The Speeches of John Enoch Powell
POLL 4/1/3 Speeches, July 1966-July 1975, 5 files
POLL 4/1/3 File 2, June-October 1968
Image 10 The Literary Executors of the late Rt. Hon. J. Enoch Powell & content c the copyright owner. 2011. 15/6/1968 Government and Nation The Tory Opposition Assoc. of Cons. Clubs AGM Westminster June-Oct 1968 Page 134
18/6/1968 The European Union. Defence Britain's Position In The World Esher Cons. Women’s Advisory June-Oct 1968 Page 125 and Foreign Policy. Committee
21/6/1968 The Economy/Industry Exchange Rate Public Meeting, High Wycombe June-Oct 1968 Page 122
Annual Conference of Conservative 22/6/1968 Education and Literature Education National Advisory Committee on June-Oct 1968 Page 107 Education
28/6/1968 Government and Nation. The Mr Jocelyn Hambro’s Salary West Riding Branch of Institute of June-Oct 1968 Page 102 Economy/Industry. Directors, Harrogate
28-30/06/1968 Government and Nation Conservatism And Social Salary Swinton Conservative College June-Oct 1968 Page 84
10/7/1968 Labour/Socialism/Trade Unions Socialism And Wales Astrid Mynach, Caerphilly June-Oct 1968 Page 82
GLYC Summer School on Defence, 21/7/1968 Defence and Foreign Policy Warsaw Pact June-Oct 1968 Page 76 Oxford
4/9/1968 The Economy/Industry The Fixed Exchange And Dirigisme The Mont Pelerin Society, Aviemore June-Oct 1968 Page 58 Conference
9/9/1968 Defence and Foreign Policy Russia & Nato Rowley Regis Round Table June-Oct 1968 Page 47
12/9/1968 The Economy/Industry Denationalisation Public Meeting, Watford June-Oct 1968 Page 33
18/9/1968 Defence and Foreign Policy Britain's Military Role In The 70S R.U.S.I. June-Oct 1968 Page 26
26/9/1968 The Economy/Industry The Basle Agreement Leeds Junior Chamber of Commerce June-Oct 1968 Page 20
27/9/1968 Government and Nation Nationhood - Welsh And Scottish North Wales Advisory Council, Prestatyn June-Oct 1968 Page 10 Nationalism
3/10/1968 Law and Order Trade Union Law Woodbridge Cons Women’s Rally, June-Oct 1968 Page 3 Ipswich Extrac from speech by the Rt Uon.J.Ehoc P,e17 at tha Woodbrtd,7e(Suffolk)Conser7Ht ve Women's 110 Copdock Hail Hotel; nr is-owich;
_3 f. . Thursday; --rdOctober;l968.
Ferhaos one of thP best te.ingstlat hes ha..:-ceed tHe last f_71:ror five years - there hvP nc,t'ceen so t.:-:,,anyof t'L-..e:T1 that one is to daner of 7.1.0-••i_hro . - has been the ,,,,Tliespezd readiness at last tn contemte a zia.l.orolcah7e the -1.1.z practice of ciirtrae unio,ns.Amoc:z the f-rits of that readf- ness helvebeen. the report of ti:IgI al ColssLon (the DcyHovan
Cor,:isston)T.TH(.: the Conservative .(7..astLon f.'orce:J
the Lab-- government to set ap , and the I portant Conservative policy document 'Fir Deal at -;.7ork clr:tta litt-ie eariIc=r. can be no stoh r7,cJtte ouY ic 7 anf. .37,z-roundsthe s.:i.b::ers7.70t d•-) rela- tions occy an extraordtn'arily cv:ageih daly news,
p. tca eaves •oubt how worred 7..eoole are.
Somet :ten 7 *.s t ma: notas
forget,:-HaEthe 7:ars: cause the7 etu debato and :'"Htsc'.-...sslo sees to tro
.C- tha t, amp
if there were no balance of 1,:a2-oentsproble, ro nod,,tv
exports afid overseas Jar1-',-.ets,tn.a sCoject/wo,lid nc,t i',atter
we; or co:n:e7 tt:e unfohs to ,ontor. —
ccntrct,,, -,J1ththe e,o:o.loyers?Can 'zel or sno:, cf:7e, persaade
or copel the ,nions the 'r:-.1',Icyerst- obey r: : e guideliro:-.3f an inccLe-poltoy? Can we ,-.31.0-17
wIll relate wa,rzesto .-y_Ltput a 1-.2ar't1clar
an'd propagate what ca7led cti7tty ' unions ande assocLations? How cah ue -o-2e-,ent officIal strikes? Snoold we so Eo On,
tntrIO inere are opre Thes•thLrr•
are n ap:?rn 9.7,;Ylt econotcs, of forgetttn,i-_.tioe or and -Lbt-,,.'tes.It 44,,e,,,-..Lneo an ex..,,srt and
relatio2o.L.-to tHe -7.'or
tha'.71-all • s. Let '2,ate'l yool -e work . yrote
In th- 1—..ture Ly carl;enter because I aL '2.e t_er511,1ni3n).L4 co.e work fsr, Sheilabear Prtoe It a-Tea:s tOat -er- sc.n::telof-21_0e::to L;3:7,;CRoer:2- gonPrai for,2oan La-:„1 tO:o 1.,e-onardan„-: 7 of bs 03 --;1_7,5,"-J."::T:41,
°. ....L', ....! c•-) I ..•-.. ,d+ I I I • .:".c -.', . .. . .,. — F-4 ::: : ..-.1 4) 4, 1.-..), PO 11) if) if) .../...) .i,-1 ..i, .1..) ... Q:.,,.
3 3, • o- o 61 Fs ..--:0 ('3 () CDt-.'.---: LI; c) o- :,-,..-.: c-t- o FsP,):::0 ",-)."' '0 0 (i) L+.'•.'r) u ... ‘,) .:- ci- 0 "c-i 1.--" 0 1-. 5.4a) ;:i 0 Fs-4 :".")," .5-;75 a)cc). 1ct -•„:...,....;i•..,-, c 7 r•„.) ,,,0 - .-.0 1- ',,15 ..; ''.; (1, tn irc) 0)I-, t 0 . - .) cr-1-• (.:-.) 0 n oo c± 1-, j t--4.4 - . "€:, F--3 k .-,,-; 1-4, t....-4 : " 33'; H• - ()1,1 55,. P) (3Q. Int,= M 0:::. 1-(. - 1- 1 - ct) P,:, 0 ''l 4 ,,,... ,,-, ,1„, .,,) .,. CD cy,.i 0
from his employment because he exercises hs rint t o dec i de whether he will or will list .-).elon,7 to what is eu4a,!stically called a free association. It may be said:'But the union herc; called cut their ,J.en, and 1-sso PetroleuL. ha-,2e to tI o: Their sharehlerslan,J of une re su:9'Tly tHe
i4test; or, in terms, the:: Wer,o1 r,o n:ened'. If so, It still rea:.ns disgrceful fc,r a reat : cy o abet enforc- l- a '.._)eca7..se of fear, ICerti.--1: it h:ften he =7,re.atest 7rJd most gowerfl o.hve the worst recc,-H (2-fl tk- sco.2e.
3'y coincldence it ha thac ust at sa t D--.onard wrote tc. Lne,= Pece m e7:37707,, -6_
r-)e- Stone-Dri ;leatherwear in 7olton, who - Aere TePing 'oressured by
Tailor and _iarrehtworkers Union to dismiss ler because she - nose not te be a union nenbor. 7nlikD Ess3 a_d She1le17ear Pricelthe cemr-lny LA geestioh decid ,ed the- were ntt :clag to stand for a closed shop, come what %-ey, and so it is. ii credlt tc tee directors of Stone-Dri i,;eatherwear.
So even ender the presee,t state ci the law, tbose who 1-1ve the will and couraee to do what they knele tet be right, can. 7.e.t
am proud 'hat the Conscvative P,91-ie:'sproposals ,frould remove the excuse of fear from cre,7 e like Esse. One of the ,eost important of those propcsals is thAi ustrikos called, or threa- tened, with the predoriet paroose of forcing none-uniont:ts to join a union sho:,1J ot be ertected as lawful 'trade disee.te'.'
