of unemployment. It would intensify nationalist economic conflict, and imperil all progress towards international co-operation and disarmament without which there can be no hope of peace or prosperity. The Labour Party offers to the people of this country planned reconstruction, national and international, instead of the chaos and anarchy which are the parents of disaster. It recognises the gravity of the issue; it is prepared to meet it by bold and drastic remedies. 43

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Given a majority, the Labour Party pledges itself to unsparing efforts to remove the spectres of want and insecurity from the homes of the people, that this and succeeding generations may be assured of a fuller and richer life.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1935 The Labour Party’s call to power

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 14 November Clement Attlee 552 154 8,325,491 37.9%

Four years have passed since the ‘National’ Government obtained a swollen majority in the House of Commons on a campaign of fraud, misrepresentation and panic. The Government has now decided to plunge the nation into an electoral struggle in the midst of an international crisis. The Labour Party deplores this attempt to exploit for partisan ends a situation of grave international anxiety. It accepts the challenge and enters the Election confident of victory. Four barren years At the end of four years the country faces the grim spectacle of two million workless with an army of well over a million and a half people on the Poor law, and with the deepening tragedy of the distressed areas. Whilst doles of varying kinds have been dispensed on a lavish scale to industry after industry, not a single constructive step has been taken to improve the lot of the people.

• •

• •

The Government has robbed the unemployed of benefit and subjected them to a harsh and cruel household means test. It withdrew, under a storm of public indignation, its new Unemployment Regula-tions, and after nine months of reconsideration of this burning question it has ignominiously failed to produce any policy for the proper care of the unemployed. It has retarded the building of houses to let, curtailed schemes of public works, and discouraged the development of the social services. It has imposed new burdens on the people through increased taxes on food and other necessaries of life and by deliberately organising restriction of supplies. 45

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The international situation The Government has a terrible responsibility for the present international situation. It did nothing to check the aggression of Japan in the Far East, and thus seriously discredited the League of Nations and undermined the Collective Peace System. It has wrecked the Disarmament Conference by resisting all the constructive proposals made by other States. As regards air armaments, in particular, Lord Londonderry has boasted that he succeeded, though with great difficulty, in preventing an agreement for the complete abolition of all national air forces. The Government has helped to restart the arms race, and it failed to make Signer Mussolini understand that, if he broke the peace in Africa, Britain would join with other nations in upholding the authority of the League. Too late to stop the war, the Government ranged itself at the eleventh hour behind the Covenant at Geneva. Even so, its action has been slow and half-hearted. Whilst paying lipservice to the League it is planning a vast and expensive rearmament programme, which will only stimulate similar programmes elsewhere. This Government is a danger to the peace of the world and to the security of this country. Labour’s peace policy The Labour Party calls for a reversal of this suicidal foreign policy. It seeks wholehearted co-operation with the League of Nations and with all States outside the League which desire peace. It stands firmly for the Collective Peace System. It demands speedy action, through the League, to bring the war in Africa to an end, to be followed by an immediate resumption of negotiations for all-round disarmament. Labour will efficiently maintain such defence forces as are necessary and consistent with our membership of the League; the best defence is not huge competitive national armaments, but the organisation of collective security against any aggressor and the agreed reduction of national armaments everywhere. Labour will propose to other nations the complete abolition of all national air forces, the effective international control of civil aviation and the creation of an international air police force; large reductions by international agreement in naval and military forces; and the abolition of the private manufacture of, and trade in, arms. A Labour Government would also seek full international co-operation in economic and industrial questions, with a view to increasing trade and raising standards of living throughout the world, and removing the economic causes of war, through equitable arrangements for access to markets, for the international control of sources of supply of raw materials, and for the extension of the mandate system for colonial territories. A bold policy of Socialist Reconstruction At home, the Labour Party will pursue its policy of Socialist Reconstruction. Labour has already put before the country, boldly and clearly, schemes of public ownership for the efficient conduct, in the national interest, of banking, coal and its products, transport, electricity, iron and steel, and cotton. It has also declared for the public ownership of land, in order that the community should profit by its value and proper use, the reorganisation of agriculture, the introduction of 46

1935

unemployment insurance for farm workers, the abolition of the ‘tied’ cottage, and the provision of cheap cottages in the countryside. Labour is pledged to a comprehensive programme of industrial legislation, so as to secure reasonable hours and conditions of employment for all workers and adequate compensation for the accidents of working life. It would restore the freedom of Trade Unions lost through the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act. It would repeal the unjust and penal tax which the Government has imposed upon Co-operative Societies. Labour in power will attack the problem of the distressed areas by special steps designed to deal with the root causes of their troubles, as part of a vigorous policy of national planning. Labour will sweep away the humiliating means test imposed by the ‘National’ Government and will provide adequately for the unemployed, but will seek above all to reabsorb idle workers into productive employment by far-reaching schemes of national development. The Labour Party stands for a big move forward in education, including the raising of the school-leaving age with adequate maintenance allowances. It will vigorously develop the health services, and, in particular, will treat as one of its immediate concerns the terrible and neglected problem of maternal mortality. It favours an increase in the amount of old age pensions and a lowering of the qualifying age. It will go ahead with the provision of healthy homes for the people at reasonable rents, until the needs of the nation are fully met. Labour seeks a mandate to carry out this programme by constitutional and democratic means, and with this end in view, it seeks power to abolish the House of Lords and improve the procedure of the House of Commons. Labour asks the Nation for a Parliamentary Majority to promote Socialism at home and Peace abroad.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1945 Let us face the future: A declaration of Labour policy for the consideration of the nation

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of vote

Thursday 5 July Clement Attlee 604 393 11,995,152 48.3%

Victory in war must be followed by a prosperous peace Victory is assured for us and our allies in the European war. The war in the East goes the same way. The British Labour Party is firmly resolved that Japanese barbarism shall be defeated just as decisively as Nazi aggression and tyranny. The people will have won both struggles. The gallant men and women in the Fighting Services, in the Merchant Navy, Home Guard and Civil Defence, in the factories and in the bombed areas—they deserve and must be assured a happier future than faced so many of them after the last war. Labour regards their welfare as a sacred trust. So far as Britain’s contribution is concerned, this war will have been won by its people, not by any one man or set of men, though strong and greatly valued leadership has been given to the high resolve of the people in the present struggle. And in this leadership the Labour Ministers have taken their full share of burdens and responsibilities. The record of the Labour Ministers has been one of hard tasks well done since that fateful day in May, 1940, when the initiative of Labour in Parliament brought about the fall of the Chamberlain Government and the formation of the new War Government which has led the country to victory. The people made tremendous efforts to win the last war also. But when they had won it they lacked a lively interest in the social and economic problems of peace, and accepted the election promises of the leaders of the anti-Labour parties at their face value. So the ‘hardfaced men who had done well out of the war’ were able to get the kind of peace that suited themselves. The people lost that peace. And when we say ‘peace’ we mean not only the Treaty, but the social and economic policy which followed the fighting. In the years that followed, the ‘hard-faced men’ and their political friends kept control of the Government. They controlled the banks, the mines, the big industries, largely the press and the cinema. They controlled the means by which the people got their living. They controlled the ways by which most of the people learned about the world outside. This happened in all the big industrialised countries. 51

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Great economic blizzards swept the world in those years. The great inter-war slumps were not acts of God or of blind forces. They were the sure and certain result of the concentration of too much economic power in the hands of too few men. These men had only learned how to act in the interest of their own bureaucratically-run private monopolies which may be likened to totalitarian oligarchies within our democratic State. They had and they felt no responsibility to the nation. Similar forces are at work today. The interests have not been able to make the same profits out of this war as they did out of the last. The determined propaganda of the Labour Party, helped by other progressive forces, had its effect in ‘taking the profit out of war’. The 100% Excess Profits Tax, the controls over industry and transport, the fair rationing of food and control of prices—without which the Labour Party would not have remained in the Government—these all helped to win the war. With these measures the country has come nearer to making ‘fair shares’ the national rule than ever before in its history. But the war in the East is not yet over. There are grand pickings still to be had. A short boom period after the war, when savings, gratuities and post-war credits are there to be spent, can make a profiteer’s paradise. But Big Business knows that this will happen only if the people vote into power the party which promises to get rid of the controls and so let the profiteers and racketeers have that freedom for which they are pleading eloquently on every Tory platform and in every Tory newspaper. They accuse the Labour Party of wishing to impose controls for the sake of control. That is not true, and they know it. What is true is that the anti-controllers and anti-planners desire to sweep away public controls, simply in order to give the profiteering interests and the privileged rich an entirely free hand to plunder the rest of the nation as shamelessly as they did in the nineteen-twenties. Does freedom for the profiteer mean freedom for the ordinary man and woman, whether they be wage-earners or small business or professional men or housewives? Just think back over the depressions of the 20 years between the wars, when there were precious few public controls of any kind and the Big Interests had things all their own way. Never was so much injury done to so many by so few. Freedom is not an abstract thing. To be real it must be won, it must be worked for. The Labour Party stands for order as against the chaos which would follow the end of all public control. We stand for order, for positive constructive progress as against the chaos of economic do-as-they-please anarchy. The Labour Party makes no baseless promises. The future will not be easy. But this time the peace must be won. The Labour Party offers the nation a plan which will win the Peace for the People. What the election will be about Britain’s coming Election will be the greatest test in our history of the judgement and common sense of our people. The nation wants food, work and homes. It wants more than that—it wants good food in plenty, useful work for all, and comfortable, labour-saving homes that take full advantage of the resources of modern science and productive industry. It wants a high and rising standard of living, security for all against a rainy day, an educational system that will give every boy and girl a chance to develop the best that is in them. 52

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These are the aims. In themselves they are no more than words. All parties may declare that in principle they agree with them. But the test of a political programme is whether it is sufficiently in earnest about the objectives to adopt the means needed to realise them. It is very easy to set out a list of aims. What matters is whether it is backed up by a genuine workmanlike plan conceived without regard to sectional vested interests and carried through. Point by point these national aims need analysis. Point by point it will be found that if they are to be turned into realities the nation and its post-war Governments will be called upon to put the nation above any sectional interest, above any free enterprise. The problems and pressures of the post-war world threaten our security and progress as surely as—though less dramatically than—the Germans threatened them in 1940. We need the spirit of Dunkirk and of the Blitz sustained over a period of years. The Labour Party’s programme is a practical expression of that spirit applied to the tasks of peace. It calls for hard work, energy and sound sense. We must prevent another war, and that means we must have such an international organisation as will give all nations real security against future aggression. But Britain can only play her full part in such an international plan if our spirit as shown in our handling of home affairs is firm, wise and determined. This statement of policy, therefore, begins at home. And in stating it we give clear notice that we will not tolerate obstruction of the people’s will by the House of Lords. The Labour Party stands for freedom—for freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the Press. The Labour Party will see to it that we keep and enlarge these freedoms, and that we enjoy again the personal civil liberties we have, of our own free will, sacrificed to win the war. The freedom of the Trade Unions, denied by the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, 1927, must also be restored. But there are certain so-called freedoms that Labour will not tolerate: freedom to exploit other people; freedom to pay poor wages and to push up prices for selfish profit; freedom to deprive the people of the means of living full, happy, healthy lives. The nation needs a tremendous overhaul, a great programme of modernisation and re-equipment of its homes, its factories and machinery, its schools, its social services. All parties say so—the Labour Party means it. For the Labour Party is prepared to achieve it by drastic policies and keeping a firm constructive hand on our whole productive machinery; the Labour Party will put the community first and the sectional interests of private business after. Labour will plan from the ground up—giving an appropriate place to constructive enterprise and private endeavour in the national plan, but dealing decisively with those interests which would use high-sounding talk about economic freedom to cloak their determination to put themselves and their wishes above those of the whole nation. Jobs for all All parties pay lip service to the idea of jobs for all. All parties are ready to promise to achieve that end by keeping up the national purchasing power and controlling changes in the national expenditure through Government action. Where agreement ceases is in the degree of control of private industry that is necessary to achieve the desired end. 53

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In hard fact, the success of a full employment programme will certainly turn upon the firmness and success with which the Government fits into that programme the investment and development policies of private as well as public industry. Our opponents would be ready to use State action to do the best they can to bolster up private industry whenever it plunges the nation into heavy unemployment. But if the slumps in uncontrolled private industry are too severe to be balanced by public action—as they will certainly prove to be—our opponents are not ready to draw the conclusion that the sphere of public action must be extended. They say, ‘Full employment. Yes! If we can get it without interfering too much with private industry.’ We say, ‘Full employment in any case, and if we need to keep a firm public hand on industry in order to get jobs for all, very well. No more dole queues, in order to let the Czars of Big Business remain kings in their own castles. The price of so-called “economic freedom” for the few is too high if it is bought at the cost of idleness and misery for millions.’ What will the Labour Party do? First, the whole of the national resources, in land, material and labour must be fully employed. Production must be raised to the highest level and related to purchasing power. Over-production is not the cause of depression and unemployment; it is under-consumption that is responsible. It is doubtful whether we have ever, except in war, used the whole of our productive capacity. This must be corrected because, upon our ability to produce and organise a fair and generous distribution of the product, the standard of living of our people depends. Secondly, a high and constant purchasing power can be maintained through good wages, social services and insurance, and taxation which bears less heavily on the lower income groups. But everybody knows that money and savings lose their value if prices rise so rents and the prices of the necessities of life will be controlled. Thirdly, planned investment in essential industries and on houses, schools, hospitals and civic centres will occupy a large field of capital expenditure. A National Investment Board will determine social priorities and promote better timing in private investment. In suitable cases we would transfer the use of efficient Government factories from war production to meet the needs of peace. The location of new factories will be suitably controlled and where necessary the Government will itself build factories. There must be no depressed areas in the New Britain. Fourthly, the Bank of England with its financial powers must be brought under public ownership, and the operations of the other banks harmonised with industrial needs. By these and other means full employment can be achieved. But a policy of Jobs for All must be associated with a policy of general economic expansion and efficiency as set out in the next section of this Declaration. Indeed, it is not enough to ensure that there are jobs for all. If the standard of life is to be high—as it should be—the standard of production must be high. This means that industry must be thoroughly efficient if the needs of the nation are to be met.

