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III. British Plans
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
The United Kingdom has gone considerably farther than the United States in the acceptance of full employment as one of the prime aims of government policy. There is a widespread feeling that it may also have gone farther in devising governmental machinery for the realization of this aim. On both counts—the end and the means—the present trend in the United Kingdom merits attention in the United States and other countries.
Official endorsement of full employment as a proper end for governmental policy dates back to 1944. The much-quoted white paper on Employment Policy was presented to Parliament by Lord Woolton, Minister of Reconstruction in the Churchill coalition, a few days before D-day. It began with the unequivocal statement: “The Government accept as one of their primary aims and responsibilities the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment after the war.” Shortly afterwards, at the conclusion of a three-day debate, the House of Commons passed a resolution moved by Laborite Ernest Bevin, then Minister of Labor and National Service, and supported on the side of the Conservatives by Sir John Anderson as Chancellor of the Exchequer: “That this House … welcomes the declaration of His Majesty's Government….” At no time later has this basic commitment been placed in doubt.
Acceptance of full employment in business circles might be illustrated by a number of authoritative pronouncements made in the middle of the war. These include a pamphlet entitled The Problem of Unemployment, issued by Lever Brothers and Unilever Limited at the beginning of 1943. Here it was clearly argued that irregularity of capital investment was the principal cause of unemployment; that the profit motive had proved an insufficient guide in the extension of productive capacity; and that it was the task of government to regularize the incentive to investment by the use of indirect controls.
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- Maintaining High-Level Production and Employment: A Symposium
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1945
References
1 Great Britain, Ministry of Reconstruction, Employment Policy, Cmd. 6527 (London, 1944).Google Scholar
2 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, June 23, 1944.Google Scholar
3 London and Toronto, 1943. For similar considerations, see also Federation of British Industries, Reconstruction (London, 1942).Google Scholar
4 London and New York, 1936.
5 Introduction to the Theory of Employment (London and New York, 1937) and Problem of Full Employment (London, 1944). See also Oxford University Institute of Statistics, Economics of Full Employment (Oxford, 1944)Google Scholar; Wootton, Barbara, Full Employment (London, 1943)Google Scholar; Group of Fabians, Prevention of General Unemployment (London, 1944).Google Scholar
6 New York, 1944, especially p. 92.
7 See especially Beveridge's Postscript criticizing Cmd. 6527.
8 Op. cit., par. 41.
9 Op. cit., pp. 205 ff. and pp. 21 ff.
10 Robinson, Joan, Future of Industry (London, 1943), p. 15.Google Scholar
11 Op. cit., p. 261.
12 Described in Wickwar, W. Hardy, Social Services (London, 1936)Google Scholar, and Public Services (London, 1938).
13 See especially T. Balogh, “International Aspects of Full Employment,” in Oxford University Institute of Statistics, op. cit. in note 5 above.
14 The top controls were described by Clement Attlee in his answer to a question in the House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, July 27, 1944.Google Scholar For an earlier description and analysis, see Finer, Herman, “The British Cabinet, the House of Commons, and the War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 56 (1941), pp. 321 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 Presented to Parliament as Cmd. 6261 (1941), 6347 (1942), 6438 (1943), 6520 (1944), and 6623 (1945). The budget white paper has grown from a three-penny pamphlet of 16 pages in 1941 to a shilling booklet of 56 pages in 1945.
16 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, June 21, 1944.Google Scholar
17 Sir John Anderson has given some hint of this; see ibid., June 22, 1944. But see also Beveridge, op. cit., p. 136.
18 Op. cit., par. 77.
19 Loc. cit. in note 16 above.
20 The Beveridge report on Social Security and Allied Services was reviewed in Wickwar, W. Hardy, “Some Recent British White Papers,” in this Review, Vol. 37 (1943), pp. 314 ff.Google Scholar For a detailed comparison with the Churchill coalition's proposals, see Clarke, J. S., “The British Government and the Beveridge Report,” Social Service Review, Vol. 19 (1945), pp. 171 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21 This act was based on Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population (chairman, Sir M. Barlow), Report, Cmd. 6153 (London, 1940).
22 See Bevin in House of Commons, loc. cit. in note 16 above.
23 During the five years before the war, over 300,000 new houses were built each year, and there were about 1,000,000 men in the building industry in Great Britain. Postwar goals are usually set somewhat higher than this. For immediate postwar housing, see Minister of Reconstruction, Housing, Cmd. 6609 (London, 1945).Google Scholar
24 See Beveridge, op. cit., and Fabian Research Group, Government and Industry (London, 1944).Google Scholar
25 See Chancellor of the Exchequer, Capital Issues Control, Cmd. 6645 (London, 1945).Google Scholar
26 See Charter of the United Nations, Chap. IX (International Economic and Social Coöperation).
27 See especially the resolutions of the International Labor Organization at its Philadelphia Conference (1944), the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs in 1943 (especially Resolution XXIV, “Achievement of an Economy of Abundance”), and the Monetary Conference at Bretton Woods (1944).
28 Op. cit. in note 1 above, par. 4.