That is to say, the union ,,,nd these who toon cart wooth he linb
in damages for the loss caused bi th ,2 threet c'e the strie. am glad too that the 7roposal is unualified as tc the eotLve3 which might erompt an eloyee to exercise his rtot no oio or an- not to join a uhion for it weYld r,leurly be s wrong Jield-
fair to put the ,enus on t1-. non-'antonLot to aree or jJ.stify hiz oF° free, private decision as it is to e,7-,ke-hie °ceetract-cet"
tne political levy. This is wholly the right aere ,a.ch; '.'ee it concentro nrivie,;4es unich trdc, '4Lvent t.re
actiing"in pursuac :0 or cote:.rla.,a trai. -
withdTaws those privileges in so far as th-7 are used for P'.,12- poses whtch are reprenenst'le or not in accordance with publicly accepted princtples of rLght arw2 istice. T - s not Toorhso recently as to i7Pagj_nethat, even if there were no trad,,,unio law at all, pressure to ccia ra wo,nd clotpften be put upon indivIduals bi theLr fellows; that is to the natzlreof 1.1-,Imn society. Put there is a world of difference between that anr, a state of the law wch sanctLfies such -c,resureand elists t'ciaerioyer, and the e,:Pployer'senloyer, in ths cause of private coercion.
/ - 4
1110Speecr "7„.-1 „tt P, tha _t advisor..i L1+,:tu 71-1,1a;./
sabjects are se sers thee Ls an -,Iilder.qtandale reluctance to talk a]-,..--JutL:he,_at--J11. Yet, ii'";:lderstanJa771e, ths reluctance can tself beco!: .f.anger;an Lss-leof tne utmost gravity a: then aac up 3l=sL unaares and ialitanddeci- sr,onibefore tarties and people ha7)a the o7por-,Tcnl_t about It as it deserves. Uotse still, they _findthe-::se7es
committed ad-ance,t,:.;a decis,r1 one 1,iayOf the o:?]er they have had :loi.part.It .s..onone of 'Ciesesers subjects tat
-zant to spea to-LF,,iit,f.erhaT.:,sthe •,st serc.--)_3of ail roli- tical su jects, the vc.:_t:7,ft 11E- fc2.2'
j_ssue::_ore baste t b tLe 9xLstence an te identy nati_c,-Litself. Ls a.rldI - witil lsly the f-fj. z.i.-fterall, ae ity or th,-; thP class ol (1,r)t disc..1ssa7e arlds[z1 disc-_-„ss t
Ins ih 3ritL4n pollIial rerties to ta accc,:,nt r7reserlttssues and substtial ;.c.)cu.2,.:2 un- tho ,he
frealdsh. Hence bct:, Dol L ical -thee:Yrir
havP ta-r.en, ',,roved)
2
unity of the realm -or granted. I wpnder, however, if thii neriod
in which it coudd4be taken for grrinte is nct dreorirra to a close.
If sa, it wold be the business of te Thr Prtr c.bove ell to
thiff:e and to si)eak about the future of tiie 7nted tin ee- cause naTlionAnood, with all that wor t=lies, is htfor7
?arty is ultiLly about. 1,4/6 toi4 Perhaps, then, sta:IdihE in Prestatyn, el.1.1„Kalclost1. a foc:t on
side of Offa's has always
been Colisci'Dus that his forbears were ':.471.sh, may dare to say era
thira out natoalism and the ntion, even tiouh. t sor:e-
tbinF will perfrce cr,risist raat para ol. gene,2a1 propositLon- My first prop .-1, then, is ti is. nglani wi17 he';c,r re:ir-at
'ner Irtt aistae. Let rf.e er.-,7.:let- There •re .sce 7:istakeschic
a coun'cry over oat over aT:a'n, arid E.:(T:L-..s never tc, tire 07
the and never to learn better. On tL.e oher rhi , t el'e are
7zhicie ieve left sc livid a scar on tbe collective lid
that, coe lit r:et.77, a. count reat the- aer3r7 aiAAAA snls fieveco.,..it :deliberate, ;:essive Inflafin ill - will0;lit-i77-iy ne,ne/ ,peat th e-i.THrienc-1-th she is g,pop throTig.:1
Vietne.:::, It in th,s eese t; - I ST aa ever ae-7aLn L cc,seat to live thro ,Igh lit episode of thie
coercioh o ae Irish. ';;e have larnt, a:1d learnt ca-Ice for all,
tht enforced -fLni.t: Li c'Jrse, tohi. lista
c:aence 02 c ahit Is .7„-eferable. lane , it LS 0:i7 Ly • 0-x4' that we see the Irish scene so clear. tn our forefathers' places,
0/40.M--Wewold nave I.,eenno wiser than they. 3ut the hindsight remalns andij_san abiding feature of our ottlook.
Unfortunately, tho-:,hit influencs us deeply, Lt will nut sole o7,ziprobleEsfor us nor endow IfIsYifi, the gift of prophecy,.NatIon* c-147A, 0a4L-t,Li hood is a bafflin,o.thirg; for it is 'Molly subjetive,t1hey are a 0.-91.4i/wn4, natiorl who think they arq: there is no other definItLon. cannot discover natios by porin- over etlases; for though „-seogra- phy 1..-Ifluencesnatnnod, it does not deterne It to any specific way: a pan fro :,1-1rs,presented with lt the ilapsof Europe ne requested(excet those with political boundaries), c:.77:ida t tell
yo7,how many nation -,!.)rxcontain*. Nor wiu naor r do v.= cas bass for you: naulo—s ,Lre rith others in oft toe,
WhiTLa ers e er-e cr re-eerge. 1- .-1a7.eor thro::.;cy help; _ and h's.-_u77,la7Jage anc'_rlce are relevnt to nat._-nood, t'heyare det2r I Is of
it: adocent natio's oltryas-sal 11'16came la acre , e- c flercely sa.Psrate Ibtea at inns ca- co,noise those spa:A 770(14--i%.7 //1/1"A.,differen foL s co:hce:t ' race, all
atteon ts to it with riottolit arc fored-_,-ned to
fda c?-oequenc? is , 47,:nc,.,,of , is ohly ninbhle wnen it Ls Lere Ozhas cc:enei en he sense
of -nh7r.--ted ':-It- k7,-crirri_./ vorld inc et
• This lc why the birth of nat ioos, even more than their disa7-
pearance, is so often accorT.auied '77 -:::.rotracted violence: the wil 7
and the abijitu to be distinct froi the rest of Hankind and to
ackniwle,ge no other secular power as superior, are crudely bat at
any rate conclusively demonstrted by successful rebellion. Hende
it is that to say thatEn2.-.lan will not reoeat her Irish mistake 1
to cast no aspertion on cur predecessors. Hence also_ It is that
for iLngland not to repeat hr Irish L_istake is no simple prescrip-
tion: whatever c._1r intentioyis ant. whatever our guiding prnciples, 4 the path, as always, leads icito the dar1 as-i4A1 G.1.14.144t.c-rADI,
ne t oropositon Ls r.ore difficult ani 4 , by that toker:, ff,ore
iL-,portant. Nationhdod is an absolute. There is no such as _
se'll-nationhood, or ser:i-natiLnalisa. You ce ot tr ,7 ten -fle-
nptionhood, and see h.ow you like it: Lt is Aot a batn Lcto wnch Z 4A-j1_;17-1.&-lA- you can dip a toe , tntcndinpto y thdraw it if the --ater too
hot or gold. I su-:cosu not ior Lcs fad so ..1"I'MC ex7erl ence
Britain to pla:ing the midtife to new nat Lons il rpund thr, world
- at least nany of tnem have proved, or ,or:ved sc -fr, to. 7 :7,?