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Industry in the service of the nation By the test of war some industries have shown themselves capable of rising to new heights of efficiency and expansion. Others, including some of our older industries fundamental to our economic structure, have wholly or partly failed. Today we live alongside economic giants—countries where science and technology take leaping strides year by year. Britain must match those strides—and we must take no chances about it. Britain needs an industry organised to enable it to yield the best that human knowledge and skill can provide. Only so can our people reap the full benefits of this age of discovery and Britain keep her place as a Great Power. The Labour Party intends to link the skill of British craftsmen and designers to the skill of British scientists in the service of our fellow men. The genius of British scientists and technicians who have produced radio-location, jet propulsion, penicillin, and the Mulberry Harbours in wartime, must be given full rein in peacetime too. Each industry must have applied to it the test of national service. If it serves the nation, well and good; if it is inefficient and falls down on its job, the nation must see that things are put right. These propositions seem indisputable, but for years before the war anti-Labour Governments set them aside, so that British industry over a large field fell into a state of depression, muddle and decay. Millions of working and middle class people went through the horrors of unemployment and insecurity. It is not enough to sympathise with these victims: we must develop an acute feeling of national shame —and act. The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain—free, democratic, efficient, progressive, public-spirited, its material resources organised in the service of the British people. But Socialism cannot come overnight, as the product of a week-end revolution. The members of the Labour Party, like the British people, are practical-minded men and women. There are basic industries ripe and over-ripe for public ownership and management in the direct service of the nation. There are many smaller businesses rendering good service which can be left to go on with their useful work. There are big industries not yet ripe for public ownership which must nevertheless be required by constructive supervision to further the nation’s needs and not to prejudice national interests by restrictive anti-social monopoly or cartel agreements—caring for their own capital structures and profits at the cost of a lower standard of living for all. In the light of these considerations, the Labour Party submits to the nation the following industrial programme: 1 Public ownership of the fuel and power industries. For a quarter of a century the coal industry, producing Britain’s most precious national raw material, has been floundering chaotically under the ownership of many hundreds of independent companies. Amalgamation under public ownership will bring great economies in operation and make it possible to modernise production methods and to raise safety standards in every colliery in the country. Public ownership of gas and electricity undertakings will lower charges, prevent competitive waste, open the way for co-ordinated research and development, and lead to the reforming of uneconomic areas of distribution. Other industries will benefit. 55

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2 Public ownership of inland transport. Co-ordination of transport services by rail, road, air and canal cannot be achieved without unification. And unification without public ownership means a steady struggle with sectional interests or the enthronement of a private monopoly, which would be a menace to the rest of industry. 3 Public ownership of iron and steel. Private monopoly has maintained high prices and kept inefficient high-cost plants in existence. Only if public ownership replaces private monopoly can the industry become efficient. These socialised industries, taken over on a basis of fair compensation, to be conducted efficiently in the interests of consumers, coupled with proper status and conditions for the workers employed in them. 4 Public supervision of monopolies and cartels with the aim of advancing industrial efficiency in the service of the nation. Anti-social restrictive practices will be prohibited. 5 A firm and clear-cut programme for the export trade. We would give State help in any necessary form to get our export trade on its feet and enable it to pay for the food and raw materials without which Britain must decay and die. But State help on conditions—conditions that industry is efficient and go-ahead. Laggards and obstructionists must be led or directed into better ways. Here we dare not fail. 6 The shaping of suitable economic and price controls to secure that first things shall come first in the transition from war to peace and that every citizen (including the demobilised Service men and women) shall get fair play. There must be priorities in the use of raw materials, food prices must be held, homes for the people for all before luxuries for the few. We do not want a short boom followed by collapse as after the last war; we do not want a wild rise in prices and inflation, followed by a smash and widespread unemployment. It is either sound economic controls—or smash. 7 The better organisation of Government departments and the Civil Service for work in relation to these ends. The economic purpose of government must be to spur industry forward and not to choke it with red tape.

Agriculture and the people’s food Agriculture is not only a job for the farmers; it is also a way of feeding the people. So we need a prosperous and efficient agricultural industry ensuring a fair return for the farmer and farm worker without excessive prices to the consumer. Our agriculture should be planned to give us the food we can best produce at home, and large enough to give us as much of those foods as possible. In war time the County War Executive Committees have organised production in that way. They have been the means of increasing efficiency and have given much practical assistance, particularly to the small farmer. The Labour Party intends that, with suitable modifications and safeguards, their work shall continue in peacetime. Our good farm lands are part of the wealth of the nation and that wealth should not be wasted. The land must be farmed, not starved. If a landlord cannot or will not provide proper facilities for his tenant farmers, the State should take over his land at a fair valuation. The people need food at prices they can afford to pay. This means that our food supplies will have to be planned. Never again should they be left at the mercy 56

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of the city financier or speculator. Instead there must be stable markets, to the great gain of both producer and consumer. The Ministry of Food has done fine work for the housewife in war. The Labour Party intends to keep going as much of the work of the Ministry of Food as will be useful in peace conditions, including the bulk purchase of food from abroad and a well organised system of distribution at home, with no vested interests imposing unnecessary costs. A Labour Government will keep the new food services, such as the factory canteens and British restaurants, free and cheap milk for mothers and children, fruit juices and food supplements, and will improve and extend these services. Houses and the building programme Everybody says that we must have houses. Only the Labour Party is ready to take the necessary steps—a full programme of land planning and drastic action to ensure an efficient building industry that will neither burden the community with a crippling financial load nor impose bad conditions and heavy unemployment on its workpeople. There must be no restrictive price rings to keep up prices and bleed the taxpayer, the owner-occupier and the tenant alike. Modern methods, modern materials will have to be the order of the day. There must be a due balance between the housing programme, the building of schools and the urgent requirements of factory modernisation and construction which will enable industry to produce efficiently. Housing will be one of the greatest and one of the earliest tests of a Government’s real determination to put the nation first. Labour’s pledge is firm and direct—it will proceed with a housing programme with the maximum practical speed until every family in this island has a good standard of accommodation. That may well mean centralising and pooling of building materials and components by the State, together with price control. If that is necessary to get the houses as it was necessary to get the guns and planes, Labour is ready. And housing ought to be dealt with in relation to good town planning—pleasant surroundings, attractive lay-out, efficient utility services, including the necessary transport facilities. There should be a Ministry of Housing and Planning combining the housing powers of the Ministry of Health with the planning powers of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning; and there must be a firm and united Government policy to enable the Ministry of Works to function as an efficient instrument in the service of all departments with building needs and of the nation as a whole. The land In the interests of agriculture, housing and town and country planning alike, we declare for a radical solution for the crippling problems of land acquisition and use in the service of the national plan. Labour believes in land nationalisation and will work towards it, but as a first step the State and the local authorities must have wider and speedier powers to acquire land for public purposes wherever the public interest so requires. In this regard and for the purposes of controlling land use under town and country planning, we will 57

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provide for fair compensation; but we will also provide for a revenue for public funds from ‘betterment’. Education and recreation An important step forward has been taken by the passing of the recent Education Act. Labour will put that Act not merely into legal force but into practical effect, including the raising of the school leaving age to 16 at the earliest possible moment, ‘further’ or adult education, and free secondary education for all. And, above all, let us remember that the great purpose of education is to give us individual citizens capable of thinking for themselves. National and local authorities should co-operate to enable people to enjoy their leisure to the full, to have opportunities for healthy recreation. By the provision of concert halls, modern libraries, theatres and suitable civic centres, we desire to assure to our people full access to the great heritage of culture in this nation. Health of the nation and its children By good food and good homes, much avoidable ill-health can be prevented. In addition the best health services should be available free for all. Money must no longer be the passport to the best treatment. In the new National Health Service there should be health centres where the people may get the best that modern science can offer, more and better hospitals, and proper conditions for our doctors and nurses. More research is required into the causes of disease and the ways to prevent and cure it. Labour will work specially for the care of Britain’s mothers and their children— children’s allowances and school medical and feeding services, better maternity and child welfare services. A healthy family life must be fully ensured and parenthood must not be penalised if the population of Britain is to be prevented from dwindling. Social insurance against the rainy day The Labour Party has played a leading part in the long campaign for proper social security for all—social provision against rainy days, coupled with economic policies calculated to reduce rainy days to a minimum. Labour led the fight against the mean and shabby treatment which was the lot of millions while Conservative Governments were in power over long years. A Labour Government will press on rapidly with legislation extending social insurance over the necessary wide field to all. But great national programmes of education, health and social services are costly things. Only an efficient and prosperous nation can afford them in full measure. If, unhappily, bad times were to come, and our opponents were in power, then, running true to form, they would be likely to cut these social provisions on the plea that the nation could not meet the cost. That was the line they adopted on at least three occasions between the wars. There is no good reason why Britain should not afford such programmes, but she will need full employment and the highest possible industrial efficiency in order to do so. 58

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A world of progress and peace No domestic policy, however wisely framed and courageously applied, can succeed in a world still threatened by war. Economic strife and political and military insecurity are enemies of peace. We cannot cut ourselves off from the rest of the world—and we ought not to try. Now that victory has been won, at so great a cost of life and material destruction, we must make sure that Germany and Japan are deprived of all power to make war again. We must consolidate in peace the great war-time association of the British Commonwealth with the USA and the USSR. Let it not be forgotten that in the years leading up to the war the Tories were so scared of Russia that they missed the chance to establish a partnership which might well have prevented the war. We must join with France and China and all others who have contributed to the common victory in forming an International Organisation capable of keeping the peace in years to come. All must work together in true comradeship to achieve continuous social and economic progress. If peace is to be protected we must plan and act. Peace must not be regarded as a thing of passive inactivity: it must be a thing of life and action and work. An internationally protected peace should make possible a known expenditure on armaments as our contribution to the protection of peace; an expenditure that should diminish as the world becomes accustomed to the prohibition of war through an effective collective security. The economic well-being of each nation largely depends on world-wide prosperity. The essentials of prosperity for the world as for individual nations are high production and progressive efficiency, coupled with steady improvement in the standard of life, an increase in effective demand, and fair shares for all who by their effort contribute to the wealth of their community. We should build a new United Nations, allies in a new war on hunger, ignorance and want. The British, while putting their own house in order, must play the part of brave and constructive leaders in international affairs. The British Labour Movement comes to the tasks of international organisation with one great asset: it has a common bond with the working peoples of all countries, who have achieved a new dignity and influence through their long struggles against Nazi tyranny. And in all this worth-while work—whether political, military or economic—the Labour Party will seek to promote mutual understanding and cordial co-operation between the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, the advancement of India to responsible self-government, and the planned progress of our Colonial Dependencies. Labour’s call to all progressives Quite a number of political parties will be taking part in the coming Election. But by and large Britain is a country of two parties. And the effective choice of the people in this Election will be between the Conservative Party, standing for the protection of the rights of private economic interest, and the Labour Party, allied with the great Trade Union and co-operative movements, standing for the wise organisation and use of the economic assets of the nation for the public good. Those are the two main parties; and here is the fundamental issue which has to be settled. The election will produce a 59

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Labour Government, a Conservative Government, or no clear majority for either party: this last might well mean parliamentary instability and confusion, or another Election. In these circumstances we appeal to all men and women of progressive outlook, and who believe in constructive change, to support the Labour Party. We respect the views of those progressive Liberals and others who would wish to support one or other of the smaller parties of their choice. But by so doing they may help the Conservatives, or they may contribute to a situation in which there is no parliamentary majority for any major issue of policy. In the interests of the nation and of the world, we earnestly urge all progressives to see to it—as they certainly can—that the next Government is not a Conservative Government but a Labour Government which will act on the principles of policy set out in the present Declaration.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1950 Let us win through together: a declaration of Labour policy for the consideration of the nation

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 23 February Clement Attlee 617 315 13,266,592 46.1%

When the Labour Party published Let Us Face the Future in 1945 those five words were more than the title of the Election Manifesto; they were five words which crystal-lised the minds of our people at that time. By hard work, good sense and self-discipline the people have laid the foundations of a future based on free social democracy. They have helped Parliament and Government to carry into effect all the main proposals in that Manifesto. Now in 1950 the country is facing another General Election. We ask our fellow citizens to assert in their free exercise of the franchise that by and large the first majority Labour Government has served the country well. The task now is to carry the nation through to complete recovery. And that will mean continued, mighty efforts from us all. The choice for the electors is between the Labour Party—the party of positive action, of constructive progress, the true party of the nation—and the Conservative Party—the party of outdated ideas, of unemployment, of privilege. The new moral order Socialism is not bread alone. Economic security and freedom from the enslaving material bonds of capitalism are not the final goals. They are means to the greater end—the evolution of a people more kindly, intelligent, free, co-operative, enterprising and rich in culture. They are means to the greater end of the full and free development of every individual person. We in the Labour Party—men and women from all occupations and from every sphere of life—have set out to create a community that relies for its driving power on the release of all the finer constructive impulses of man. We believe that all citizens have obligations to fulfil as well as rights to enjoy. In contrast, the fainthearted feel that only fear of poverty will drive men to work for the nation. ‘Empty bellies’, one Tory has said, ‘are the one thing that will make Britons work.’ Labour for its part declares that full employment is the corner-stone of the new society. 63

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The Labour Government has ensured full employment and fair shares of the necessities of life. What a contrast with pre-war days! In those days millions of unwanted men eked out their lives in need of the very things they themselves could have made in the factories that were standing idle. Even when at work each man often feared that the next pay-day would be the last. The wife feared that the housekeeping money would suddenly vanish. Often it did. Her husband was handed his cards, he drew the dole, then she had to make do with a fraction of her previous money—and despite all her sacrifices the children suffered. The queue at the Labour Exchange was repeated in the queue of small traders at the bankruptcy court. Clerks and professional people saw their hopes destroyed and their savings swept away by the slump. Big Business did not believe in Britain—it believed only in profit. So money went into cinemas, not coal; into luxury flats, not looms for Lancashire; into land speculation, not into agriculture. Whatever our Party, all of us old enough to remember are in our hearts ashamed of those years. They were unhappy years for our country and our people. They must never come again. First five years Full employment is the main, but not the only achievement. Six years of war ate away our wealth—crippled our trade, blitzed our homes and factories, sank our ships, and axed our overseas investments. The world has been desperately short of food since the war. But Britain has accomplished a recovery unsurpassed by any other country. No doubt there have been mistakes. But judge on what basis you will—by the standard of life of the general body of citizens, by employment, by the infrequency of serious industrial disputes, by the stability of the nation, by social security—by any fair comparison, the British people have done an infinitely better job than was done after the first World War. By explaining to the people what needed to be done, by giving the facts, by appealing to the patriotism of the people, by vigorous, sensible leadership, the Labour Government has led Britain to the first victories of peace. Now let us win through together. Work for all The supreme aim that we set before the nation is the maintenance of full employment. Here is Labour’s policy. The nation’s greatest need is to export more, especially to North America, so that we can pay for enough food to eat, and enough raw materials to keep our factories running. Labour will not dodge this problem as Tory Governments did before the war. If mass unemployment came again, people would once more be too poor to buy much food from abroad, and idle factories would not need imported raw materials. If social services were cut, wages slashed and full employment lost we might once again succeed in masking our overseas trade problem—but only at the cost of human misery, queues at the Labour Exchange and a nation divided by industrial bitterness. That was, and still is, the Tory way. It is not ours. Labour’s way—the way of full employment—is to produce more and to export more, to increase efficiency and to lower costs. 64

