THE TABLET October 5th. 1957. VOL. 210, No. 6124

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Fublished as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

OCTOBER 5th, 1957

NINEPENCE

The Lay Apostolate ° The Second World Congress now Opening in Rome French Politics and the Countryside: a Key to stability By Charles d ’Aragon European Stock-taking : Lord Chandos and “ Euratom.” By John Dingle A Wasted Year? : Three-year Training for Teachers. By Arthur Barton Cole-Partnership I New Approaches to Industrial Relations. By Colin Clark On Millenarianism : The Prophets Surveyed., By Sir Arnold Lunn

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

PLANS FOR MORE SPENDING

HTHE Labour Party Congress, exploiting to the utmost the natural unpopularity of measures lately made necessary by the expenditure of money faster than it has been earned, has been largely occupied with devising ways of spending more. Such problems as those of old-age pensions and rents ought to have been considered as part of the great overall question of rising costs. It is no solution to say that old-age pensions must be increased immediately by adding lOd. to the income tax and that rents must be either controlled at levels that make property owning a misfortune or subsidised. The undoubted need to supplement old-age pensions and the undoubted case for giving security to tenants should only have been approached in the setting of a general policy that will help to make pensions hold their value and stability and security be enjoyed not only by tenants but by everyone else. But singularly little has been heard at Brighton about any responsibility that a Labour Government might have in regard to inflation. A simple syllogism has taken its secure place in the political jargon: inflation means full employment and the restraint of inflation means unemployment, and it is therefore wrong to think it must be restrained. No great attention, it is thought, need be paid to the principle that people ought not to expect to enjoy what they do not earn enough money to pay for: but it is a principle that will enforce itself inexorably in the end, and no pensions scheme or anything else can be a protection against it.

On the international side, the first point in the announced Labour Party programme was a proposal to give increased financial support to the under-developed countries of the world, in particular through those specialised agencies of the United Nations which are concerned with education and welfare work in Asia. This of course, like the proposal to increase the old-age pensions, is a proposal which on its merits can command only respect, whether it is regarded as far-seeing statesmanship which looks towards the hazardous future of Asia, or whether it is regarded in terms of justice, as a matter of moral obligation. But such proposals for Asia ought not to bp made unless they are accompanied by a much clearer recognition than there was at Brighton that they are proposals for self-denial in this country. They were applauded without any great sign of understanding that all money so outlaid must first be earned in this country, and, having been earned, must be deflected from some other purpose for which it might have been spent by the Government at home.

Specifically, the Labour Party proposal is that Britain should at once, without delay, give that support to the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development which not only Britain but the United States as well have hitherto withheld, participation in it having been made dependent on progress in disarmament; nor has it been unreasonable to say that money must be saved in that way before it can be used for this fund. But there is deadlock over disarmament, and the Labour Party believes that Britain should suppprt the fund without waiting longer.

A policy statement has declared that one per cent of the national income should be set aside to cover this and other expansions of economic aid to the under-developed areas. But one per cent is a very considerable proportion of any income. An individual earning what is now regarded as the very modest total of £1,000 a year must put four shillings in the plate every Sunday if he is going to use one per cent of his income for the support of his pastors; and few, we fear, give so much. One per cent of the national income means something in the region of £180 millions a year. It would mean about 8d. on the income-tax if it were to be raised out of direct taxation. If a Conservative Government announced that it was going to allocate a comparable annual sum for a praiseworthy purpose that was nevertheless not of any immediate or direct advantage to the people of this country but might, on the contrary, be expected to redound to their eventual disadvantage, and to do this without waiting until the money could be saved through a reduction in armament expenditure, so that it would have to come from resources that might otherwise be used in the social services at home, there might, we think, have been some objection front the trade unions.