nntions. It ey be tL-- that t•L'_s exerience
hock can a P c be cautiou:-_i_y 011./fr st itutio:ILil advance tc .dence. t of OVA r 4 .511 e r e . 77r in -as
s :3eo t ez_isted: she
or no LT, frOL t-ne ass•u and
the 7.:nd was indepe',-,(Jence - ,,,Tithdrr,:.:wal of ment common to other territories - antithe emerece oftpi.zition. Even so, the process everywhere exhibited a '3rath-taking acce- leration. I kno there a vhool f thol.ihtwhich attributes this to Astaken. policies orldebility of will on the cart of the
imperial power, but that is a shallow and a vulgar ded-iction. , V-v? Of course, ..r e fact that for ;.xternalreasons the imperial power it elf becaLe less icosl'ng and that this ci;ane too wao an acce- 40,-)1,4-11--- Lerating one,"t-N,,as bound To ifluence the i:ternal development - 1,04) but '€4,i4it not necessary to exi:lainwhat hap,oened'in ,7.rny process of the transfer of cower there is a built-in accelerator, so that the more that is .iranefered, t'hegreats2 the prssure
tre transfer of the rest. is real, can.notbe Lug,ft :ff7:itthless thah the cokLplete article. :his is not because the natioalist is reassalole or :2:.rereedly than Li ello fneci;tt is Lecause nationhbod is the complete article. 7o .flropose =,recalled "concessionsmi7 either to reDut,=, cla:rflof elf to -kr4 if te conaesstons ars rearded as satsfctory r else it is to concede thc 1a of natLonhood)if the concessios are regarded as tentatLvel '72exTerental, or as 30y0etlY]7"on account% In either case an.d.e-.2.:ora'7,.e.sortof 'Jresha::12Law sets in, t'helaw by 7,ch ad oney.drives out good": the concedeT' is 7.youndtc 1ae a the demnder is bound to win, because wi-lat- ever has beci atne alredy can be c7.utbdand t:::e • Tooliticaladvantage will al.uay::lie -ith the Yf.7.Lerbld:,,er. Every discontent and dissatisfactio eveh those not retel7 corL..ected wi.L:the queston of hationL-eil cai-be plausibly exclioed as removale only by fulfillin the hiher bid. There ts no sto7r,ing that -:partic.J.lartrain before it ats to the buffers at the ed of the line. History is littered 7,Jiththe disapointadnts and the disroved phophecies of thoeiewho ;,etthe claim of nationality by efferin half or three-quarters of the loaf. We can still read, aciiwe ouht still to read, the speeches of Gladstone advocatIL the dranatic initiative of his first HolieRule Bill far would serve, he said, to 11;nLiterather then to separate Great Bri- /0,1-- tain and Ireland, and he poin „ /to the achisver:Lentof a sLhiar haopy resalt fro the frantin of local --2,utcnorriyin the case of
.4i.ustriaand F:angary.,of Russia and Finland, aaftesecially of Norway and Sweden, whch were, he deciared,Tho united by never to ;das, fi:rpoliticians' "never's, either a41-7, htri) Qladstr,ne'sor Lord C iy:ciYo, when -tneynaveL to do -Ji.thnaton- alis: E.entioncf Ireland br-is_ _ a LrevaleLt opinion, YfiLo:.. to be frYnride.; th7. AAA:4 1) "Th.at zays -1:Loopinion, "it can bs has nad lor2a1autoncy for nc.arlyfifty years, :=,Tid blo.. at ail!' is th,3 7)Coo..ble...a.711..::of the ez.coptin tliat
proves tl-lerule; fr Ulster self-F;over=entvas the tccpe hot of na-toralis f theI r opcosLte, of 'UlsterUhionLsm. Ulster ; AC L was ea ando aatonoL]yof any kind,4140,.:was
and l'esistingit, was prctesfir,„,c,a1,17t en serara-ed frorllthe
rest of the Uhlted Ki_hdo77.).and/accepted L only tth reluctance the unique form of autonoc:7ith eiT,ergedby a sidewInd uriclgthe tangled proce-,sof the secaratton of the aepublic. ave then the 710tiviationof Ulster has rea:,ned not natiohuist, hot separat istA b7...ttthe opposite. F'rom71ster no ded,Iction.7ablat ntt " n be drawn. Tn3 obvioJs one propoStIc r:17a general kind Ls/that n7 t,:ocaes are alike. It La so easy t.72,use worotto cover differnt
It WC.,-1:3be hard t: a. 2L'ater c:,T.:Ttrasttha.;1 for instance, betwn 7,Les Scotian- in eT:ery
aeograhical iLng thtedifferences are -.4.0.60.101agt
-,-Ptthe 1 1 I poll- about both. A-rc- ty-,hht,-Intsof -::aleso be naton7 nati.• c("(,...and t6: be 1--Jsolvedthat an3wer we s'hali.11'.1eir,:e2e •
J-Jec t ion LS bc-:n-as ea -,..;•,-3.11can sly ar
heard, and the iarty "_h Kigdo:L Tr ar.ait , t':le a r ,t —
O - acoer an have
Lo- d. t 1,-leonderant SetLI.d o2
, 44042' Tfrl _ Litner or .:icctlandto 'setheselves a.nati&,n, nd t'nerefore
no -cp.ngerto he part of this n7itton,that resisted e must be clear and firm a':ot wnat be„inga nation
Int his cptext Ilieans It .fces t mea ina,eendence at other people's exanse; it d:es not a.on Lavta tIe bes worlds, _ own nati,cf,,no-odand tne btscutt:f\'eThE ?K9 part of a larEe and ea1th7 nat'icr, If tna -n' - a Lockery and i1 J.OSOLtto the ;r:dera-1 cf tnae iv-/-444-v.te/rvi471-f v_erL64,44.4 concer:ieu,44; al_ t - J'cle of overet gnty: goverriLlent,currency, central bank, narliament, taxation, laws, police, defence - it sai.islein approxitely as the Hecublic of Ireland is to-day. .iscondly, tat iL; the decisLon, it .st be taken in dJI'7.7,arte the full light of day and taken as a sIntlel/restonsie, once- -21 aT.Tidecision, It cahct and Llust not be drl_ftel into by a
series of al',07.1s chages which ca:1 be Htprpreted eLther as ad-
rLi.histratIverHfc=s 7.L.h.gbeh'a.t-L:2n
der. :hat cc-,m7: is to hobody: it
decision out of tHs hands of the pe•pL at lariTe Lt a hole-anci-sorn.,3r).)_itLcal fO.e. It follows, :.-co,er, inh,2ttlittonsouFht to be crate,-1
e :le cra a or émotL3 ]..1r::.77.11y.
02 reasch.':*ly cyf
til-3sisD2 se7arate natioAlood. 7_71zss de,7101:1 — r • lat.? y-4/1/1/GsA, 1,v44)&1-71,14.,vet,c)
has beo faced and te.en, 3rit.aLn 1:11.17t be y:,yerned and ad-
nistered as one nation.
Nrr,,T,the essence of a hatLo is that the parts instinctIvely
teL-Iselves as subordinate ta the whole and reard the inte-
rest and well-beLn Gf cc ale as supree over the interet and.
well-being of any of the 7:arts - cc I , of course, Ls not
sstent wjt the whole tain -7 special caz'e fcd- o:ie or rore of the
pLT.fs asL it often does. Thls is th,e reason why a n4tLon cah 4,10 i/L represented by parliaont, -.147-:_r.11 every
part separately friaa itself minerLty. 1 swhy the 2 — sureLe nork cf the mergi, of natLos is ,,,arliaentary
Thts is why an IrLfci ecIfc. of the exstece of a distnct
natio,i Ls tne -3.n-v:crkabilitT., of oemmon parliarri-ntary
7ne Irish lati_011 list 1,e7,bers set r.p.t the ..1.,irt.t-n-74.tor
parliaenti snot becase they 'vhere knaves or sp,oil-serts, 7 3ut be-
cause they and thoze who electe• the'.:. dld ni:t consider that the
good of the T.Tnteda.j. cc-7so factc of 1-.'feland:
they did not tdentify the part wit: the w,ole the 7-ay - c; is
the .L-r cvnatL or If it were ever felt rtz..ht and necessary for a1vs wl-404 3cotl,,,rd
to be representated searate and e:;-:clusive 7,arlia-ntary
a
whole, -secase their 1 ,JC;" 4-. ]er
rerese,.te/..1 by 10 the great Tlestioh wc alread:.!-1-ive been answered. It ,w7.d hot tnatterwhether the ase:bly at first were erely advisory or also Ia Lslatioi cr authorised to Frant suly thowt the same reasons s arued for its establishment vold seedily be seen tc require that it s'f-oldbe al thTee. Tne v;Jrydectson establisn such institution would be a declaration that one nation no longer existed. A parlia:::entfor -;ialesor a_ elected 3cottish asse.•bly be an extension of that local or e-,;enre nal denocracy ,hereby elected representaties of the ratel)ayersadr::initer the :y1Ten- ditre of the rates upon defi,:e6.-ourposes, 1-J,7vever s-Msta.ntal r:Jaybe the adltticos th,atare yade tt:_their reso,,iroesfroL: national taxation. It wo,ildbe the at9rshed, tne ar. in f the ways, the sgn. tna n searate naton hellbeen conscio-.1ely, deliberately and once-for-all admit'Hedto be there. 3eI a time
ay ome, (-:rit may not. That i. no on- can (,]:edict.
I an s7xreof i3 tbatitn„-_:t yet. ;it á evreAt_. 3 .r . ; BRITAIN'S MILITARY ROLE IN THE 1970's
A lecture given at the R.U.S.I. on 18th September, 1968 by THE RT. HON. ENOCH POWELL, M.B.E., M.P.
GENERAL SIR RICHARD GALE, G.C.B., K.B.E., D.S.O., M.C., in the Chair
THE CHAIRMAN: It is my very great pleasure to introduce our lecturer today, the Rt. Hon. Enoch Powell, M.P. We expect something pretty good, and I have no doubt that we shall have it. This is an important occasion for the Institution because it is the moment at which we have extended our membership to include members of the universities and members of industry. The business of defence is today, as indeed it always has been, a nation-wide affair and we welcome to our membership those members of the universities and industry who will be kind enough to take an interest in our affairs. I now, without further ado, ask you, Mr. Powell, if you will be kind enough to address us.