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Purchasing power and production must march together. Just as we have aimed at keeping purchasing power within limits in the last few years when there have been too few goods and too much money, so we will be prepared to expand purchasing power if the danger is too little money and too many goods. Labour will encourage the introduction of equal pay for equal work by women when the nation’s economic circumstances allow it. Finance must be the servant and not the master of employment policy. Public ownership of the Bank of England has enabled the Government to control monetary policy. Subject to the will of Parliament, we shall take whatever measures may be required to control financial forces, so as to maintain full employment and promote the welfare of the nation. Publicly owned industry will be ready to expand its investment when employment policy demands it. The public sector will, by speeding up necessary capital development, help to maintain employment. Special measures for areas of special need. The rebuilding of the Development Areas, which has transformed the lives of many thousands from destitution to active work, will be vigorously continued. To aid one of the chief industries in these Areas, a Development Council will be established for shipbuilding and ship-repairing. Labour will take all steps necessary to ensure that this great industry is never again neglected as it was between the wars. Raise production—lower costs Unless we continue to increase production as we have done in the last four years, we cannot improve or even maintain our present standard of life; the social services cannot advance or even survive; and our national freedom and independence cannot continue. This is a job for every one of us, pulling together. Private enterprise must not shelter behind price rings and rigged markets. Public enterprise must be vigorous, not easygoing. Drive, public spirit and initiative are required throughout, and from us all. There can be no advance without planning. Exports must be sold in the right markets at the right price, and imports arranged according to our needs. Only by price control and rationing can fair shares of scarce goods be ensured. Only control over capital investment, distribution of industry, industrial building and foreign exchange can enable us to overcome the dollar shortage and build up a permanently thriving national economy. Yet many Tories still cry ‘Scrap controls’. Nothing could be more disastrous. Industrial democracy We have begun to build up a flourishing partnership between Government, management and workers. More has to be done, both in public and private enterprise. Too many managements still pay lip-service to joint consultation and then do little to make it effective. They should consult with workers’ representatives before decisions affecting them are taken, and not after; they should make available to these representatives the accounts and records on which managerial decisions are based. Upon the trade unions lies the responsibility for further equipping and training their members for service to industry and the country. 65

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The socialised industries The long decline and demoralisation of the coal industry has been halted. In 1949 output was 28 million tons higher than in 1945. Output per manshift—the best measure of efficiency—has gone up steadily and is now above the 1938 level. For the first time British miners are getting a square deal. Justice for the miner has meant fuel and power for the nation. Nationalisation of coal has saved British industry from collapse. The vital electricity and gas industries are able to plan ahead for expansion on a large scale. Already new generating stations are supplying more electricity for the home, and more horsepower for our factories. Britain’s public transport system, as road and rail services are increasingly unified, will bring an ever better service to industry and passengers. And when private monopoly is replaced by public ownership, the steel industry will be responsible to the nation. Labour will not be content until each public enterprise is a model of efficiency and of social responsibility. The Government must be free to take all necessary steps to that end. The initiative and public spirit of the individual manager must be fostered. New leadership should be given its chance to emerge. The public will be encouraged to make much more use of the Consumers’ Councils which have been created for all nationalised industries: consumers should assume the important place which is theirs by right as the owners of the whole concern. Encouragement for enterprise Private enterprise must be set free from the stranglehold of restrictive monopolies. Labour’s aim is to give a fair chance to everybody in industry, above all to the small concerns which have been the most ruthlessly exploited by trusts, cartels and rings. The less efficient firms will be helped to raise themselves to the standards of the best. Development Councils on which management, workers and the public are represented will be set up, compulsorily if need be. The drive to apply the results of scientific research throughout industry will be sustained. Technical education will be extended. The Government will be ready in suitable cases to provide manufacturers with buildings and general purpose equipment for sale or hire, as well as finance for approved capital expenditure. But where private enterprise fails to meet the public interest, the Government will be empowered to start new competitive public enterprises in appropriate circumstances. For private and public enterprise to compete fairly and squarely in the public interest will be good for both. The Government will also take practical steps to prevent monopolies from continuing to exploit the public. The Monopolies Commission has been established to expose antisocial restrictive practices. Monopoly concerns which cannot be dealt with in other ways will be socialised. The private sugar monopoly was buttressed by Conservative legislation which is due to expire early in the next Parliament. We propose that beet sugar manufacture and sugar refining shall be transferred to national ownership for the benefit of the consumer. Fair compensation will be paid in this as in the other cases where it is proposed that an industry should be transferred from private to public ownership. 66

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The cement industry is controlled by a tightly organised private monopoly which allows high profits to be made. Labour will convert this essential industry to public ownership. One industry which will be carefully examined is the chemical industry. If necessary to assure vital national interests, Labour will transfer to public ownership any appropriate sections of this vital industry. Agriculture and the countryside We must grow more food at home. The more we grow the more there will be to eat, and the more we shall save on imports. The nation’s duty to farmers and landworkers is to give them all the help they need; their duty to the nation is to produce as much as they can with the greatest possible efficiency. Under the Tories agriculture was plunged into a depression from which it was res-cued only by war. Today agriculture is thriving. The hard work of farmers and farm workers is taking us towards our immediate target of a 50 per cent increase in production over prewar by 1952. There are and will be assured markets at guaranteed prices for as much of the main products of our farms as our farmers can produce. Labour will continue the policies which have transformed the life of the countryside. We have not reached the limit of British agricultural capacity. Production needs to be raised still further. The first method of doing so is by increasing the standard of efficiency. The 1947 Agriculture Act has given ample powers to ensure good husbandry; they will be used to the full. In the battle for food the nation cannot afford wasted land. There are still in Britain many thousands of acres of marginal land—idle at a time when every productive acre is needed—upon which food can and will, with Government support, be grown. Where the job is too big for individual farmers to tackle, public ownership will be used as the means of bringing into sound cultivation good food-producing land not fully used. Steps will be taken to promote more efficient marketing and preparation of horticultural produce. The country’s natural resources must be treated and developed as a whole. Britain’s vital fishing industry will be encouraged so that its efficiency, both in production and distribution, is further improved. Britain’s woodlands will be developed on a large scale and efficiently run by the Forestry Commission and by private and municipal owners. Britain’s minerals are an essential and often neglected part of Britain’s wealth; all suitable minerals will be placed in public ownership. Rural amenities A prosperous agriculture is the foundation of the good life for all our country towns and villages. Labour’s aim is to improve the amenities of the countryside as fast as resources permit. Rural areas will continue to enjoy a special provision in housing. Every year more out of date rural homes will be replaced by good houses designed for the housewife and, wherever possible, grouped together in sociable villages. When the Rent Restrictions Acts are dealt with in the new Parliament, the position of tied cottages will be reconsidered and the Unions consulted about the best means of giving to farmworkers the security in their homes enjoyed by other workers. 67

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Nationalisation is bringing electricity to more homes and farms every year. In the next five years, more rapid progress will be made with rural electrification. Water as a national service Far too many rural houses, farm buildings and fields are still without piped water. There is plenty of water—in times of flood too much—but not enough in pipes. Great progress has been made in extending piped supplies since 1945. But the work must be speeded up still further and the whole organisation for the purpose improved. Labour therefore proposes that water supply should become a wholly public responsibility so that as soon as possible plentiful water will be brought into every rural area. There will also be an extension of drainage and sewerage for country homes and farms. Cost of living In the last five years we have waged a successful defensive battle against inflation. Food subsidies, rationing, price control of essentials, rent control, and the freest possible competition where supplies have been plentiful—these are all helping to keep down the cost of living. Food subsidies have saved the average family of four about 14s a week on its food bill. Tory spokesmen clamour for large cuts in the subsidies. A vote for the Tories is thus a vote for dearer food. Labour on the other hand will continue the present policy of subsidies as long as present circumstances continue and the need to keep down the cost of living is paramount. No trade union movement in the world has such a proud record as the British. With unexampled restraint and loyalty, it has co-operated to hold wages steady through these difficult years. The great Co-operative Movement has also exerted a steadying effect on retail prices. It is a fine example of democratic co-operation to meet the needs of the people. But many prices are still far too high and a burden to every housewife. Our aim for the future is to bring down excessive prices, by increasing the efficiency of production and distribution. Labour proposes to overhaul distribution in the following ways. •

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Fruit and Vegetables. More wholesale and retail markets under municipal or other public ownership, together with improved storage facilities, will reduce the present waste in marketing. Cold Stores. The development of cold storage, an essential service in food distribution, will be effected through public ownership. Meat Trade. The nation needs larger supplies of better quality meat. Since the Ministry of Food took over the importing and wholesaling of meat ten years ago, the job has been done efficiently and economically. The present system of distribution should become a permanent public service. Public Buying. Labour proposes to extend buying by public bodies so that wellmade goods can be supplied to the housewife through the ordinary distributors at reasonable prices. This will benefit the public and the retailers, and also maintain the supply of Utility goods. 68

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•

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Retailing. Competition among private retailers will be encouraged. Subject only to the needs of town planning, any citizen should be able to open a shop. Anti-social private agreements to keep prices too high will be dealt with. Value for Money. An independent Consumer Advice Centre will be set up to test and report on the various consumer goods on the market. Good manufacturers will be protected and unscrupulous advertising exposed. Helping each other in time of need

Labour has honoured the pledge it made in 1945 to make social security the birthright of every citizen. Today destitution has been banished. The best medical care is available to everybody in the land. Great Acts of Parliament—the National Insurance, Industrial Injuries, National Assistance and National Health Service Acts—have been placed on the Statute Book. This social legislation has benefited all sections of the community, including members of the middle classes. Hundreds of thousands of middle class and professional families have been relieved of one of their worst anxieties—the fear of the sudden illness, the expensive operation, the doctors’ crippling bills. What is needed now is not so much new legislation as the wise development, through efficient and economical administration, of the services provided by these Acts. Role of local authorities In this task local authorities have a vital role. The necessity to transfer some functions has not reduced the importance of local authorities. They are performing essential duties, above all in the expanded services of housing, education, town planning and health. Councils have been given new powers to provide fuller opportunities for citizens’ leisure hours. Local government will continue to be fostered in all possible ways. The Conservatives say they fought for Social Security. Against whom? Who was resisting? They voted against the second and third readings of the National Health Service Bill. A year after taking office, Labour had begun to pay out family allowances. But the Tory spokesman in the House declaimed against this as a hasty action and said the same about the increase in old-age pensions. When devaluation made economies necessary, they clamoured for more drastic cuts. Can these Conservatives be trusted to safeguard the welfare of the sick, the poor and the old? We pledge ourselves to go forward on the sure foundations already laid. The rate of progress will be determined by one thing only—the productive effort of the people. Children first Labour has placed the needs of our children in the forefront of national policy. Never before have our babies been so healthy; our youngsters so well fed, clothed and shod. Labour has raised the school leaving age. New schools are being built. The door to higher education is being opened ever wider by the provision of scholarships and grants to Universities. More teachers are being trained so that the size of classes— often still too large—can be reduced. Fees in secondary schools have been abolished. 69

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The policy of putting the children at the head of the queue will be continued. Cheap and free milk and food supplements will go on. Education will in every way be expanded as fast as our straitened means allow. While improving physical standards in the schools, we should never forget we are dealing with people, not statistics, and that the community needs more and more people of individuality who can think for themselves as cooperative members of our democratic community. The old people Labour has shown its determination to give the old people a square deal. The guiding principle of our policy is that old age should be a time of recreation and useful service, not a burden of loneliness and sorrow. Pensions have been raised for old people—as also for disabled ex-Servicemen. The Poor Law has gone, and National Assistance stands ready to help whenever insurance cannot do the full job. Old people have benefited much from the National Health Service. More labour-saving homes are being built for old people. These policies will be continued. And in the next Parliament there will be a review of the working of the National Insurance Act in the light of the economic situation at that time. It will be as well not to leave this review to the Tories; old people know too much of Tory meanness for that. Industrial assurance Those who supplement their standard of life in old age or protect themselves against any of the hazards of life by voluntary saving through the Industrial Assurance Offices should receive the best possible return for their money. The Labour Party, believing that the interests of policyholders should be paramount, therefore proposes that the Proprietary Companies should be taken out of the realm of private profit and mutually owned by the policyholders themselves instead of by private shareholders. The interests of the staffs will be safeguarded. A home for every family Since the war more than a million new homes have been provided. Yet in spite of this great achievement, the demand for new homes is pressing. We must move forward until every family has its own separate home, and until every slum is gone. Rent controls and rent tribunals will be continued. The law of leasehold will be reformed so as to do justice to householders, shopkeepers and business men. Labour intends to see that the countryside is not despoiled, that the fastest possible progress is made with the great adventure of the New Towns and that housing estates are developed into communities where people can enjoy life to the full. Recreation and the arts The Government has already added greatly to opportunity for the full enjoyment of leisure. We shall continue to do all that can legitimately be done to support the Arts without interfering in any way with the free expression of the artist. 70

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National Parks will be established in the fairest parts of Britain. Footpaths will be preserved and access to the countryside will be secured for all hikers and cyclists. There is also need for more playing fields for the children, and wherever possible these will be provided. A Holidays Council will be established to promote more holiday centres with reasonably priced accommodation for families. One world of peace and plenty In the days of Munich, when the Tories decided British foreign policy, the prestige of Britain sank to its lowest ebb for a century or more. The selfish and cowardly bungling of the Conservative Government landed us in a war which collective security could have prevented and for which the Government had not prepared. The Colonies were shamefully neglected and the democratic aspirations of the Indian people met with continuous frustration and delay. During the last five years, under Labour leadership, Britain has regained her moral position in the Western world and has won the confidence of many millions in Africa and Asia. By applying the moral principles of Socialism to our relations with other peoples, the Labour Government has made Britain a symbol of justice and social advance. We will continue if returned to power, to work realistically for peace. We will stand firm against any attempt to intimidate us or to undermine our position in the world. But we will remain ready at any moment to co-operate fully with Russia, as with any country that is prepared to work with us for peace and friendship. Labour believes that the purposes of the United Nations are best served by still closer associations between friendly countries within the Charter. The Labour Government has put particular energy into strengthening the associations of the Commonwealth, the Atlantic community, and Western Europe. These associations are, we believe, not only compatible but necessary to each other as bastions of world security. In Europe great strides have been taken towards the creation of a new economic and political unity. No country has given more leadership to this great movement than Labour Britain. We shall continue this support and leadership in the years to come, always remembering that we are the heart of a great Commonwealth extending far beyond the boundaries of Europe. Unity of the Commonwealth By recognising the desire of Commonwealth countries for complete national selfdetermination, the Labour Government has immensely helped to strengthen the essential unity of the Commonwealth. In April, 1949, all the Commonwealth Prime Ministers welcomed the free choice of India, Pakistan and Ceylon to join the Commonwealth as full and equal members, and accepted India’s decision to be a Republic while recognising The King as head of the Commonwealth. These decisions marked an event of epoch-making importance. They created a bridge of friendship and co-operation between the peoples of East and West which will prove increasingly essential as the movement towards world-wide unity proceeds. These decisions would never have been taken under a Tory Government in Britain. 71