LECTURE
Within the last quarter of a century or so, the British ITattention is in no carpina, to the title hypercritical given by our spirit Institution that I draw to this Empire has ceased to exist: there is no longer a we' lecture which it has done me the honour to invite me which corresponds to it. Objectively, of course, we all to deliver. The wording of it, which must appear recognize this; but instead of identifying and acceptina ordinary or even trite to any British person hearing or the consequences of the new us' for our military role, reading it, is to me highly significant. Indeed, the fact we tend to take the course of psychological least that such an extraordinary title seems natural Roes to resistance; we retain the old pattern of thought and the heart of our predicament and of the principal issues behaviour, but attempt to rationalize it with motives of our defence policy. which would never have occurred to us if 'we' had With the possible exception, and that perhaps more always been who 'we' are today. Once perceive that apparent than real, of the United States, no other this is what is goina on, and one has the key to explain country keeps asking itself what its military role is. actions and policies which otherwise would seem to Discussion and policy start effortlessly from the axiom demand the psychiatrist rather than the psycholoaist. that a country's military role is its own defence, and Take the Persian Gulf—sorry, ' the Gulf'. You know proceed immediately to consider how that defence is its history. This was one of the tiresome little sideshows best to be secured by military means. For us it is not so. which were run from India, both militarily and poli- We are not even agreed on who we are. The assertion, tically. If we had not been in India, we would not have which I now make, that Britain's military role is the been in the Gulf, where we (the old ' we') took up our defence of the United Kinadom, so far from being position long before petroleum was dreamt of. Much dismissed as wasting a sentence on stating the obvious, later, in our own time, the Gulf became more than a becomes at once the subject of an acrimonious debate, sideshow: it became part of The Route to India, that in which choice epithets like ` little Englander' and great object of defence policy, from the real or supposed ` post-imperialism' fly to and fro. requirements of which every British post or possession The truth is that, for Britain, ' who we are' has East or South of Gibraltar can be shown to have changed radically in our lifetime and we encounter a directly or indirectly arisen, and which explains why natural difficulty in adjusting our habits of thought, still today, when there is no India and no Route, the our instincts and our emotions to the new reality. But report of Russian warships in the Mediterranean sets failure to conform to reality is biologically dangerous, all the alarm-bells rinaing in our subconscious, though and history is full of the fate of nations which perished really it is no more remarkable and no more alarming because their thinking continued to conform to than the appearance of Russian warships in the circumstances that had changed. Until a quarter of a Skaaaerak. However, there in the Persian Gulf ' we' century aao the ' we' in question was not the United still are, this different ' we', and so have to find a Kingdom; it was the British Empire, of which India was reason why. The answers come tumbling out: it is to still, as it had been for 150 years, the centre of gravity. preserve stability; it is to prevent the sterlina balances The Empire was a political entity: and its integrity and, being shifted ; it is to keep our oil supplies; it is to keep since it was world-wide, its internal connection and our oil investments; it is to deny the oil to the Russians: communications were therefore the object of defence. it is to hold that part of the ' front against Communism'. For 150 years our habits of thought about defence, The difficulty of dealing with assertions such as these about our military role, had conformed with that is like that of convincing a patient at the Maudsley object. No wonder if we find them hard to alter now. that he is not Napoleon Bonaparte. If you say that 303 our oil supplies have actually been switched off, in or a similar thing again and again if necessary. This is a 1951 and 1967, and the sterling balances moved out, prevalent but erroneous deduction from what in but we neither used nor thought that we could use force lucky instances was possible during colonial rule to prevent it. you are told that that was different. If and at the moment of its termination to what is possible you point out that neither the oil companies nor the afterwards. Success with small forces in such contexts other nations who buy the oil betray the slightest desire depends on who is expected to stick it out. It was for us to remain militarily in the Gulf, the answer is because the British were assumed a permanent feature Ah, they rely on the British umbrella- and think of the scene that in colonial days small forces could they needn't worry.' If you suggest that the nation produce such disproportionate results, and the opinion which has been driven by force or the threat of force carried on by inertia for some time after—we are not out of every other position in the Middle East neither alone in experiencing the inertia of ideas. But the is, nor will be thought to be, able to preserve stability opinion of Western presence in south-east Asia is a or hold a front against anybody, in this, its last residual rapidly dwindling asset, and the American ill-success toehold, you are told ' Ah, but the sheikhs there love it, will soon have bankrupted it altogether. and everybody wants us to stay.' The other contention is that in any case only small On the old Indian Empire's other flank is another British forces could or would be committed; and it residual toehold the scene of what Churchill called appears that the prospect of our continued presence on ' the greatest disaster to British arms which our history the mainland of south-east Asia may sagely be made records' and round it the same delusions cluster conditional on the continued presence of Australia thick. The stability of south-east Asia is for us a vital and New Zealand also. However, the argument is interest' : on this proposition has been rested the recent self-defeating. The reason why a small force is effective, announcement by H.M. Opposition that British forces by deterrence or by actual intervention, is the know- ought to be retained by agreement on the mainland of ledge that the power deploying it is ready and able, if south-east Asia ' to help to maintain stability '. need be, to reinforce to any extent necessary to secure In order rationally to examine such a proposition, victory. That is why three battalions hold West Berlin : it is necessary to offer some definition of ' stability '. they are a token that certain acts would mean war on a I take it, then, to mean a situation such that the go\ ern- literally unlimited scale. That is why the lone gunboat ment of a country is not overthrown by internal in the past could conduct 'gunboat diplomacy ': subversion or external force. It is, for example, the behind it lay the Royal Navy and a power which, condition which the United States has been attempting, however tardily and clumsily, would be exerted to win, with colossal exertion, but so far with conspicuous sooner or later. But a small force whose owners declare, lack of success, to produce in South Vietnam. Now, the if that were not self-evident anyhow, that there will assertion that it is a vital interest, a matter of life and be no more to come, is a laughing-stock, to be tolerated death, for the United Kingdom that there is stability as long as convenient, and then to be brushed aside. in south-east Asia is patently absurd. There is no reason A long experience of colonial soldiering—too long for to suppose that such a condition is attainable at all our present good—has deeply infected our thinking, anyhow and human history so far in the East and in and especially our professional thinking, with the West is a commentary on the opposite. But suppose indifference to the fact that war is about winning, and that stability conceivably were attainable, in what winning is about superiority of force. sense is stability in south-east Asia a matter of life The notion, then, that economic ends can be served and death to the United Kingdom ? by a deployment of forces to maintain stability in Every political alteration anywhere in the world has remote regions is a mirage. We are by no means so much or may have economic implications for the United dependent as a number of other nations on overseas Kingdom ; but from this it cannot be deduced that those trade and investments for our standard of living; but implications, if they could be foreseen, would be worth we are the only one that dreams of protecting them while exerting the military effort necessary to prevent with garrisons. political change or to guide it in the desired direction. I turn to the other sense in which stability in south- Of course, if a large and certain economic advantage east Asia is sometimes argued to be our vital interest, could be purchased by a small and limited military namely, defence: the proposition that a disturbance of effort, it w ould be a rational policy ; but it is in supposing the political status quo at the other end of Asia increases precisely this that the delusion lies. How can the the risk of the United Kingdom being successfully object-lesson of the United States in Vietnam be attacked. One might have thought it suspicious that resisted As the evidence mounts that the U.S.A. must none of our continental neighbours thinks so. If the extricate itself regardless of eventual stability, two British Isles are to be attacked, something pretty arguments are put forward to differentiate that case unpleasant will hav e happened before that to most of and render its implications irrelevant for British the other countries of Western Europe. They are more policy. One is that the British in Malaysia were vulnerable than we. Yet it no more occurs to them to successful both against the Communists and against exert themselves militarily for the stability of south-east confrontation, and that therefore they can do the same Asia than of South America or Central Africa. Of 304 course, the historian may ex post facto trace a connec- dreamer to keep on dreaming. I believe, however, that tion between events and movements distant in time there was another psychological explanation, which it and place. There could conceivably be a long and is important to identify and expose, because it calls complex chain of causation between the political for long and difficult remedial action. The professional alignment of North Borneo and a future threat to the armed forces of this country, partly because they are United Kingdom, just as there may have been between long-service professional forces and partly because of the detachment of Korea from China in 1894 and the their ISO-year-long imperial background, have a German invasion of Belgium in 1914. But one could profound aversion from European warfare, and not on that account attempt to defend the Channel consequently grasp instinctively at any theory which Ports by operations in the China Sea: for even if one enables them to turn their back on the beastly conditions had been able to influence the outcome of the Sino- of the North Atlantic and on the even more beastly Japanese War, one would not have known which of the conditions of continental warfare, where one is mixed possible outcomes would be favourable or otherwise up with ereat masses of foreigners—I don't mean in its ultimate repercussion at the other end of the tribesmen, Indians. Arabs or nice people of that sort— Old World land mass. A military presence in south-east and also with great masses of civilians who are servina Asia is an exorbitant premium against a risk so remote ' for the duration'. It is hard to say which are the worse. and hypothetical that it cannot be identified. Once No wonder the central military problem that has again, our imperial experience has tricked us into engaged for years and still engages the best brains of a ignoring another axiom, the inverse relationship nation which twice in our lifetime was all but over- between military power and distance. So much of the whelmed by a military power located 200 miles away, power of the former British Empire. and particularly has been how to stage the opposed landing of a brigade that relevant to south-east Asia, was centred on the group in the Far East. The nuclear hypothesis has possession and resources of India. We have forgotten provided an escapist mechanism, which enabled the this, and behave as if the distances had been measured professional Services to hold at bay the dreaded from London. The political situation immediately to realization that they now exist to defend the United the south-east of the frontiers of the Indian Empire Kingdom, and that in this context they will be pro- (including Burma) was of direct or at least measurable foundly different in motivation, philosophy, organiza- relevance to the security of that Empire. Its relevance tion and armament from the Services which garrisoned to that of the British Isles is to the last degree remote and policed a world-wide Indo-British empire. and speculative. For convenience I will date the moment of truth If ' we' then are now the nation whose home is the about the beginning of this year when the Defense British Isles, (or rather the British Isles less the Irish Secretary of the United States, from the very Vatican Republic), and if we identify and eliminate the habitual of nuclear theology, stated that his country con- modes of thought and behaviour which relate to a ' we ' templated a long sea war against a major antaaonist that no longer exists, the military role of Britain in the and land operations of indefinite duration, because, 1970's is the defence of the British Isles. in his words, 'the threat of an inconceivable act is not At this point it would, until quite recently, have a credible deterrent'. And so we have come home at been necessary for me to insert a long passage to last. The threat of an incredible act is a deterrent to the dispose of a fundamental objection—namely, that the threat of an incredible act: the 'second strike ' can be British Isles do not need to be defended militarily, the answer to nuclear blackmail. Against the divisions, because either they are defended by the nuclear the missiles and the submarines of an agaressor it deterrent or, alternatively, in its absence they are affords no security except that of suicide. No less than indefensible. The long voutie of this contention is at any previous time. the defence of the United easily explicable amongst Treasury Ministers and other Kingdom requires the fulfilment of two conditions: politicians; for if you can really take it seriously, it (1) that the minim urn external communications of the relieves the budget enormously--the cheapest of all British Isles essential in war be secured: and (2) that defence policies is the nuclear deterrent, plus its logical the adjacent continent be denied to an enemy so far corollary of no other defence at all. What is much more as he might use it to attack the British Isles, or. in the remarkable and instructive is that the Services them- worst case, that such an attack be repelled. sel‘ es have tolerated and exen embraced a proposition My subject this afternoon is the role, the offiect hich renders their profession virtually superfluous. rather than the methods: but I must carry both these Partly no doubt the explanation was the same ghost conditions at any rate to the next stage of delinitiol. of the old ' we' that I have been laying. If there V,as no If you are blockading a city, you do not try to destroy reason for employment at home, this made it easier to all the possible sources from w hich supplies for it find and accept excuses for pottering about on the might originate, nor to intercept them at or near those other side of the world—the role of preset-N. ing stability sources. You sit dowii as near to the city as possible, in the Far East from an undefended. because indefensi- since all supplies and routes relexant to your purpose ble, base in the North Atlantic looked all rieht. To this must cork erge there. The only area where enemy extent the theory \ Nas one more narcotic to help the superiority could be decisk e aaainst the essential 305 communications of these islands is where they approach At any rate since the supersession of mercenary armies, these islands—namely, in the North Atlantic. I am not. the only way for Britain to influence this balance was of course, dogmatizing about the relevant definition to offer the prospect that she was not only able to of that wide term, nor ignoring the natural ubiquity secure her own maritime defence but also ready and of some—not by any means all—forms of maritime able to participate in continental warfare on a sufficient force: but I am warning against that vision of the scale to make it probable that the combination she Emden burning its heart out on the beach at Cocos joined would ev entually prove victorious. This means which could spirit us away back to the dream-world of two things. It means that Britain must be seen to have the old ' we'. Even in World War I the decisive maritime available at the outset of hostilities a European field struggle, so barely won by a world-policing two-power- army, with air component, which is of substantial size standard Royal Navy, was in the North Atlantic. and (if I may be permitted a self-quote) ' equal in I must not shirk the supplementary question: What philosophy, training and armament ' to any other. It allies, if any, are to be assumed for this purpose ?' also means that she must be seen to have the means of Everyone who has produced intelligence appreciations expanding and maintaining that army for as long as knows it is always possible to construct an insuperable the conflict might have to be prolonged. ' worst case'. I do not believe we should assume more Of these two requirements we possess one already, than one major maritime power as an enemy, nor that thanks to the course of events in the last 20 years which such an enemy would have no other calls upon his has left Britain, for the first time in her history, with a offensive maritime strength. Further, I believe we are first-class European field army in time of peace. It is entitled to assume that a continental enemy would the second requisite which at present is decisively attach the first priority to success in land operations and lacking, having long been excluded even from considera- that consequently his maximum threat to our command tion by the nuclear hypothesis of a brief war or no of the North Atlantic would emerge more or less war at all. To satisfy it we must have a cadre army gradually. and that some allied support of our maritime and a training army as well as a field army, and we must forces could be allowed for. Finally, I would point re-form a volunteer reserve on new lines to provide the out that we would have the advantages of concentration, framework both for initial reinforcement and for shorter range and inner lines. Having prefaced my subsequent expansion. If I had to indicate what I answer thus. I am obliged to give it as follows: 'A believe ought to be the principal preoccupation of our Britain which did not aim at being able to fulfil the landward forces in the next decade, I would point maritime condition of her survival with her own without hesitation to the reserves. In terms both of resources would have no real political independence. material and of manpower, the theory and the methods and would not appear to other nations a sufficiently of expansion ought to dominate our concern, if the significant military power for her to fulfil the second, ravages of recent neglect are to be made good. or landw ard, condition, to which I now come.' But I have already strayed well beyond role (which The economical and practical method of fulfilling is largely politician's business) into ' method ' (which this second, or landward. condition of the defence of is largely not). On looking back, my assessment of the British Isles has always been to maintain or restore Britain's military role in the 1970's seems to have been such balance of power in Europe as would prev ent an a statement of the obv ious. But often the obvious is enemy from using the adjacent mainland to invade us. the most controversial and the hardest to achieve.