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The natural confidence and mutual affection existing between the peoples of the Commonwealth are one of the world’s greatest assets in its struggle for stability and peace. We will continue to strengthen these powerful bonds of union by practical measures of co-operation. Already we have vastly expanded Commonwealth trade through long-term contracts and bulk purchase agreements. Moreover, by finding new sources of supply within the Commonwealth we are helping to bridge the dollar gap. In the Colonial territories our purpose is to help in creating the economic and social basis for democratic self-government. Moreover we believe that world peace and prosperity will not be secure so long as vast areas are suffering from bitter poverty. The Colonies are now engaged in a great ten-year plan of development and welfare largely financed by Britain. This plan aims to root out poverty, ignorance and disease. Since 1945, there has been a great increase, compared with pre-war, in the volume of capital goods sent to the Colonies to help in raising their production. Trade unionism, cooperation and social welfare are now fostered so that this new investment shall bring freedom instead of exploitation. A new confidence and energy are springing up throughout Britain’s territories overseas. In the whole of our overseas policy we are proud of the new strength that our country derives from the support of hundreds of millions in all parts of the world who seek a way of life that is neither capitalist nor communist. To these millions Labour Britain is a beacon of inspiration and encouragement. Put the nation first We have now set before our fellow citizens the principles and policy upon which the Labour Party will fight the General Election of 1950. Our appeal is to all those useful men and women who actively contribute to the work of the nation. We appeal to manual workers—skilled, semi-skilled and so-called unskilled; farmers and agricultural workers; active and able managers and adminis-trators in industry and the public services; professional workers, technicians and scientists; and housewives and women workers of all kinds. And just as we in this declaration have put the general public interest first, we ask the electors of all classes to do the same. For if they put sectional interests in front of the general good of the people as a whole, they will tend to damage, not only the nation, but themselves. The fundamental question for the men and women of the United Kingdom to determine when they vote is this: Shall we continue along the road of ordered progress which the people deliberately chose in 1945, or shall reaction, the protectors of privilege and the apostles of scarcity economics be once more placed in the seats of power, to take us back to the bleak years of poverty and unemployment? Those years must never return. We are successfully going forward with the great and inspiring adventure of our time. Let us win through together.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1951 Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 25 October Clement Attlee 617 295 13,948,605 48.8%

Labour—proud of its record, sure in its policies—confidently asks the electors to renew its mandate. Four major tasks face our nation: to secure peace; to maintain full employment and increase production; to bring down the cost of living; to build a just society. Only with a Labour Government can the British people achieve these aims. Peace Our first aim is to save the peace of the world. Labour has striven hard since 1945 to bring all the nations together in world-wide co-operation through the United Nations. We have had grievous disappointments, particularly with the Soviet Union, but we shall persevere. We do not for one moment accept the view that a third world war is inevitable. We arm to save the peace. The Labour Government decided without hesitation that Britain must play her full part in the strengthening of collective defence. Britain must be strong: so must the Commonwealth. But peace cannot be preserved by arms alone. Peace depends equally on bringing freedom from poverty to lands where hunger and disease are the lot of the masses. Britain’s Labour Government has given a lead in economic assistance to these lands. As our armed strength grows, more attention must be given to the under-developed regions of the world. Only a Labour Government would do this. The Tory still thinks in terms of Victorian imperialism and colonial exploitation. His reaction in a crisis is to threaten force. His narrow outlook is an obstacle to that worldwide co-operation which alone makes peace secure. He would have denied freedom to India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Burma. It is this that makes the election so critical, not only for the people of Britain but for the whole world. Anxious eyes will be watching what we do. If the election were to result in a Tory victory there would be no major power in the councils of the Western nations represented by Labour. 75

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Surely now, even more than ever before, it is vital to the fate of civilisation that the voice of Labour should be heard wherever and whenever the issues of war and peace are discussed between the spokesmen of the Great Powers. Full employment and production Full employment through six years of peace is the greatest of all Labour’s achievements. It has never happened before. It has meant a revolution in the lives of our people. To-day, there are half a million unfilled vacancies at the employment exchanges. Under Labour—more jobs than workers. Under the Tories—more workers than jobs. Largely due to full employment, with everyone contributing to the national product, production in Britain since 1945 has risen twice as fast each year as under the Tories. Our industrial and agricultural output is now 50 per cent above pre-war, but we must do better still to improve our living standards, to fulfil our obligations in collective defence and to play our part in assisting under-developed regions. Almost 20 per cent of the national income is now devoted to new capital equipment for the nation. This is higher than ever in British history. World shortage of raw materials has steeply raised the prices of our imports and re-opened the dollar gap. The difficulties are great. But we can conquer them. •

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We shall do everything possible to stimulate production at home and to expand our exports. We shall press on with the development of new sources of raw materials, particularly within the Commonwealth. We shall attack monopolies and combines which restrict production and keep prices and profits too high. We shall prohibit by law the withholding of supplies to traders who bring prices down. We shall take over concerns which fail the nation and start new public enterprises wherever this will serve the national interest. We shall help industry with scientific and technical aid. We shall establish Development Councils, by compulsion if necessary, wherever this will help industrial efficiency. We shall associate the workers more closely with the administration of public industries and services.

The British countryside which was being ruined and depopulated before the war is more prosperous under Labour than ever before. Our farmers and farmworkers have beaten all records in the production of home-grown food. We shall continue the policy of guaranteed prices for the farmer and good conditions of labour for the farmworker. We shall further extend electricity and water supplies and sewerage in rural areas. We shall encourage agricultural co-operatives. We shall stop the creation of new tied cottages under the cottage certificate system as the first step towards a just and comprehensive solution of the tied cottage problem. Under the Tories there was never full employment. Year after year millions were without work. The Tories gave us the distressed areas. They betrayed agriculture; they encouraged monopolies and cartels. They are condemned by their record. 76

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Cost of living Rising world prices have increased the cost of living, but much less in Britain than in most other countries. Our people have been sheltered against rising prices by Labour’s policy of price control; by rent control; by food subsidies worth 12s a week to the average family; by utility production and by bulk purchase which has kept down the cost of imports. Though long overdue improvements in the miners’ wages and working conditions have been made, the price of coal under nationalisation is less than in any other country in Europe, or in the United States. Our Government has started international discussions for a fairer distribution of raw materials and for lower and more stable prices. Largely through this initiative the prices of textiles and clothing, including children’s clothing, have recently been much reduced. This brings great benefit to the housewife and is a welcome change from the previous upward movement of the cost of living. We hope to see this fall extend to other prices soon. With this object we shall extend and strengthen price controls. We shall set up new auction markets in provincial towns to reduce the price of fruit and vegetables to the housewife. She will have fresher supplies, and when unnecessary middlemen are cut out the grower will get better and more stable prices. We shall overhaul marketing in other trades with the same object. Tory policy would cause a catastrophic rise in the cost of living. They are for high profits and against controls. They demand the abandonment of bulk purchase. They want to end the utility scheme. They would allow landlords to raise rents. Social justice Contrast Britain in the inter-war years with Britain today. Then we had mass unemployment; mass fear; mass misery. Now we have full employment. Then millions suffered from insecurity and want. Now we have social security for every man, woman and child. Then dread of doctors’ bills was a nightmare in countless homes so that good health cost more than most people could afford to pay. Now we have a national health scheme which is the admiration of the post-war world. Then we had the workhouse and the Poor Law for the old people. Now we have a national insurance system covering the whole population with greatly improved pensions and a humane National Assistance scheme. Then only 39 per cent of the nation’s personal incomes after taxation went to the wage earner, and 34 per cent to rent, interest and profit. Now, following Labour’s great reforms in taxation, 48 per cent goes in wages and only 25 per cent in rent, interest and profit. There has, indeed, been progress, but much more remains to be done in the redistribution of income and of property to ensure that those who create the nation’s wealth receive their just reward. Half of Britain’s wealth is still owned by 1 per cent of the population. 77

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Labour will press forward towards greater social equality and the establishment of equal opportunities for all. We shall extend our policy of giving all young people equal opportunities in education. We shall encourage a spirit of hope and adventure in the young. As soon as tax reductions become possible we shall still further reduce taxation of wages, salaries, moderate incomes and moderate inheritances. We shall also take steps to abolish the differences between the payment of men and women in the public services. On the other hand, we shall limit dividends by law, increase taxation on the small minority who own great fortunes and large unearned incomes, and take measures to prevent large capital gains. The Tories are against a more equal society. They stand, as they have always stood, for privilege. In Parliament they proposed cuts in taxation on large incomes and fought the profits tax. They opposed the dividend freeze. In order to reduce the taxes of the well-to-do they would cut down the social services and penalise the great mass of people. They now suggest ‘some sort of an excess profits tax’. In the interests of the nation Labour would stop all excess profits. They have voted in Parliament against the National Health Service, and they condemned the Labour Government for being ‘too hasty’ in introducing family allowances and raising old age pensions. Under Labour more than 1,300,000 new dwellings have been built since the war. We shall maintain the present rate of 200,000 new houses a year and increase it as soon as raw materials and manpower can be spared. Most of these houses will as now be built for rent and not for sale, and for the benefit of those whose housing need is greatest. We shall give security to householders and shopkeepers by leasehold enfranchisement and by other changes in the law. Forward with Labour or backward with the Tories We ask the electors to renew their vote of confidence in the Labour Party. It is a simple choice—Labour or Tory. Look first at the past records, for we have both made history. But what kind of history? To-day, after six years of Labour rule and in spite of post-war difficulties, the standard of living of the vast majority of our people is higher than ever it was in the days of Tory rule. Never have the old folk been better cared for. Never had we so happy and healthy a young generation as we see in Britain to-day. Scotland and Wales have a new vitality. The great areas of depression have gone. There has been much devolution of administration from Whitehall and this will be carried further. Welfare at home, peace abroad, with a constant striving for international co-operation— this is Labour’s aim. The Tories with their dark past, full of bitter memor-ies for so many of our people, promise no light for the future. They would take us backward into poverty and insecurity at home and grave perils abroad.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1955 Forward with Labour: Labour’s policy for the consideration of the nation

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 26 May Clement Attlee 620 277 12,404,970 46.4%

As we in Britain prepare to go to the poll, the Hydrogen Bomb looms over all mankind. What can we do to meet that menace? The existence of this terrible weapon on both sides of the Iron Curtain maintains an uneasy balance under the threat of mutual destruction. But deterrents can at best only give us a breathing space. We are faced with the choice between world co-operation and world annihilation. The time is short. The Labour Party approaches the problem in no party spirit. In April, 1954, we moved a motion in the House of Commons asking for immediate high-level talks. This was carried unanimously. Despite our pressure, those talks have not taken place. Labour believes that the first task of a British Government is to end this delay. Labour’s policy for peace But to insist on high-level talks is not enough. The Prime Minister who takes part in them must stand for a positive peace policy. Labour’s peace policy is threefold: 1 Disarmament—Labour will ensure that Britain gives her full support to the United Nations as the world-wide organisation for peace and security. Ultimately the menace of the H-bomb can only be removed by world disarmament, which covers all kinds of weapons. We shall cooperate in any genuine plan for disarmament which provides for effective international control, even though it involves, as it must, sacrifices of national sovereignty. As a first step, we believe that Britain should propose the immediate cessation of H-bomb tests. 2 Relaxing World Tension—If the great powers are to disarm, the causes of world tension must be attacked. In Europe the chief of them is a divided Germany. Labour believes that the time has now come to make another effort to achieve the reunification of Germany by means of genuinely free elections. 81

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In the Far East the war crisis centres on Formosa. Labour has constantly urged that this crisis can only be overcome by the evacuation of the off-shore islands, now held by Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces; by the long overdue admission of Communist China to the United Nations; and by the neutralisation of Formosa under the United Nations to enable its inhabitants to make their own choice. 3 The Under-Developed Areas—There can be no lasting peace until we have met the most profound challenge of our time—the gap between the highly developed industrial nations of the West and the peasant millions of Asia and Africa. The Labour Government responded to this challenge and earned the confidence of the colonial peoples. For this reason alone no one is better fitted to represent Britain at high-level talks than Clement Attlee—the man who freed India, despite Conservative jeers of ‘Socialist scuttle’. Empire into Commonwealth Labour worked to transform the British Empire into a Commonwealth of free and equal peoples. We helped India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Burma to achieve their freedom; we encouraged West Africa to move rapidly towards self-government; and we began to tackle backwardness and poverty in South-East Asia through the Colombo Plan. We shall continue the transformation from Empire to Commonwealth as each Colonial people becomes ready for independence. Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to protect the weaker peoples from being exploited, and to develop communities free from racial and colour discrimination. Defence Faced with actual aggression in Korea and the threat of it elsewhere, the Labour Government did not shirk the heavy burden of rearmament. It took the lead in building up the North Atlantic Alliance. We believe that in the absence of all-round disarmament, the democratic powers must be strong and united, and their defensive power sufficient to deter aggression. But recently, after three years of Tory Government and despite heavy defence expenditure, grave deficiencies have been revealed both in the equipment of the Royal Air Force and in the use of manpower in the Services. A Labour Government will at once submit all problems of defence to a searching inquiry. In particular, it will review the period of National Service. The cost of living The Tories’ main claim is that the nation is more prosperous as the result of their decision to scrap socialist planning and return to a free-for-all to suit big business. What are the facts? Industrial production—the key to prosperity—has gone up since they took office at only half the rate by which it rose while Labour was in power. Exports have hardly increased at all since 1951. They went up in the last three years of the Labour Government ten times as fast as under the Tories. Our gold 82

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and dollar reserves have been falling for the past nine months, and to-day they are two hundred million pounds less than they were at the time of the last General Election. Such improvements as there have been in the last three years have been, mostly due to the movement of world prices in our favour which has reduced the cost of our imports. Moreover, the gain has been precarious and most unfairly distributed. Dividends have gone up faster than wages or salaries. Speculators and investors, whose shares have risen in value 50 per cent, in the last two years, have done best of all. Even the long overdue increase in pensions is being financed by making workers and employers pay a shilling a week more in contributions. It was the policy of the Labour Government to protect consumers from the full effect of rising world prices; and up to 1951 the cost of living rose far less here than in other countries. The Tories fought last time on a pledge to bring prices down, and Mr Butler promised not to cut food subsidies. In less than a year he broke this promise, and thus deliberately drove up the cost of living. Although import prices are down by 3s in the pound, prices in the shops at home have continued to rise and food in particular costs 4s in the pound more than in 1951. This, of course, has hit hardest the old age pensioners and others living on small incomes. Labour’s policy is to keep the cost of living steady 1 by long-term agreements with Commonwealth countries; 2 by firm action against monopolies which, through price-fixing and restrictive practices, exploit the public; 3 by cutting out waste in the present antiquated system of food distribution; and 4 by re-imposing price controls on essential goods where necessary. The charge that a Labour Government would reintroduce rationing is a deliberate Tory lie. A fair deal for the consumer •

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Labour will take powers to protect the public against shoddy goods and unscrupulous trade practices, and enforce clean food standards in shops and restaurants. We will encourage manufacturers to produce better goods by enforcing quality standards and accurate labelling. We shall establish a Consumers’ Advisory Service. Helping the family

Labour believes that security should not be a privilege of the few but the right of all, and is determined to assure it to every family—security in the home, security against the burdens of old age and sickness, and an equal chance for every child at school.

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Housing Labour believes that housing is a social service and will therefore go on subsidising the building of houses to let by local authorities. It will also begin to tackle the vast problem of old, rent-restricted houses in private hands. The failure of the Tory Rents and Repairs Acts has proved that the landlords will not repair those houses without steeper increases of rent than even a Tory Government would dare to permit. Labour will therefore ask local authorities to submit schemes for gradually taking over and modernising rent-controlled private property, subject to fair compensation. We shall help those who wish to do so to own their own homes. We shall give leaseholders an opportunity of purchasing the freeholds of their houses. Health and old age Through the National Health Service and National Insurance, the Labour Government began to abolish the fear of old age, sickness and disablement which haunted working-class life before the war. We shall go forward with the job. In order to restore a free Health Service, we shall abolish all charges, including those on teeth, spectacles and prescriptions. We shall stop queue-jumping by ensuring that the need for treatment and not ability to pay shall be the test for obtaining a bed in National Health Service hospitals. Now social security must be carried one stage further. In order to remove the last taint of ‘public assistance’, a Ministry of Social Welfare will be established to take over the work not only of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, but also of the National Assistance Board. To maintain the real purchasing power of these benefits, pensions and allowances, we shall institute an annual review, and in any year in which there has been an increase in the cost of living, the scale of payments will be increased accordingly. One of the first acts of the next Labour Government will be to improve the rates of National Assistance fixed last February by the Tory Government, an increase which we regard as quite inadequate. We shall also deal with the anomalies of the National Insurance and Industrial Injuries schemes. We welcome the growth of superannuation schemes in industry and commerce as valuable additions to National Insurance pensions. We shall consult with the TUC and industry with a view to extending similar schemes on a voluntary basis to all kinds of employment and will seek, wherever possible, to arrange for pensions to be made transferable. Education Labour is determined on a radical reform of our education service. Our first objectives are: (a) to increase the number of teachers and to improve, especially in rural areas, the standard of our schools; and (b) to remove from the primary schools the strain of the 11-plus examination. 84

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This cramps the free and happy life which should stimulate the children’s early years. It penalises the children who develop late and gives an inferior place in our education to the practical skills increasingly essential to our industrial efficiency. Local Authorities will be asked to submit schemes for abolishing the examination and, to realise the fulfilment of the Education Act, 1944, we shall encourage comprehensive secondary schooling. We shall insist on the inspection of all private schools. To prevent children being removed from school or denied a University education for lack of means, a national scale of Maintenance Allowances will be established, and every student admitted to a University will be entitled, in case of need, to a State Scholarship. For those who leave school at the age of 15, we shall begin to carry out those parts of the 1944 Education Act which make provision for part-time education. We shall provide more playing fields. We shall abolish the tax on sport and the living theatre. Television is a growing influence for good or ill. Labour will establish an alternative public television service, free from advertising. Fair shares The Tories have reduced taxes on profits and unearned income, and granted tax reliefs which give most help to those who need help least. With their encouragement, higher dividends are being paid at the expense of the re-equipment of industry. Labour will once again use the Budget as an instrument for the twin purposes of remedying social inequality and increasing production. We shall review the working of the tax system to ensure that it is efficient and just. We shall encourage those who earn their money by hard work and ability; we shall assist National Savings and investment. But we shall deal firmly with tax dodgers, and we shall see to it that a fairer share of the burden will be carried by those who get their money too easily through excessive profits, capital gains and the inheritance of large fortunes. We shall speed up the repayment of post-war credits which was inevitably delayed in the difficult years immediately after the war. Labour re-affirms its belief in equal pay for equal work and will immediately extend it to industrial workers in Government service and so give a lead to industry. Planning and public ownership In order to strengthen our Welfare State still further and at the same time to play our part in assisting the under-developed areas of the world, our own production must rise every year. Only a government prepared to plan the nation’s resources can do this. Labour will ensure that the claims of investment and modernisation come first, and will use taxation policy to help productive investment—thus providing more efficient plant and equipment for the workers. Even the Tories have had to praise the nationalised industries for their high rate of investment and advances in technical efficiency. Public ownership of the steel and road haulage industries is essential to the nation’s needs and we shall re-nationalise them. We shall bring sections of the chemical and machine tools industries into public ownership. Where necessary, we shall start new public enterprises. 85

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The Labour Government brought new hope to the old distressed areas. The Tory Government have scrapped many of the essential controls, and now, once again, some areas face the danger of unemployment. Labour will use the Development Area powers to the full, and where necessary, extend them in order to provide new jobs. A new industrial era Atomic energy and other new inventions can bring dramatic increases in productivity and therefore in wealth and leisure. They will also demand new skills. To meet this demand, Labour will enlist the help of scientists, trade unions and progressive managements, and begin a real drive for better technical education. We will encourage schemes of industrial democracy and introduce long overdue legislation to improve working conditions in shops and offices. Full harvest Labour in power revitalised the countryside. Britain needs a continuously expanding and efficient farming industry. The farmer must be able to produce in the confidence that he will find a market. This was Labour’s policy under the 1947 Agriculture Act—a policy which the Tories are undermining. The housewife is paying more than she need for food because there are too many middlemen between her and the grower. Yet the grower, too, is threatened with insecurity again. Labour will return to a system of fixed guaranteed prices for the main commodities so that the farmer can plan ahead, and will abolish the costly system of private auctions and deficiency payments. We shall encourage the settingup of producer marketing boards to organise distribution more efficiently in the interests of the consumer as well as the farmer. Advisory services and credit facilities for farmers will be improved. Labour will cheapen fruit and vegetables by opening more markets and thus bring the produce of our market gardens into the shops more quickly and efficiently. There will be a square deal for the farm worker and his family, and the injustices of the tied cottage system will be brought to an end. Safety regulations will be applied to farms. Water supplies, still pitifully inadequate in the countryside, will be greatly extended and brought under public ownership. Labour’s aim is to revive the best in country life and to bring the benefits of modern living to our hamlets and villages. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Under the Tories, there had been hunger and misery, idle pits and shipyards and bankrupt farms. Labour in power brought new life to Scotland and Wales. Thriving industry justified triumphantly Labour’s system of controls and priorities. But unemployment in some parts of these countries remains high. Labour will ensure full employment in Scotland and Wales, and will begin to overtake Tory neglect by bringing new industries to Northern Ireland. We respect and will safeguard the distinctive national cultures of these countries. 86

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Local government Labour believes in a vigorous local democracy. But at present local authorities do not have adequate revenue to do their job properly. Immediate relief will be provided by the repeal of the de-rating of industrial properties. We shall review local government structure and finance, and consider the possibility of rating of site values. Forward with Labour In the dangerous world in which we live we must seek to unite all those who earnestly desire peace and disarmament and who recognise the need for a positive policy to remove the causes of war. Faith, vision and enthusiasm are needed if civilisation is not to be destroyed by man’s many inventions. A Party that proudly claims for its inspiration the brotherhood of man is best fitted to grasp the opportunity of building a world of peace, freedom and justice. In Britain our goal is a society in which free and independent men and women work together as equals. The signposts along our road are Work for All, Abolition of Want, Fair Distribution of Income and Property, Better Education. The powers we ask for will be used in the interests of the whole nation, fully respecting the rights of human personality. Our aim is to make men more truly free. In 1945, Britain started out along the path of social justice. Now is the time to go forward with Labour.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1959 Britain belongs to you The Labour Party’s policy for consideration by the British people

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 8 October Hugh Gaitskell 621 258 12,215,538 43.8%

We welcome this Election; it gives us, at last, the chance to end eight years of Tory rule. In a television chat with President Eisenhower, Mr Macmillan told us that the old division of Britain into the two nations, the Haves and the Have Nots, has disappeared. Tory prosperity, he suggested, is shared by all. In fact, the contrast between the extremes of wealth and poverty is sharper today than eight years ago. The business man with a tax-free expense account, the speculator with tax-free capital gains, and the retiring company director with a tax-free redundancy payment due to a take-over bid—these people have indeed ‘never had it so good’. It is not so good for the widowed mother with children, the chronic sick, the 400,000 unemployed, and the millions of old age pensioners who have no adequate superannuation. While many of those at work have been able to maintain and even improve their standard of living by collective bargaining, the sick, the disabled and the old have continually seen the value of state benefits and small savings whittled away by rising prices. Instead of recognising this problem as the greatest social challenge of our time, the Prime Minister blandly denies it exists. The danger of complacency One of the dangers we face as a nation is the mood of complacency and self-deception engendered by the vast Tory propaganda machine. The Tory Manifesto claims that the Government has ‘now stabilised the cost of living while maintaining full employment’ and that it is ‘succeeding in creating one nation at home’. These claims are largely without foundation. The cost of living has not been stabilised. Full employment has not been maintained. There are many millions of ‘have nots’ in Britain. 91

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The best way to ensure you do not reach your goal is to pretend that you are there already. This is what the Tories have been doing. We do not say that the task of combining an expanding economy with full employment and steady prices is an easy one. Indeed it will remain impossible until we have a Government which is prepared to use all measures, including the Budget, in order to expand production and simultaneously to ensure that welfare is developed and prosperity fairly shared. Labour’s five-year programme of action has been carefully worked out to achieve these aims. The truth about production Rising living standards depend upon a steady expansion of production. The Tory record, whether measured against that of the Labour Government or of other countries, is deplorable. Far from leading in the race for higher productivity, Britain in these last years has been outpaced by almost every other industrial nation. After the Thorneycroft crisis of 1957, the Government deliberately created unemployment in an attempt to halt inflation. Unemployment is still heavy in some areas. Throughout the country it has led to broken apprenticeships; and many schoolleavers this autumn are having difficulty in finding jobs. Ending poverty in old age The living standards of more than half our old-age pensioners are a national disgrace. About a million are driven by poverty to seek National Assistance, and another 500,000 would be entitled to receive it but are too proud to do so. True, the small minority who draw a really good superannuation pension are comfortably off, but they are the exception. Our emergency plan for tackling this problem is to raise the basic pension and other social security benefits at once from £2 10s to £3 a week; and their purchasing power will be maintained by an automatic increase to cover any rise in prices that may have taken place in the previous year. The Government have turned down both the basic £3 pension and the guarantee of its value. All they have done is to improve slightly the scales of National Assistance, from which no one can benefit without a means test. The contrast between our long-term scheme and that of the Tories is equally striking. Our plan for National Superannuation will not affect those already covered by good superannuation schemes. But every other employed and self-employed person will be brought into National Superannuation and enjoy all the advantages of the best kind of private scheme. The scheme will be financed by graded contributions, 5 per cent from employer and 3 per cent from employee, and an Exchequer grant equivalent to 2 per cent of average national earnings. In five years it will be providing a useful addition to the basic pension. When it is in full operation, it will provide half-pay on retirement for the average wage-earner, and up to two-thirds for the lower paid workers, both men and women. The Tories have put on the Statute Book a bogus imitation of National Superannuation, due to come into force in 1961. This does not give an immediate increase to existing pensioners; it does not raise pensions if prices rise; it does not cover 92

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those earning less than £9 a week; and, though the contributions are heavy, it does not provide anything approaching half-pay on retirement. Indeed, only a third of the graded contribution comes back in graded benefit to the contributor. The rest is taken by the Chancellor for other purposes. The Tory scheme is really a financial device for shifting most of the burden of paying for pensions from the better-off taxpayers to workers earning between £9 and £15 a week. Widows Among widows—especially widowed mothers with growing children—there is a great deal of hardship and want. We shall review all widows’ pensions, paying particular attention to the earnings rule, and increase to £1 the basic pension of the ‘10s widow’. Education Money spent on education is an investment for the future. We propose, therefore, a great drive to abolish slum schools, to reduce the size of classes to 30 in primary and secondary schools, and to expand facilities for technical and other higher education. One of the greatest barriers to equality of opportunity in our schools is the segregation of our children into grammar and other types of school at the age of 11. This is why we shall get rid of the 11-plus examination. The Tories say this means abolishing the grammar schools. On the contrary, it means that grammar-school education will be open to all who can benefit by it. In our system of comprehensive education we do not intend to impose one uniform pattern of school. Local authorities will have the right to decide how best to apply the comprehensive principle. At present, children whose parents cannot pay fees often suffer from an unfair disadvantage in secondary education. By improving the system of maintenance grants, we shall make sure that no child is deprived of secondary schooling by the parents’ lack of money. In the same way we shall ensure that any student accepted by a university will receive a really adequate State scholarship. Housing Labour’s policy has two aims: to help people buy their own homes and to ensure an adequate supply of decent houses to let at a fair rent. As a first step we shall repeal the Rent Act, restore security of tenure to decontrolled houses, stop further decontrol, and ensure fair rents by giving a right of appeal to rent tribunals. The return of a Tory Government would mean further rent increases and the decontrol of many more houses. We say this despite the official Tory assurance that there will be no decontrol during the life of the next Parliament—for we remember what happened last time. During the 1955 Election Mr Bevan prophesied that rents of controlled houses would be increased if the Conservatives came back to power. Two days later the Conservative Central Office denied this, and said there was no truth in his statement. In 1957 the Conservative Government introduced the Rent Act. 93