DISCUSSION
MR. J. G. Y. RADCLIFFE: MaV I ask Mr. Powell whether campaign was completed we joined with our allies in gking by 'we' he means anybody resident in the British Isles, South Korea an assurance that we would again go to her excluding Ireland, or would he include people of our blood, support if she was re-invaded. such as the Australians and New Zealanders ? In this connection 1 would like to ask Mr. Powell a triple question. Does he think we were right to go to the support THE LECTURER: If we are to defend people of our blood, of South Korea in 1950, does he think we were right to give we shall be defending a good deal of the United States as her a guarantee in 1953, and does he think that we would well. A nation is a political, not a genealogical entity, and necessarily be wrong to honour that guarantee if the defence and defence policies are concerned with nations. guarantee was put to the test? MR. NEVILLE BROWN: 1 was fascinated by Mr. Powell's THE LECTURER: Thank you. The year 1950 was a lot comment that we could not expect to defend the channel nearer than 1968 to the death of the old ' we'. It was by ports by operations conducted in the China Sea. 1 think no means as clear in 1950 as it is today who 'we' are now other members present will recall that by far and away the going to be, if I may put it that way. There is a memorable most important operation that Britain has contributed to phrase of one of the greatest Urdu poets who said 'These East of Suez since the end of World War II was not an things should be forgotten, but who can forget the scene of imperial or post-imperial one in any literal or accepted the night before, when the smoke is still rising from the sense: it was the contribution we made in regard to the candlew icks and the guests have now departed ? It was like Communist invasion of South Korea, and after that that in 1950. 306 I do not think we can job backwards and say, 'Ah, THE LECTURER: There is a Latin tag for that particular 15 to 20 years ago we ought to have seen as clearly as we unsolved and, I apprehend, insoluble conundrum of man ought to see now what our present situation is, and who in society: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? — Who are you to " we" are.' We have to read the decisions and policy of put in charge of the politicians? Or, alternatively, I would those days in the light of the perception of those days. I appeal to the axiom of all rational politics—that for suppose it was more or less implicit in our participating in political purposes human nature has to be treated as a that campaign—not logically but emotionally—that we constant. Therefore the idea from which so many professions should participate in the guarantee which was given at the and professionals seem to set out—that we could change termination of it. human nature if we could only get at these people and talk Your third question seems to me to be the one which goes to them—is foredoomed to disappointment. One can only deepest and is most general in its application. Undertakings hope and do one's personal best to put just the extra drop between nations are dependent upon the conditions in of commonsense into the swirling mixture and try to whip which the two who exchange them respectively find them- out just one more speck of manifest nonsense from the said selves, and if there is a sufficient change in the condition mixture. And if you have got it nearer right than the other of a contracting party, though the treaty were written in bounders, well, you get past ; if you have not, well, you don't. blood, that will inevitably make it unfulfillable either It is that sort of a process which I apprehend is not very physically or morally. By 'morally' I mean that people will unlike the process of controlling and directing armies in not fulfil that which they are jolly well determined not to war to the end of victory. fulfil, even if physically they could. Now I accept that all we like sheep went astray—at least I suppose we never had more binding treaties than with nearly ali of us—before 1914 in failure to appreciate that the the Indian princes—you could not have it more completely danger was from the mass armies of the continent; before sewn up—but there is no purpose in arguing the honour of 1939 in failure to appreciate, for instance, the decisive an engagement which could no longer, in changed circum- importance of the air element. And you will forgive my stances, be fulfilled. I suppose the same might be said of the mentioning that there was a heavy professional majority in treaty with the Sultan of Brunei. The paper might remain both cases lined up on the side of error. And now where long after all the circumstances in which such an engagement have the professionals been on the matter of the Reserves, was entered into had utterly changed. may I ask, in the last 20 years? Have the Regular soldiers Now there are two ways of confronting this consequence, been saying, 'Oh, don't take the Reserves whatever you do. hich is fact and has nothing to do with morality. The first Sacrifice our Regiment. You can cut down the standing is—in good time, if you can—to tap your friend on the forces if you like, but please, Minister, don't you realize the shoulder and say, ' Um, have you noticed—?' and hope vital importance of the Reserves?' If this has happened. that he will have noticed. The other course, which I am I have not heard of it. (Laughter.) No. What have you, the afraid we have all too often taken, is to maintain—as no one professionals, been doing in the last 20 years about the knows how to do so well as we—the stiff upper lip until the nuclear hypothesis, with the acceptance of which the demand moment when he reads in a British White Paper that it is for Reserves is logically irreconcilable? I have not noticed all over. Of course the end result is the same, because the that it has been from the professionals that the great protest end result derives from facts over which neither the sultan —with the breakthrough which w e eventually achieved in question—not a particular sultan, just any sultan—and against the lunacy of the nuclear hypothesis—has come. we ourselves have no control. All that we can control within Far from it. You did what, like decent chaps, vou alway s limits is the way we manage the situation, and the more will do. You said to yourselves, 'This looks like nonsense alive a nation's government is to the implications of the real to me but it is a political question, isn't it ?' So you touched changes in its situation—the more ready it is to identify your caps and you accepted the nuclear hypothesis on, the consequences of the change in w ho e ' arc—the more as I suggested in my lecture, corrupt grounds. I do not mean honourably, in the rational sense, of the term, it w ill act corruption in terms of money but much worse corruption towards other nations. than that, corrupt grounds for going along w ith what you might have suspected w as false. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL E. N. GODDARD: Mr. Powell has So if we are going to rearet, to deplore the weaknesses clearly enunciated the role of our defence in the seventies, of our human nature, the recurrence of our dangerous and how it has to be carried out. I am old and ugly enough behaviour, my only plea is that we should do it all together to have seen in my lifetime the three political parties— and put our tears into the same basin.
Liberal, Consery atiy e and Labour—each one severally, MR. ALAN CLARKE: III his lecture Mr. Powell referred do their best to stultify the efforts of the armed forces. to the subject of nuclear blackmail. I am not quite clear Before the first war you w ill remember Lord Roberts and whether he believes that a nuclear capability is essential to the National Service League endeavouring to w hip the the development of the conventional forces of the North nation and the Government up to National Service. Had Atlantic and European armies, or w hether he believes that that come about, the history of the w orld would have been because this capability vs ill not he used, it is not necessary. quite different. Secondly, I remember as a reasonably senior to have it. officer just before the second war we were ripe for, if not defeat, very near it. Now if I read my Daily Teleeraph and THE LECTURER : I welcome the opportunity to define Times. w hich I do, one learns that there are no Reser\ es. the sense in w hich I was using the terrn ' nuclear blackmail '. We hay e w hat y ou can call a magnificent Regular Army I can illustrate it by a hy pothetical application to the recent but there are no Reserves, and how the des il. vs ithout case of Czechosloy ak ia. Reser\ es. could it possibly succeed? So I ask, how can one Let us suppose that Czechoslovakia had had four Polaris be certain that the masters w ill not lead us up the garden submarines with 16 tubes swanning around in the oceans, path in the future as they hav e in the past ? and that Moscow had said to Prague. ' We don't like your 307 politics. They are too much like the politics of that fellow Singapore in the seventies, misses the main point—namely, Powell in England, and therefore we offer you an ultimatum : what you are defending. If I can do nothing else, the point either you will reintroduce the same system of senseless I wish to emphasize is that the subject of defence—the economics which has been found equally disastrous in the subject of the verb ' I defend ' or 'We defend '—as well as Soviet Union and in Great Britain or we will'—using the the object, can change, and in our case and vours—on the technical American expression—; take out Prague and assumption that my hypothesis is correct—has changed Bratislava.' Now in that situation it would have been radically in the last quarter of a century or so. This carries perfectly rational for the Czechs to say: ' We don't believe with it a consequential change throughout the whole of the you and we shall not comply, because although you can objects and the methods of defence policy. take out Prague and Bratislava, if that happens, we would CAPTAIN SIR EDWARD ARCHDALE, R.N.: Sir, you quoted be careless of everything thereafter, after your fantastic, an American view about the possibility of a long war at sea. inconceivable destruction of our nation, and my God, you You made plain your view, which I heartily support, that too will regret it for centuries to come.' That interchange any thing Great Britain does must be dependent on her would at least make sense. But when the tanks rumbled being able to control the waters about her shores, let us across the border at 2 a.m. into a Czechoslovakia which was say the North Atlantic. If this is so, would you not agree so concerned, and rightly concerned, to preserve the future that there is at least as great a requirement for adequate possibilities and hope, not to say existence, of that nation, maritime Reserves in ships, aircraft and men as there is for would they have said, ' Here goes. That was our trip-wire we heard. wasn't it ? Send a signal off to the boys on the the continental Army; indeed, that we require a return to the maintenance of a Reserve Fleet ? Polaris