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Under the Tories, home purchasers have been subject to unpredictable and burdensome increases of interest rates. Labour will bring interest rates down. We shall also reform leasehold law to enable leaseholders with long leases to buy their own homes. Council building of rented houses has been slashed under the Tories chiefly as a result of higher interest rates and the abolition of the general housing subsidy. We shall reverse their policy by restoring the subsidy and providing cheaper money for housing purposes. We shall encourage councils to press on with slum clearance. At the last count there were seven million households in Britain with no bath, and over three million sharing or entirely without a w.c. The Tories have tried to induce private landlords to improve their property by means of public grants, with very small success. Labour’s plan is that, with reasonable exceptions, local councils shall take over houses which were rent-controlled before 1 January, 1956, and are still tenanted. They will repair and modernise these houses and let them at fair rents. This is a big job which will take time and its speed will vary according to local conditions. Every tenant, however, will have a chance first to buy from the Council the house he lives in; and all Council tenants in future will enjoy the same security of tenure as rentrestricted tenants. Health The creation of the National Health Service was opposed by the Tories. Since they took office they have starved the Service of money. Although the period of post-war scarcity is long since over, the Tories have completed only one new hospital. As a minimum we shall spend £50 million a year on hospital development, and we shall also restore the free Health Service by abolishing all charges, starting with the prescription charge. One gap in the Service is that at present no provision is made for health care at work. We shall close that gap by creating an occupational health service. The family doctor will, however, remain the basis of health care. We shall help him by reducing the permitted maximum number of patients, without loss of income, and encourage group practice by a substantial increase in the group practice loans fund. We shall safeguard the health, welfare and safety of people employed in shops and offices by carrying out the recommendations of the Gowers Committee. We shall also establish a free chiropody service for old people. Leisure As our plan for expansion develops, people will be increasingly able to choose between more money and more leisure. How the balance is struck is largely a matter for the trade unions in negotiation with the employers. How leisure is spent is a matter for the individual. Governments should not interfere in either. The individual, however, can only have real freedom to use his leisure as he wants to if proper facilities are available to all and not merely to a privileged few; and this is where both the Government and the local authorities can help. We shall make much better provision for the enjoyment of sport, the arts and the countryside. A Sports Council will be set up with a grant of £5 million. The Arts 94

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Council grant will be increased by £4 million annually. The National Theatre will be established. In order to ensure that the countryside is open for the enjoyment of all, the powers of the National Parks Commission will be increased. We shall get rid of out-of-date restrictions on personal liberty. Anomalies in the betting laws will be removed; an inquiry will be held into the Sunday observance laws; and a Royal Commission will be set up to review and recommend changes in the licensing laws. But, as these are all matters of conscience, there will be free votes on them for Labour MPs. We do not propose to end commercial television, but evasions of the Television Act must stop. When it is technically possible we shall welcome a third choice of television programme. There is a strong case for granting this neither to the BBC nor to the ITA but to a new public corporation. But a decision will be deferred until the views of an independent committee have been obtained. Labour will end the Cinema Entertainments Duty. Youth The Youth Service, which should provide recreation for boys and girls leaving school, has, year after year, been starved of funds. Many youth club premises are dingy and unattractive, trained leaders are too few, and facilities for sports and games are quite inadequate. Over the next five years we have got to cater for a million more teenagers leaving school. Our new Sports Council will go some way to meet their needs. But we shall also require (1) a sustained drive to re-equip the whole youth service, (2) a rapid increase of apprenticeships and other forms of training, and (3) economic expansion sufficient to provide a million new jobs. We are also convinced that the affairs of the community will benefit from more active participation by young people. Among the many proposals which Labour will consider is the lowering of the voting age. As this would be a major change in our electoral law and social practice, we shall in the next Parliament initiate discussions on it with the other parties. Taxation—and planned expansion Tory propagandists allege that a Labour Government would have to put up taxes in order to pay for these improved social services. This is quite untrue. The finance required would be raised in two ways. The chief way of raising it will be through planned expansion. For four years under the Tories industrial production scarcely rose. In 1958 alone this cost the country £1,700 million, of which the Exchequer would have received £450 million. With this increased revenue we could have paid for great improvements in the welfare services, and we could have reduced taxation and extended the repayment of postwar credits. So, too, the steadily expanding national income will enable us to pay for our five-year programme without increasing the present rates of taxation. Secondly, we shall change the tax system to deal with the tax-dodgers and limit taxfree benefits. These benefits are now so extensive and lavish that the ordinary wage or salary earner who has no access to them pays more than his fair share of taxation. In particular: 95

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1 We shall deal with the business man’s expense account racket and the tax-free compensation paid to directors on loss of office; 2 We shall tax the huge capital gains made on the Stock Exchange and elsewhere; 3 We shall block other loopholes in the tax law including those which lead to the avoidance of death duties and surtax. Public ownership The nationalised industries have played a great part in Britain’s postwar development. Pits have been modernised, atomic power stations built, a massive modernisation of the railways started. But one crying need is to clear up the present muddle by an overall national fuel policy. The work of our nationalised industries has been made much more difficult by the Tories. Big business and the Tory Party itself have invested huge sums in propaganda campaigns, designed to discredit the idea of public ownership. Many of the Government’s policies have, indeed, been activated by prejudice—for example, their transference of work from publicly owned railway workshops to private firms and the favouritism they have shown to private airlines. Under a Labour Government, the nationalised industries will be given an opportunity once again to forge ahead. As part of our planned expansion, it will be necessary to extend the area of public ownership. The private steel monopoly will be restored to public ownership, in order to ensure its expansion and give the taxpayer value for the large sums of public money still invested in it. Commercial long-distance road haulage will be renationalised and built into an integrated transport system. With half a million new cars coming on the roads each year, the Government’s road programme is entirely inadequate. But, to solve the problem, road-building must be related to a national plan which covers all the transport needs of an expanding economy. It must also deal with the appalling problem of road casualties. We have no other plans for further nationalisation. But where an industry is shown, after thorough enquiry, to be failing the nation we reserve the right to take all or any part of it into public ownership if this is necessary. We shall also ensure that the community enjoys some of the profits and capital gains now going to private industry by arranging for the purchase of shares by public investment agencies such as the Superannuation Fund Trustees. The cost of living To achieve planned economic expansion and full employment without raising prices requires a buoyant demand to stimulate British industry; a high rate of investment as the basis of raising productivity; an energetic application of science in all phases of our economic life; a favourable balance of payments including the development of Commonwealth trade; and a strong pound. Under the Tories the cost of living has risen by a third. Eventually the Government were forced to take action and apply the traditional Tory remedy: they cut production and deliberately created unemployment. 96

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This use of unemployment to halt rising prices is as obsolete as it is cruel. But it is unavoidable under a Government with a doctrinaire prejudice against controls—a Government, moreover, which antagonises the unions. Every wage-earner realises the futility of wages chasing prices and wants to see a stable cost of living combined with full employment. But the unions can only co-operate if the Government, too, plays its part. If we want lasting prosperity it must be prosperity which is fairly shared. Only a Labour Government is ready to use the necessary controls and able to win full co-operation from the unions by such measures as a fair-shares Budget policy and the extension of the Welfare State. Consumer protection We shall begin a vigorous campaign of consumer protection. Buyers will be protected against hire-purchase ramps and shoddy goods. A tough anti-monopoly policy will lower prices and we shall make it compulsory to show clearly the net weight or quantity of packaged goods. Existing consumer protection organisations will be encouraged and we shall examine the need for further consumer protection—a task in which the Co-operative Movement will obviously have a great part to play. Private industry Our policy for planned expansion without inflation requires the full co-operation of the private sector of industry. Our tax policy will be directed towards helping industry to mechanise, modernise and expand and make a maximum contribution to exports. As for the industrial giants which dominate our economic life, we shall ensure that these firms plan their operations in accordance with our national objectives of full employment and maximum efficiency. With employers and trade unions we shall work out a Code of Conduct. This will include a Workers’ Charter, designed to raise the status of the wage-earner and extend privileges, such as sickness pay, already provided for most salaried employees. Local unemployment One of our first tasks will be to help industries at present suffering depression and contraction. Despite the Government’s ‘scrap and shut down’ policy, we shall at once put into effect our own Plan for Cotton and guarantee to what survives of the industry a much more hopeful future. Shipbuilding and ship-repairing is another hard-hit industry, where vigorous action must be taken if full employment is to be restored. Wherever there is a danger of local unemployment arising, we shall use the full powers of the Distribution of Industry Act. The activities of the industrial estates companies will be greatly expanded. The Government will build ‘advance’ factories to encourage firms to move to places where they are needed. Additional areas with high unemployment will be scheduled for development purposes. From 1945 to 1951 it was Labour’s policy to bring the work to the workers. We pledge ourselves to do this again. Unemployment pay will be raised to £3 a week. By discontinuing Section 62 of the National Insurance Act, the Tories have ended long-term unemployment benefit. We shall restore it. 97

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The countryside The Labour Government gave the farmer reasonable security for the first time in this century; but since 1951 this security has been whittled away. It must be restored. Protection will be given against unfair foreign competition. The tenant farmer will obtain real security of tenure and an effective rent arbitration system such as existed until the Tories’ recent wrecking measure. A special credit organisation will be set up to provide loans at reasonable and stable rates of interest. Agricultural co-operation will be encouraged. We shall introduce measures to improve agricultural and horticultural marketing. The farm worker is leaving the land. If he is to stay there he needs a better life. We shall: 1 enable the Wages Board to introduce a ‘payment during sickness’ scheme; 2 end the evils of the tied cottage; and 3 through National Superannuation provide security in old age for workers in an industry in which there are virtually no private occupational schemes. Labour will also improve rural amenities. Slum schools will be abolished, education in the countryside brought up to the town level. The publicly-owned industries have already done much: thanks to nationalisation, 110,000 more farms than in 1948 now have electricity. We shall carry out the long overdue reorganisation of water supplies under public ownership. This will not only help the countryside, but industry as well. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Each of the various nations that make up the United Kingdom has its special problems. Labour has recognised this by issuing the policy statements Let Scotland Prosper and Forward with Labour—Labour’s Policy For Wales. The Northern Ireland Labour Party has issued its own policy statement on the problems of Ulster, to which Labour’s National Executive has given general approval. Labour’s plans for expansion, restoring full employment and increasing welfare will benefit all these areas. In particular we will take vigorous measures to increase and diversify industry and to stimulate agriculture. Improvements in communications will include such major enterprises as the building of road bridges over the Severn and the Tay. The time has now come for the special identity of Wales to be recognised by the appointment of a Secretary of State. Who goes to the summit? All our hopes of building a decent, happy society at home are vain without peace abroad. Our very existence depends on ending the nuclear arms race. This summer a new opportunity has come for breaking the East-West deadlock. There is now every chance of the Summit Conference for which Labour has pressed for two long years. It seems to us that there are three tests to which anyone who claims to represent Britain at the Summit should be prepared to submit himself. 98

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1 Has he proved beyond doubt that he believes in promoting the rule of law in international relations, and that he rejects as obsolete the resort to violence in order to achieve his ends? 2 Can he show by his past actions that he will make Britain the leader in securing a disarmament agreement? 3 Has he faced, in a way that will gain the confidence of Asia and Africa, the problem of a world divided between rich and poor nations, subject and free peoples? The rule of law and the United Nations The Tories pay lip-service to the rule of law but ignore it whenever it seems to conflict with their interests. That is the lesson of Suez. Ignoring an overwhelming vote by the United Nations Assembly, they put Britain into a hopeless military venture which split the Commonwealth and all but destroyed the Anglo-American alliance. The Suez gamble was not only a crime, it was also an act of folly, hopelessly misconceived, bungled in execution and covered with a tissue of lies told by the leading Ministers concerned, including the present Premier and Foreign Secretary. By refusing to express any compunction or regret about Suez, Mr Macmillan and Mr Selwyn Lloyd have shown the world how little respect they really feel for the rule of law. The Labour Party, on the other hand, upheld the decision of the United Nations on Suez. Since then our proposals for disengagement in Central Europe, the Middle East and the China Sea have all been designed to substitute the rule of law and negotiated settlements for the power politics of conflicting blocs. We have also insisted that the West should not violate the spirit of the Charter by preventing the admission of Communist China to the United Nations. We have always realised, however, that power is required to make the rule of law effective. That is why during the period of the East-West deadlock we have stood resolutely by our defensive alliances and contributed our share to Western defence through NATO. It is our view that any weakening of the alliance would contribute to a worsening of international relations. For this reason we have repeatedly exposed the blunders in planning and expenditure committed by no fewer than seven Tory Defence Ministers in eight years. We have vigorously opposed the Government’s dangerously one-sided reliance on nuclear weapons; and we urged that highly trained, well-paid regular forces should be substituted for conscripts. The arms race In the field of disarmament Labour has set the pace. We led the demand for an end to all nuclear tests; after years of delay the tests are now temporarily suspended, and we declare that, even if other countries break the truce, we would not start our tests again but would immediately convene a new conference. This year we have taken the lead on another urgent problem—the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries. We have put forward the only concrete proposals designed to stop this dangerous development and so to leave the way open to world-wide disarmament, which is our paramount objective. We have proposed a comprehensive disarmament treaty which would reduce arms, manpower and military expenditure, destroy all stocks of nuclear weapons and their 99

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means of delivery, abolish all chemical and biological weapons, and provide new safeguards against surprise attack. In contrast, the Tory record has been negative and, sometimes, obstructive. They opposed a disarmament agreement unless it was tied to the settlement of political problems. They opposed a nuclear test agreement unless it was part of a general disarmament agreement. They opposed the suspension of tests when Russia offered to stop her own. They opposed Labour’s proposals for disengagement in Europe. They opposed a Summit Conference. Only with a change of American policy and in time for a General Election in Britain has Mr Macmillan emerged as a sponsor of a Summit Conference. Two worlds Two worlds, one white, well-fed and free, the other coloured, hungry and struggling for equality, cannot live side by side in friendship. In their attitudes to the Colonial and ex-Colonial peoples of Asia and Africa the Labour and Tory records stand in sharp contrast. No action of the Attlee Government evoked greater enthusiasm than the freeing of nearly 500 million people in India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. The transformation of the old British Empire into the first inter-racial Commonwealth of free nations was the supreme achievement of the Labour Government. What of the Tory record? In Cyprus foolish words and a stubborn refusal to face facts led to disturbance and bloodshed—and, in the end, the Government had to agree to a settlement that could have been obtained years earlier. An opportunity to integrate Malta into the United Kingdom was thrown away. In Kenya eleven African prisoners were beaten to death. Above all, the Tories ignored Labour’s solemn warnings that nine-tenths of the peoples of Nyasaland and Northern and Southern Rhodesia opposed the Federation which the Tories were forcing on them. The Government’s own Devlin Commission exposed the tragic folly of Tory policy. Mr Macmillan rejected its findings. After this, how can the peoples of Africa and Asia trust a Tory Government? Today the future of Africa is poised as perilously as that of India in 1945. The only British Government which can regain the confidence of Africans is a Government wholeheartedly committed to three principles of the Labour Party’s Colonial policy: first, that the peoples still under Colonial rule have as much right as we have to be governed by consent; secondly, that ‘one man, one vote’ applies in all parts of the world; thirdly, that racial discrimination must be abolished. War against want Labour has always recognised that even if the East-West differences were ended the West is still presented with an immense challenge—the poverty of two-thirds of the world’s people. This is a challenge the Tories have never really faced. We believe in extending the Socialist concept of the Welfare State to all the peoples of the world. This is why we have solemnly pledged ourselves to devote an average of 1 per cent of our national income each year to helping the underdeveloped areas.