submarines. We will go to hell but we will take a couple of Russian cities with us' ? There is nothing which THE LECTURER: If by as great a need' you mean, as I can happen to a nation through defeat in war, even through think you do, not necessarily as great in terms of ratio or victory in war I might say, so unpleasant, so fearful, as the total manpower but as important, as vital, then my answer consequences of a nuclear exchange, and that is why the to your question is enthusiastically yes. I believe that in threat of an incredible act is not an effective deterrent. This recent years particularly— and this is something where some is the distinction that I was drawing between nuclear of the deductions from the Israeli war could be of great use blackmail and the nuclear deterrent. to us—we have ruled out the possibility of reserve equip- Finally you asked, does this mean that we can dispense ment, not merely reserve capability but reserve utilizable with nuclear forces ? No, because if you dispense with equipment, far more than was necessary. That was why in nuclear forces you are, at any rate theoretically, once again my concluding words, when referring to Reserves. I said in a position to be blackmailed, should your opponent have - in terms of material and manpower- the ratio has to be a nuclear capability and should other nuclear powers not looked at for each Serv ice—in fact each branch of each be involved, not identify themselves with you, which is Service. It is equally vital all round, because once you asking quite a bit. This is the reason why non-proliferation leave the nuclear hypothesis behind, the only termination is not on: because since 1945 every nation that can possibly w in which you can foresee and expect to hostilities is to do so, when it can do so, will protect itself against being them. at the receiving end of a piece of blackmail to which it has no means of replying. That is the rational justification, and MR. COSMO RUSSELL: I wonder if Mr. Powell would agree from my point of view as an Englishman a sufficient justifi- that the present 'we ' are, fortunately or unfortunately, cation, for the retention of, and continued keeping in members of the Security Council of the United Nations, touch with, nuclear capability. (Applause.) and that by that action we are really back at square one, where we were the old ' we '? Therefore what does he think MAJOR CLARK (Australia): I am one of those ' non-we's' we should do about it now and in the seventies? and as such I would like to make an observation. Previous experience has shown that England has had THE LECTURER: I thought we were going to get to this difficulty in dealing with major opposition without the point. We very nearl, did over Korea but we have got to it support of the -non-we's Present indications seem to be now. that in the seventies perhaps you could deal with a threat There is a point of view—and this in a sense connects from Luxembourg, but to deal with a great threat you would with General Goddard's observations—which I regard as have to rely on the ' non-we's '. So my question is: Are we, unrealistic and Utopian, which argues that since any as a ' non-we', prepared to support you in a major conflict, political change anywhere can lead to war anywhere, know ing full well that you could care little about any directly or indirectly, therefore you must prevent political conflict that we may become invoked in ? change anywhere. Usually it is slightly understated, but that is what it comes to. And therefore you must set up an THE LECTL RER : Of course all alliance is an acting to- organization which will prevent it if you want to be really gether by different nations, because they believe, and only safe. I have no doubt that this is, in the abstract, logical but to the extent that they believe. that acting together serves it is unreal. it does not correspond with the observed facts their separate defence. I do not know , but it may be that your about humanity and its behaviour. The Charter of the ' we ' is Australian. Up to 1945 that was part, and consciously United Nations, as of its ill-fated predecessors—back to the part, of the object of British defence, namely that political year dot, I was going to say. but beyond the year dot-- entity w hich, though diminishingly, had common external implied the assumption that you can fossilize the political relations—the British Empire. Therefore the attempt w hich configuration of the world so that it is not altered \ iolently is often made by the emotional to draw a deduction from or in a manner w hich would be resisted by force. the excellent cavalry provided by Australia in the South Now if you can believe that, then indeed you can have African war, to the proposition of British battalions in an entirely different defence policy. There are people who 308 believe it, and they do have an entirely different defence terms of alliances and all that word implies, which I think policy. The only thing I can say to that is the celebrated tends to lift the discussion into a far wider field. but too trite words of the Duke of Wellington, that if you I notice that we have the Chief of the Defence Staff here can believe that, you can believe anything. today, and I hope he will forgive me if I make a comment now about soldiers. I use the w ord as embracing all three THE CHAIRMAN : I am afraid we must stop now. I am Services. The professional man, the soldier. is always sorry, but time marches on. I would like to make two w orried about where does he draw the line on the question remarks before thanking you, Mr. Powell, for your most of political versusstrictly military matters. There are those stimulating and erudite talk. who would like to say, 'There is the line, and for God's The first of those remarks concerns alliances. We have sake realize that the political issues are the realm of the heard this afternoon a great deal about this word ' we ', politicians and the military issues and strictly military and I go away w ith an uncomfortable feeling that it is too advice is what is wanted from the soldier. I put it to you, parochial and too small and perhaps too unrelated to the is that right? I do not say that it is wrong, but I do suggest world as it is today. Today the world lives in an age of that from what we have heard from Mr. Powell today, it grand alliances, and far more can be done throughout the may be wrong: and that these professional soldiers and men world by being a member of a great alliance than can be at arms, when they are giving their considered opinion on done by the unilateral action of one country acting on its matters of strategy, should take cognisance of the political ow n. In the past perhaps one of our greatest alliances was issues—not the least of which is that of alliances. the great Commonwealth and British Empire. I for one It now remains for me to ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen, believe that the great Commonwealth in its old sense still to thank Mr. Enoch Powell for a most stimulating and a exists, but side by side with it exists this grand conception most brilliant address on what is basically a most difficult of alliances. So when we talk about defence, let us think in problem.
Following this lecture Mr. Leonard Beaton wrote at least partly, to blame. When I said that three bat- an article in The Times entitled 'Mr. Powell's Defence talions hold West Berlin `because they are a token that Contradictions'. In the course of it he said : certain acts would mean war on a literally unlimited 'Strangely enough, in view of his doctrines, Mr. scale'. I meant not the nuclear holocaust but war of Powell remembers the Berlin crisis. Still more strangely, which the aggressor could not foresee the duration, he points out that three battalions can hold West extent or outcome. The word literally' was my. Berlin because 'they are a token that certain acts evidently insufficient, attempt to avoid unlimited' would mean war on a literally unlimited scale'. being taken in the nuclear sense, and the previous Apparently the nuclear threat is credible after all—and sentence had run : 'The reason why a small force is in the form of all-out nuclear war. ... It is difficult to see effective, by deterrence or by actual intervention, is the why if three battalions promise unlimited war o‘er knowledge that the power deploying it is ready and Berlin another three k‘ould not do the same for all able, if need be. to reinforce to any extent necessary to Germany.– secure victory'. I have frequently averred (e.g. in In a letter to The Times Mr. Powell replied (20th JOURNAL. February, 1968, p. 52) that the September, 1968): course of events in Europe since 1945 would be entirely explicable if nuclear power had never existed. Sir. One point. if I may, on Mr. Beaton on 'Mr. Poryell's I am, sir. Defence Contradictions' (20 September). and that only Your obedient servant. to remo). e a straight misunderstanding. for which I am, E Noc1-1 POWELL
309
- '3peech by the at Tr!oc.J.Enoc Powell 1.1) at a public meeting at the '.!atforA Technical College, 8 p.m.Thurvay,l2 September,l968.
A week or two ago i expresser'; the opinio-F that we coul-1 not affor ,3 to leave a great sector of our economy in p blic owner- ship but must aim am be seen to aim at re-integrating it, from c-mining t civil aviation, from atomic energy to steel proluction, into the private enter)r se, competitive system in
hLch we believe. I have no ,oubt a large majority of calr people wou.]2i be relieve ,1 an,1 glar; to see that happen, an-1 are heartily sick of nationglisation all its works. It ho- ever, wirlely regare ,11 even amonst those who most ,lesire it, as impracticable to ,4enationalise a wir7e ranze of the nationgliJE inrlustries - to "unscramble the eggs" PS the unthim ens catch- , 4-1 phrase goes. 414ere.fre everyone settle .5 (lown into a sort of glazer-7 hopelessness - a "hems-you-win-tails-I-lose" sort of attiturie - conclurling tnat whenever the Socialists are to nationalisation always a_Avances, am wheneler the ConservatIves are in, nationalisatio-'il never retreats. So c 7 accept that they are regrettably fate-1 to live in a country ucreasineJy un-7er state ownership an;" control. Thus m;ery Conse-vative feels a grenwing sense of c otrarliction: he proclaims cogitelIms, but acquiesces In soot itsmi an', every citizen is cheat e uieeueres
to (leci-le whether, his ccc retry sall be
- 2 -
; 4 4, , , _ all those who strive to take oeoo1es liberty.<,1
away: sp;are no effort to persuade them Jt--,at it is irlipcss - r ,"i=racticable" is ,the pfavourite ,1,ro for ther t keec it ic•eT. : • „ Let me say therefore starightal,i-af;. that, oroe we want to rlo
so, there is 'loth .rig ifmn:ractica'ole at all about tienat ions:using
the natonalise-1 in7lustries - all of them. The notion that it
cannot be rlone, even if ,:fe want to o it, is, as
wou.1,1 say,"a thinF contri_ve4 of the enemy", 1.,!_ch we unsuspect-
in7ly sn unamimetically acce-ot, like an army a,Irnitting enemy
agent s into its camp. It is, la; secret :hat a stu-ly of
lenat io•alisat ion on a brom front nas been in han,41 with of-
ficial approval, in the Conservative .:Tarty for s::_ce 0i C nast.