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Our Socialist ethic Like our other social and economic policies, this pledge is based on the Socialist belief in the equal value of every human being. This is the belief which inspired the pioneers of Socialism, and still inspires the Labour Party, in the struggle for social justice and human rights. In Britain, despite the bitter resistance of those who saw their profits and privileges threatened, great gains were won in the first half of the twentieth century. We still have to consolidate and extend these gains: none of us, however lucky or well-off we may happen to be, ought to feel comfortable in a society in which the old and sick are not decently cared for. The same principle applies when we face this vast problem of the hungry two-thirds of the world. To solve this problem is the biggest task of the second half of the century. We know that it can be solved—if the fear of war is removed, and with it the crippling burden of arms expenditure. At this historic moment a British Government with a clear policy based on the ethical principles of Socialism can exercise a decisive influence for peace. Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world still look to Britain for moral leadership and eagerly await the result of this General Election. We are confident that their hopes will be fulfilled, and that Britain will be represented at the Summit by a Labour Prime Minister.

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LABOUR PARTY GENERAL ELECTION MANIFESTO 1964 The New Britain

Date of Election Party Leader Candidates MPs Votes % of Vote

Thursday 15 October Harold Wilson 628 317 12,205,814 44.1%

Preface: The New Britain The world wants it and would welcome it. The British people want it, deserve it and urgently need it. And now, at last, the general election presents us with the exciting prospect of achieving it. The dying months of a frustrating 1964 can be transformed into the launching platform for the New Britain of the late 1960s and early 1970s. A New Britain: • • • •

mobilising the resources of technology under a national plan; harnessing our national wealth in brains, our genius for scientific invention and medical discovery; reversing the decline of the thirteen wasted years; affording a new opportunity to equal, and if possible surpass, the roaring progress of other western powers while Tory Britain has moved sideways, backwards but seldom forward.

The country needs fresh and virile leadership. Labour is ready. Poised to swing its plans into instant operation. Impatient to apply the ‘new thinking’ that will end the chaos and sterility. Here is Labour’s Manifesto for the 1964 election, restless with positive remedies for the problems the Tories have criminally neglected. Here is the case for planning, and the details of how a Labour Cabinet will formulate the national economic plan with both sides of industry operating in partnership with the Government. And here, in this manifesto, is the answer to the Tory gibe that planning could involve a loss of individual liberty. Labour has resolved to humanise the whole administration of the state and to set up the new office of Parliamentary Commissioner with the right and duty to investigate and expose any misuse of government power as it affects the citizen. Much of the manifesto deals with the vital social services that affect the personal lives and happiness of us all, the welfare of our families and the immediate future of 105

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our children. It announces, unequivocally, Labour’s decisions on the nagging problems the Tories stupidly (in some cases callously) brushed aside: • • • • •

The imperative need for a revolution in our education system which will ensure the education of all our citizens in the responsibilities of this scientific age; The soaring prices in houses, flats and land; Social security benefits which have fallen below the minimum levels of human need; The burden of prescription charges in the Health Service; Labour is concerned, too, with the problems of leisure in the age of automation and here again Labour firmly puts the freedom of the individual first.

‘It is not the job of the Government to tell people how leisure should be used’, the manifesto declares. But, in a society where facilities are not provided when they are not profitable and where the trend towards monopoly is growing, it is the job of the Government to ensure that leisure facilities are provided and that a reasonable range of choice is maintained. The pages that follow set out the manifesto in full. Please study it. Are you ready for the challenge? The time for action is now. Part one: Why the Tories failed This is an age of unparalleled advance in human knowledge and of unrivalled opportunity for good or ill. In ever-widening areas of the world the scientific revolution is now making it physically possible for the first time in human history to provide the whole people with the high living standards, the economic security, and the cultural values which in previous generations have been enjoyed by only a small wealthy minority. Until 60 years ago when the Labour Party was founded, the ending of economic privilege, the abolition of poverty in the midst of plenty, and the creation of real equality of opportunity were inspiring but remote ideals. They have now become immediate targets of political action. Britain can achieve them provided that it resolutely wills three things: the mobilisation of its resources within a national plan; the maintenance of a wise balance between community and individual expenditure; and the education of all its citizens in the responsibilities of this scientific age, not merely a small section of them. Since 1951, however, these opportunities of the scientific revolution have been disastrously wasted largely because of the Conservative determination since they took office to end the purposive planning of the post-war Labour Government and replace it with an economic free-for-all. As a result, successive Conservative Chancellors have been unable to get the economy moving steadily forward. Every jerk of expansion has ground to a full stop as the Government jams on the brake in a desperate attempt to combat inflation and rising prices. This is why, while other countries have made giant strides forward, our progress in the past 12 years has been so fitful. So sharp has the contrast become that only 18 months ago a Tory Government, driven by economic failure, lost its nerve and prepared to accept humiliating terms for entry into the European Common Market in the vain 106

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hope that closer contact with a dynamic Europe would give a new boost to our wilting economy. Since the French veto our affairs have not improved. Once again an election year boom is heading for a post-election ‘stop’ —just as happened after the 1959 and 1955 general elections. Indeed, by hanging on to power to the last possible moment in the hope of gaining some temporary electoral advantage, the Government has made the task of its successor immeasurably more difficult. This chapter in our affairs must be brought to a close. Tinkering with policies that have clearly failed and half-hearted conversion to principles previously rejected will not suffice. Only a major change of attitude to the scientific revolution, including an acceptance of the need for purposive planning, will enable us to mobilise the new resources technology is creating and harness them to human needs. Only a major change in economic and fiscal policy can break the defeatist stop-go cycle and prevent another bout of stagnant production, rising unemployment and declining national strength. Only with a new Government, with a sense of national purpose, can we start to create a dynamic, just and go-ahead Britain with the strength to stand on her own feet and to play a proper part in world affairs. We believe that such a New Britain is what the British people want and what the world wants. It is a goal that lies well within our power to achieve. The lessons of thirteen years But first, what lessons must we learn from the past? Thirteen years ago, when the Tories came to power, they claimed to have the remedies for our national problems. The medicines they offered were first, the restoration of a ‘free’ market economy in Britain; second, cuts in community expenditure in the interests of low taxation. The direct and crippling consequences of their free market policies are now well known. First, it has slowed up Britain’s rate of industrial expansion. Not even the Tories’ stop-go policies have been able to prevent some increase in production and in living standards but our record is now among the worst in the western world. If we had only kept up with the rest of Western Europe since 1951, our national income in 1964 would be one-third more than it is—and we should have available an extra £8,000m of goods and services to meet Britain’s problems and to raise living standards. The Tories still peddle their boast—‘You’ve never had it so good.’ The truth is that Britain could and should have had it a whole lot better, and in the process have shown a greater concern for the needs of others. Second, it has necessitated a stop-go economic policy, resulting in intermittent bouts of high unemployment. A continuing excess of imports over exports, with consequential balance of payments and currency crises has forced the Government again and again to halt expansion and to squeeze and freeze the economy. Third, it has led to growing stagnation, unemployment and under-employment in large parts of the North, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, combined with a drift of work and people to the overcrowded London and Midland regions. Fourth, it has led to chaos in our transport system, with unused rail and overused road services and an appalling congestion problem in all our cities. 107

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Fifth, it has led to continuing inflation as companies have pushed up prices and bid with each other for scarce labour. Sixth, it has led to soaring land and house prices which have made it almost impossible for local authorities to replan our towns or for many ordinary families to buy or rent a home. Seventh, it has led to a pervasive atmosphere of irresponsibility; to a selfish, get-richquick mood, in which the public interest is always subordinated to private advantage. No nation in the history of human endeavour was ever inspired to become great (or greater) with the venal philosophy of ‘I’m all right, Jack’. The consequences of their attitude to public expenditure have been no less crippling. While public money has been lavished on wasteful military projects, and while the Government has imposed on itself an ever-increasing burden of interest payments on the national debt, vital community services have been starved of resources. In social security, we still have austerity National Insurance benefits that impose poverty standards on the retired, the sick and the unemployed and deny them their proper share in rising living standards. In community services of all kinds we face such critical and neglected needs as the rebuilding of our towns, the creation of a modern road system, the provision of new hospitals and schools, and a desperate need for new housing. In education we are faced today with a chronic shortage of teachers, with oversize classes, with far too many scandalously out-dated school buildings and with a system of higher and further education far too small for our minimum national needs. No one can say, after thirteen years, that Tory policies have not been put to the test. Not only is their failure now generally recognised, it is even apparent to the Tories themselves. The same party that began its rule with the shibboleths of a free market economy and cuts in public expenditure, now proclaims its conversion to economic planning and to an increased public spending programme of no less than £2,000m in the next five years. A death-bed repentance may ease the Tory conscience, but it is a cynical and utterly unacceptable substitute for the lifelong sincerity and solidarity of the Labour Party on this crucial issue. Tory devices—or Labour Planning? A philosophy of the past At the root of Tory failure lies an outdated philosophy—their nostalgic belief that it is possible in the second half of the twentieth century to hark back to a nineteenth-century free enterprise economy and a nineteenth-century unplanned society. In an age when the economy is no longer self-regulating and when the role of government must inevitably increase, they have tried and failed to turn back the clock. The same backward-looking approach has prevented them from responding to the major world changes of the last decade. •

•

They have reacted churlishly to the rise of the new nations in Asia and Africa, including many new Commonwealth countries, that have emerged from the end of colonialism. They have failed to respond to the immense new challenge of world poverty and racial antagonism. 108

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• •

They have failed to understand the revolution in national defence policies that nuclear weapons necessitate. The effects of their policy at home and abroad are all too plain. They have denied us the rate of expansion we could and should have achieved; they have weakened our military power and they have reduced our political influence in the counsels of the world. Part two: Planning the New Britain

We offer no easy solution to our national problems. Time and effort will be required before they can be mastered. But Labour has a philosophy and a practical programme which is relevant to our contemporary needs. The starting point is our belief that the community must equip itself to take charge of its own destiny and no longer be ruled by market forces beyond its control. Labour does not accept that democracy is a five-yearly visit to the polling booth that changes little but the men at the top. We are working for an active democracy, in which men and women as responsible citizens consciously assist in shaping the surroundings in which they live, and take part in deciding how the community’s wealth is to be shared among all its members. Two giant tasks now await the nation: first, we must energise and modernise our industries—including their methods of promotion and training—to achieve the sustained economic expansion we need; second, we must ensure that a sufficient part of the new wealth created goes to meet urgent and now neglected human needs. A modern economy The aims are simple enough: we want full employment; a faster rate of industrial expansion: a sensible distribution of industry throughout the country; an end to the present chaos in traffic and transport; a brake on rising prices and a solution to our balance of payments problems. As the past thirteen years have shown, none of these aims will be achieved by leaving the economy to look after itself. They will only be secured by a deliberate and massive effort to modernise the economy; to change its structure and to develop with all possible speed the advanced technology and the new science-based industries with which our future lies. In short, they will only be achieved by socialist planning. A national plan Labour will set up a Ministry of Economic Affairs with the duty of formulating, with both sides of industry, a national economic plan. This Ministry will frame the broad strategy for increasing investment, expanding exports and replacing inessential imports. In the short term Labour will give priority to closing the trade gap— (a) By using the tax system to encourage industries and firms to export more. (b) By providing better terms of credit where the business justifies it. 109

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(c) By improving facilities and help for small exporters, particularly on a group basis. (d) By encouraging British industry to supply those manufactures which swell our import bill in time of expansion. With proper stimulus we can produce many of those things we are now forced to import from abroad. But in the long run a satisfactory trade balance will depend upon carrying out Labour’s overall plan to revitalise and modernise the whole economy. It will depend upon maintaining a steady and vigorous programme of long-term expansion. Tax policies will contribute directly to the aims of the national plan. They will be used to encourage the right type of modern industry. Above all the general effect of our tax changes will be to stimulate enterprise, not to penalise it. Plan for industry Within the national plan each industry will know both what is expected of it and what help it can expect—in terms of exports, investment, production and employment. Farmers, too, will be given a new certainty with the establishment of commodity commissions to supervise and regulate the main imported foodstuffs and to balance imports with home production. If production falls short of the plan in key sections of industry, as it has done recently in bricks and in construction generally, then it is up to the Government and the industry to take whatever measures are required. PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

The public sector will make a vital contribution to the national plan. We will have a coordinated policy for the major fuel industries. Major expansion programmes will be needed in the existing nationalised industries, and they will be encouraged, with the removal of the present restrictions placed upon them, to diversify and move into new fields: for example, the railways’ workshops will be free to seek export markets, and the National Coal Board to manufacture the machinery and equipment it needs. Private monopoly in steel will be replaced by public ownership and control. The water supply industry, most of which is already owned by the community, will be reorganised under full public ownership. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

If we are to get a dynamic and expanding economy, it is essential that new and effective ways are found for injecting modern technology into our industries. The Government provides over half the money spent on industrial research and development in Britain. Some of this research is already carried forward, in Government establishments like the National Research and Development Corporation set up by the last Labour Government, to the point of commercial development. This has already led to scores of new products and processes of which the Hovercraft and the Atlas Computer are only the most famous. But to get more rapid application of new scientific discoveries in industry, new measures are urgently required. A Labour Government will 110

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(a) Go beyond research and development and establish new industries, either by public enterprise or in partnership with private industry. (b) Directly stimulate new advance by using, in the field of civil production, the research and development contracts which have hitherto been largely confined to military projects. (c) Set up a Ministry for Technology to guide and stimulate a major national effort to bring advanced technology and new processes into industry. MOBILITY AND TRAINING

Skill, talent and brain power are our most important national resources. Yet in Britain under the Conservatives much of the natural ability of the nation is being wasted. In far too many firms, technicians and technologists, designers and production engineers are held back by the social prejudices and anti-scientific bias of the ‘old boy’ network. In industry, though there are some first-rate training schemes, they are few and far between. Most young people, and particularly girls, are still denied either adequate training at work or release for further education in technical colleges. Older people who wish to change their jobs meet such obstacles as loss of pension rights and the absence of retraining schemes. Is it any wonder that the British economy has been slow to evolve? Is it any wonder that there is widespread fear of automation or that so many of our skilled young people have sought opportunities abroad? Labour believes that the national plan will require a faster rate of change in industry. To meet the human needs that will arise it is essential to combine with our education reforms a revolution in training. We must also extend joint consultation in industry, develop new techniques for forecasting future manpower needs and adopt radical new measures to reconcile security with mobility. To this end we shall implement a charter of rights for all employees. This will include: • • • • • • •

The right to compensation for loss of job or disturbance. The right to half-pay maintenance during any period of sickness and unemployment. The right to first-rate industrial training with day and block release for the young worker. The right to retraining for adult workers. The right to full transferability of pension entitlements. The right to trade union representation and proper safeguards against arbitrary dismissal. The right to equal pay for equal work.

We shall also strengthen the factory inspectorate in order to reduce accidents. Plan for the regions Within the framework of the national plan, plans must also be worked out for the different regions of the United Kingdom. 111

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In the case of Wales and Scotland, the Labour Party has already made clear what needs to be done by issuing the policy statements, Signposts to the New Wales and Signposts for Scotland. As for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Labour Party has issued its own statement Signposts to the New Ulster, to which the Labour Party national executive has given general approval. For these three nations, as for the regions of England itself, control over the location of new factories and offices, inducements to firms to move to areas where industry is declining, the establishment of new public enterprises where these prove necessary—all these measures will be required to check the present drift to the south and to build up the declining economies in other parts of our country. But it will not be enough to plan employment alone on a regional basis. Regional planning is also necessary if we are to solve the problems of slum clearance and overcrowding in our major cities; to carry out a vigorous programme for new town and overspill development, including the proposed new town for Central Wales; to clear up the ugly, scarred face of industrial Britain; to save the countryside from needless despoliation; and to get the co-ordination of higher education, further education and industrial training required to maintain economic expansion. To bring together the different tasks of regional planning, and the different Ministries concerned, Labour will create regional planning boards, equipped with their own expert staffs, under the general guidance of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. These planning boards will work closely with representatives of the local authorities, both sides of industry and other interests in the region. In Scotland and Northern Ireland more unified structures of administration already exist. These can be readily adapted for effective regional planning. In Wales, the creation of a Secretary of State, to which we are pledged, will facilitate the new unified administration we need. Plan for transport Nowhere is planning more urgently needed than in our transport system. The tragedy of lives lost and maimed; growing discomfort and delays in the journey to work; the summer weekend paralysis on our national highways; the chaos and loss of amenity in our towns and cities—these are only some of the unsolved problems of the new motor age. Far from easing these problems, the Government’s policy of breaking up road and rail freight co-ordination, of denationalising road haulage and finally of axing rail services under the Beeching Plan, have made things worse. Labour will draw up a national plan for transport covering the national networks of road, rail and canal communications, properly co-ordinated with air, coastal shipping and port services. The new regional authorities will be asked to draw up transport plans for their own areas. While these are being prepared, major rail closures will be halted. British Road Services will be given all necessary powers to extend their fleet of road vehicles and to develop a first-rate national freight service. Reform of the road goods licensing system must now await the report of the Geddes Committee but, in the interests of road safety, we shall act vigorously to stop cut-throat haulage firms from flouting regulations covering vehicle maintenance, loads and driving hours. 112

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Labour believes that public transport, road and rail, must play the dominant part in the journey to work. Every effort will be made to improve and modernise these services. Urgent attention will be given to the proposals in the Buchanan Report and to the development of new roads capable of diverting through traffic from town centres. RURAL AREAS

Labour will ensure that public transport is able to provide a reasonable service for those who live in rural areas. The studies already mentioned will decide whether these should be provided by public road or rail services. Plan for stable prices The success of the national plan will turn not only on the new partnership between government and industry but on the success of new and more relevant policies to check the persistent rise in prices. Since the Tories came to power the value of the £ has shrunk to 13s 4d: it is still shrinking. The pensioner and the housewife suffer most when prices rise. But the nation, too, is harmed because rising prices both reduce our exports and provoke inflationary increases in incomes. ATTACK ON RISING PRICES

The Tories first ducked this problem, then tinkered with resale price maintenance. Labour will attack it at its roots: in manufactured goods, monopoly and semi-monopoly price fixing; in agriculture, market chaos with an ever-increasing gap between what the farmer receives and what the housewife pays. Labour will: (i) (ii)

Give teeth to the Monopolies Commission, control take-over bids and mergers andtake powers to review unjustified price increases. Promote more orderly marketing of our major food supplies and encourage, in the interests of price stability, long-term contracts with overseas producers. In addition, Labour will make sure that the consumer gets better value for money by attacking selling rackets of all kinds, by ensuring that goods are independently tested and accurately labelled. It will also publicise good quality standards.

A NATIONAL INCOMES POLICY

This is not all. To curb inflation we must have a planned growth of incomes so that they are broadly related to the annual growth of production. To achieve this a Labour Government will enter into urgent consultations with the unions’ and employers’ organisations concerned. Unlike Selwyn Lloyd’s notorious and negative ‘pay pause’, Labour’s incomes policy will not be unfairly directed at lower paid workers and public employees; instead, it will 113

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apply in an expanding economy to all incomes: to profits, dividends and rents as well as to wages and salaries. Plan for tax reform As essential support to a fair national incomes policy will be a major overhaul of our tax system. Taxation must be fair and must be seen to be fair. The present situation where the largest gains are made, not through hard work but through the untaxed rewards of passive ownership of Stock Exchange speculation, must be ended. In particular we shall tax capital gains; and block up the notorious avoidance and evasion devices that have made a mockery of so much of our tax system. We shall also seek to lighten the burden of rates which today falls heavily on those with low incomes. While the reform of the rate system and investigation of alternative forms of local government finance may take some time to accomplish, we shall seek to give early relief to ratepayers by transferring a larger part of the burden of public expenditure from the local authorities to the Exchequer. VALUE FOR TAXPAYERS’ MONEY

Labour will take urgent measures to stop the waste of taxpayers’ money. Millions spent on missile contracts, millions more on doles to private industry, have placed an additional burden on hard pressed taxpayers. A Labour government will apply tests of the national interest before agreeing to subsidies for private manufacturing industries and will insist, as would any prudent private investor, on a voice in the control, and a share in the profits, where public funds are involved. Waste and profiteering by Government contractors, on defence and the health service, will be vigorously attacked. Modern social services Drastic reforms are now needed in our major social services. To make them fit for the 1960s and 1970s will be costly in money, manpower and resources. This will not be achieved all at once: but, as economic expansion increases our national wealth we shall see to it that the needs of the community are increasingly met. For the children, this will mean better education; for the family decent housing at prices that people can afford; for the sick, the care of a modernised health service; for the old people and widows, a guaranteed share in rising national prosperity: for all of us, leisure facilities better geared to the coming age of automation. Education Our country’s ‘investment in people’ is still tragically inadequate. The nation needs and Labour will carry through a revolution in our educational system. (i) (ii)

Labour will cut down our overcrowded classes in both primary and secondary schools: the aim is to reduce all classes to 30 at the earliest possible moment. Labour will get rid of the segregation of children into separate schools caused by 114

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(iii)

(iv) (v)

(vi)

11-plus selection: secondary education will be reorganised on comprehensive lines. Within the new system, grammar school education will be extended: in future no child will he denied the opportunity of benefiting from it through arbitrary selection at the age of 11. This reform will make it possible to provide a worthwhile extra year of education by raising the school-leaving age to 16. To minimise the effects of the postponement of school leaving on the large family, Labour will replace inadequate maintenance grants with reorganised family allowances, graduated according to the age of the child, with a particularly steep rise for those remaining at school after the statutory leaving age. As the first step to part-time education for the first two years after leaving school, Labour will extend compulsory day and block release. Labour will carry out a programme of massive expansion in higher, further and university education. To stop the ‘brain drain’ Labour will grant to the universities and colleges of advanced technology the funds necessary for maintaining research standards in a period of rapid student expansion. Labour will set up an educational trust to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools into the state system of education.

The modernisation of our school system will require time and money and manpower. In order to get the priorities right Labour will work out a phased and costed plan for the whole of education. To assure the funds, Labour will restore the percentage grant and transfer the larger part of the cost of teachers’ salaries from the rates to the Exchequer. Finally—and most important—since everything depends on teachers, Labour will give to teacher supply a special priority in its first years in office, negotiating a new salary structure including a new superannuation scheme favourable to part-time and elderly teachers, encouraging more entrants to teaching and winning back the thousands of women lost by marriage. The whole future of our education depends on the success of a crash programme for teacher recruitment which appeals not merely to boys and girls at school but to adults with experience of practical life that will give an edge to their teaching. Land and housing Under the Tories, the relentless pressure of decontrolled rents, Rachmanism, high interest rates and soaring land prices have pushed housing and flats beyond the reach of many ordinary families and have condemned yet another generation to squalid and overcrowded housing. The first requirement is to end the competitive scramble for building land. Labour will therefore set up a Land Commission to buy, for the community, land on which building or rebuilding is to take place. Instead of paying the inflated market prices that have now reached exorbitant levels, the Crown Land Commission will buy the land at a price based on its existing use value plus an amount sufficient to cover any contingent losses by the owner, and to encourage the willing sale of land. The Crown Land Commission will not, of course, acquire land which continues to be used for agriculture, nor will it purchase the freehold of existing houses and other buildings so long as they remain in their existing use. 115

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As a result of public acquisition, building land can be made available at cheaper prices; although the land will remain in public ownership, new owner-occupied houses built upon it will remain, under the new ‘Crownhold’ system, the absolute property of their owners as long as the house stands. At the same time, we shall go ahead with a sustained programme to provide more homes at prices that ordinary people can afford. Labour will: (i)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

(v) (vi)

Introduce a policy of lower interest rates for housing. It is impossible to say now what changes will be required in the general interest rate structure of the market. But because of its great importance to the family housing should be treated as a separate case deserving specially favourable borrowing rates. This policy of pecially favourable rates will apply both to intending owneroccupiers and to local authorities building houses to let. We should like this policy to apply to all owner-occupiers, but unless interest rates generally fall, it would be too expensive. We will, however, review the problem and see whether, and in what form, help could be extended to hard pressed existing owner-occupiers. Further help the owner-occupiers by providing 100 per cent mortgages through local councils; by advancing funds to the building societies so that they can reduce the deposits required on old houses; by reducing conveyancing and land registration charges; by insisting on measures to stamp out jerry-building on new houses and by encouraging local authorities to develop advisory and other social services to assist the owner-occupier. Repeal the notorious Rent Act, end further decontrol and restore security of tenure to those in already decontrolled rented flats and houses. We shall provide achinery for settling rents on a fair basis. Carry out a new programme of modernisation of old houses. If landlords fail to bring their houses up to the new standards required, then such houses will be purchased by the local authority with an option to buy to those sitting tenants who wish to become owner-occupiers. ccelerate slum clearance and concentrate aid and resources more heavily on those authorities with the biggest housing problems. Change leasehold law to enable householders with an original lease of more than 21 years to buy their own houses on fair terms.

Labour will also increase the building of new houses, both for rent and for sale. While we regard 400,000 houses as a reasonable target, we do not intend to have an election auction on housing figures. It is no good having paper plans for houses if—as the present Minister of Housing is now discovering—you haven’t the bricks to build them. The crucial factor governing the number of new houses that we can build—and indeed the schools, hospitals, factories, offices and roads that can be completed—is the output of the construction and building supply industries. Here we shall need new machinery to put through a series of long-delayed reforms designed, above all, to increase the number of men—and particularly of trained men— in the industry and to secure the more rapid use of the new techniques of industrialised building. 116

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Social security Social security benefits—retirement and widows’ pension, sickness and unemployment pay—have been allowed to fall below minimum levels of human need. Consequently one in four of National Insurance pensioners are today depending upon means-tested National Assistance benefits. Labour will reconstruct our social security system: (i) (ii)

(iii)

(iv)

(v)

Existing National Insurance benefits will be raised and thereafter linked to average earnings so that as earnings rise so too will benefits. For those already retired and for widows, an incomes guarantee will be introduced. This will lay down a new national minimum benefit. Those whose incomes fall below the new minimum will receive as of right, and without recourse to National Assistance, an income supplement. A new wage-related scheme covering retirement, sickness and unemployment will be grafted on to the existing flat rate National Insurance scheme. The objective is half-pay benefits for the worker on average pay. Those who are married will get more than half pay, as will the lower paid worker. Since benefits will be graded, so too will contributions, which will take the form of a percentage contribution on earnings. Provision will be made for ‘contracting out’ good private schemes along the lines already laid down in the Government’s graded pension scheme. The relevant conditions will be strengthened in order to enforce provision for widows of contributors, and for deferred retirement. Steps will be taken to ensure transferability of all private pension schemes. Widows’ benefits will be reshaped in a new and more generous way and for them the earnings rule abolished. The ‘ten shilling widow’ will have her pension restored to its original purchasing value. A new national severance pay scheme will be introduced. In a period of rapid industrial change it is only elementary justice to compensate employees who, through no fault of their own, find that their job has disappeared. Directors and senior executives have long received a ‘golden handshake’: the same principle of compensation for job loss will now be applied to the whole workforce.

Labour recognises that the nation cannot have first-rate social security on the cheap. That is why we insist that the new wage-related benefits must be self-supporting and must be financed, in the main by graded contributions from employers and employees. For the same reason we stress again that, with the exception of the early introduction of the income guarantee, the key factor in determining the speed at which new and better levels of benefit can be introduced, will be the rate at which the British economy can advance. Health The National Health Service was among the foremost achievements of the 1945–50 Labour Government. Since then it has been starved of resources and has failed to adapt sufficiently to modern needs. Serious shortages of hospital staff mean long delays in obtaining treatment, with waiting lists of nearly 500,000. Shortages of general practitioners mean long waits in overcrowded surgeries. Local services for the 117

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handicapped and the elderly are severely handicapped by lack of staff. Every part of the hospital service is impaired by outdated premises. As a result of this neglect the patient has suffered—in spite of the efforts of medical staffs. Labour will put the patient first. (i)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv) (v)

The most serious attack on the Health Service made by Conservative Ministers bas been the increasing burden of prescription charges imposed by them on those least able to pay. These charges will be abolished. Labour emphatically rejects recent proposals to introduce new charges for general practitioner services; our aim is to restore as rapidly as possible a completely free Health Service. Labour will press ahead with a revised hospital plan. Nearly 20 years after the war the nation ought to have built far more than five general hospitals. The Tories’ so-called ‘plan’ is largely based on guesswork. It seriously underestimates the demand for beds in certain areas and for certain categories of need such as mental illness and old people’s beds. And already this inadequate plan is being bogged down for lack of funds. Labour will review the whole plan on the basis of a full assessment of local needs and provide the necessary finance to carry the plan through. In particular the plan must ensure that every woman who wishes to, or needs to, have her baby in hospital shall be able to do so. We shall take steps to combat queue jumping for hospital beds. Labour will greatly increase the number of qualified medical staff. We shall train more doctors and dentists both by increasing the number of students admitted to existing medical schools and by establishing new medical schools. We shall tackle the serious shortages of nurses, radiographers, dieticians and other ancillary staffs by recasting, in consultation with the unions concerned, the salary structure and the negotiating machinery. We shall devote more resources to medical research. The community care services run by the local authorities, the most neglected of all the health services in recent years, will be given a new impetus. Labour will: (a) (b) (c)

Expand the home help and other domiciliary services which are so vital to the well-being of the old and sick; Lay down proper standards for these services and recast the so-called tenyear health and welfare plan on this basis; Provide high percentage grants where emergency action is required to bring a particular service up to standard, e.g. hostels