y purpose to-night is no to try to guess or anttcate the C71.-
CiscrIs. of tnat stu,7y, or the leaershi's concM)sLo.s
but tçr3estry the principal fallacies J-:7;ori wh!_ch
tion that A.enat onal sat ion is t.. ract cab-1-2
Inci-lentally, I hertily tLe ,zorl 9=Tenat la.1-1 t;at' on"
it,,,elf,ftough I have tD use it in rlefault of a befier; fc it ..cr-
veys all the wron 1.-iilicatios. It s:J.gsts or un-
whereas A enationalisatir.n is actually a 4oi::17forwar ,3 to
a batt,=r :oethr!r, :.etl-,')•-; prov,, efficacy for pr:;•-•-ctive
ciency an- 1 co_su:ner satisraction, a :7;-,tL0,7 s ,17; = toe
heve in f.act ne,;er really on:c;y(„,.- 1 before. --ne
L-LstalcJ=s 725t1,:wa,,z`
private Thershi . D. ,lar cf
- 3 -
Zaa.t4i4134.1 roa,7 haulage/to the road hauliers frorfl who It
harl been taken. This icfmlie ,1 a kim of reactio-i, a restoratio:,. of the status quo, which is the reverse of the -lynamic of private enterprise anl out of keepi, €s wIth the Cone-roative
belief in ;77rowth an ,1 evolution. The pre-nationhlisation Tptt-Lrn of these in-lustries - as I say, i o'.7.e cases yo:, h:e to
go a long wag. back to fin ,7 it - is no more vjk, fo -r'the l970's
than the Ire-war pattern or the ere-first-;yar pattern of the
in,lustries whLch escape- 1 11tio.n7,-17, woul,-1 be for those in-
— ,77,ustries to ay. 1.1Oreover, the aceroach Lust be not T-)ecerleal - 2 -1Lsuosal cf
this here, an ,1 t!nat t!nere - but cc: shensive. Cf
11 carl be 71one at once; but t ,7, fip.ht 'n Aetail
be rlefeate ,1 in rletal. The reas .3o ,, for 4 enatnalislo:H7 aLr
transport are substatially the sar:ie as thP reaso-ns for -lena-
tioLalisin;.] ccal-mini: the c-7,se 27tally
if its mvocates are seerJ itThr='r)n:e forna:- 7 but se 4u1o7.1s
ly s7.;.:-)prsi.-, the other. If on.e Ln-lustrg - or rather, t
mers of one - 1,-1,,:lstry - ,7eseroe the benefits r-,f Drloate enter- it prise, so o he others too. In sort 1 is not a pier.el-fleal
back, but a goinF forwar 4, that oust he c)UT 11.7040 -
pcse. If the orinciple Ls rizht at all, it.:; rLot ool ly
,3c olir purpose caLnot be ioss thr;.n tf,-.; co_lvert to prIv:ite en- ;.,--. terprise that roat block of:7ritIsh ',.: .-1,-;ustry 0 ':,:_ch accounts
for/C per cent. cf -.-,.-e a:Inuo,,.. 1 orcinct ,-, 1-,-1 per cen'r. cf ,. -.. A l'' .„, . , •.J.n-,:,,ul investent.*- If
Perhaps you imagine this ieoulAbe a stupenAous financial
operation,involving thousarels of millions of .--Cechanein nanAs.
Not at all. It requires no new exPen-litureanl no new savings.
Here are the physical assets of a nationaltseA inlustry. Tney are rep-esented by a block of national Aebt in the hanAs of the public, sometikatas the physical assets of a private inAustry are reoresenteA,by the shares./ The parallel is, of course,
not exact, because the size anA ownership of the oublic lebt concerne-;has only a historical connection with the sPhysical assets, wieereasthe hol-lineof equity shares ineolves ownership anA control, vith all the attenlant Auties, risks anl eelventaee However, the fact fcilitates the financial siAe of Aenational- isation. To Aenationalise, in financial terT.s,is to cenveet the title-eeAs Ofso to speak) of the physical assets from public Aet into equity shares, thus transferring responsibil-
ity fer the future manageent, replaceff:ent ahA roeewal of the
assets fro::: the public arel its political sn4 aAeini:teative
servants to the equity owners ='"1their assots. Let us supposekitt*., for illustration that a consortium eiakesthe winninc. biJA for a n-tonallseA unAertakine i the prLce of i:ICOmillien. The state exchange, the aseets with them for ,LICOmillion worth ef reblic Aeht, ,ehichit then ercceeAs to cancel. Cf course, there is no necessary relation
be•te,:eeh the figure of -7,1C:eemillion an' the relevant aount ef
new public ,,eht which vrae creeteA at the tiee of ntienalisat' • 7 - - I shall returnto that point later - but the transaction is
self-financing, as inAeeA it logically shoulA be,since no new assets are being createA, but only,-, change of ownership an.',
management is taking place.
:n this respect AenationalisationApes not hive the Aisastrous financial consequences ofnationalisation. Then the state nationalises an ihAustry, it 7ives the owners .,,Df the olA equity new public Aebt in exchange; but when theit7DroceeA to sell those securities in the market, the securities Aonot have to be matcheA by new saving but bec=e part of the government'saAAltional borrowing, whlch it all too often
finances by lenAing to itself, alias, by resort to the printi_ nress. /Thus nationalisatLon, both in the 194C's anA sincP
2_964, has been a potent source of inflation,with all the attenlant woes. DenationallsatLon not only has no such effect, but is a -21e,7uarl against future inflation, Iseb.7--- hence- forwarA all invest2lent in the AenationaliseA inAustry will i-.77C to be financeA fror:1 profits or through the 'iarket, that is, Tith genuine T:avins, onA not as hitherto by th.e fiat of the
Chancellor of the L'xcLecluer. One of the coonest oections to be voiceA to tht 7011 canm)t sell off an _In-7ertakin.:,- ,,Jnich is :71a'.iln-7 a loss. .,;tateLent is untrue on the face it;of for 7-e
esery Aay of 1.)rivate enterpriseun'ertains wh'Lch ore a loss anFl are bought up by others. Of course, if neither the unAertaking as a whole nor any part of it cour 4 ever expect to make a working profit, then noboAy voul' buy it; but noone coulA say this of even the worst ilkx loss-makers among our nationalise ,1 in,lustries. (7o the auestion of activities which are Aeliberately run at a loss as a Tatter of public - or at any rate political - policy, will come presently.) So long as there is profit in prospect, an unr7ertakin7 can be sell - but naturally at a price, namely at the market -f.Drice of th' prospect of that profit. There will always be buyers at the ri7ht price. dibut - . Yes,
know; for many nationalise,A urZertakings that price woulA far below the sums which have been pai,, for them an-, inTesteA
in th in the past by the tax-payer, the meory of which is now preserveA like flies in a 'per, by a slab of nublic Aebt.
In some cases, the rlifference woulA be enormonis.
suppose that ktu to ,lenationalise woulA be L.) "maAe a losq".
Pot at a 1. The loss has ;lreay been marle lonT ac7.0. 7)ear taxpayer, your mone7 - hurc7re-ls of millions of it - has
aireaT been lost becase it has been spent on assets wleOch
just not worth anyth :e what you f01- them. You
lost it in most cases a lono t Us ao thou many you are
losing it still, an-, heavily. All you -, YoulA be wouli
be to roco nise spi - milk as spilt, but .117,
is well VOU" an same ,Irain in future. 7enationalisation, inshort, 1ces not involve one penny piece of true loss. Yet, peocle say, - aniA. it is the typical reaction of the unfortunate investor who is lan-7eri with some F4u,4, shares - at least let's hang on, an-1 see if we can't run the un-7ertakings
in question better an,1 sc be able to get a better price for them. Suppose we put a Conservative Government in anA tell
them to run the in,lustries economically,like orAinary business
propositions;perhaps then we ocull -et out at a lower loss? .1 am sorry to -lisappcint you; but there is no an atom of sense
in that. You will remember that twas anyhow un-ler Conserva-
tive Governments that agreat mart of these losses ,,ereincurr- e,4. It was they who threw a lot of your 7oo4 money after ba,-71
an,1 enAs(71 withan loss-makers still. So "form", as the punters
say, is not procitious. ITowever, aparLfrom that xxix painful
point, on which I touch perforce reluctance, if kzeepthese loss-makers, an 4 as lonF as you keeo thefl, youwill have to continue to invest in them heavily. Thatthe grave of e.11 the counts against nationalisation its very nature, it invests blin,l; that becaese an unerta±ing Public
owneci 1-1-' its finance therefore oublicY antee,l, Its investments -lecisions cae ct hP either ma -controlle,-; or
sroftt-orienter9. The 7)recosa; to ma.,:r7ethe inustres - erofitabl
kee ping them net Lonalise,-; likeattempting to says a t
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.,c1(1,c; 21-:• .... THE FIXED EXCHANGE AND DIRIGISME
by
Hon. J. Ehoch Powell, M.P.
The British Settin
Since World War II politics in Britain and, I suspect, in many other countries have been increasingly preoccupied with money. One only realises the extent of this preoccupation in retrospect and by a conscious effort. If I think of the controversies of the first span of Labour Party administration, from 1945 to 1951, and compare them with those of the second span since 1964, I confess to being astonished at the contrast. Then, the burning issues were preponderantly concrete - they turned on ownership, organisation, redistribution. Now, everything else has been overshadowed by questions of money - the pound sterling abroad, the pound sterling at home. The central preoccupation of government and parliament has been with maintaining its value.
Another notable feature has been the almost hypnotic effect which this pre- occupation has had upon the public in general. Extensions of state control, limitation of freedom, even acts of tyranny, which in any other context would have been ferociously resisted, have been uncomplainingly and almost unquestioningly accepted in the interest of what is called "the defence of the pound". At the signal of that trumpet, persons of all parties and classes submit to higher authority as instinctively and uncritically as atcall theof the fatherland itself, "the defence of the realm". Like Circe's wand, the call to defend the value of money, internally and externally, has been able to turn free men Into slaves and rational beings into obedient cattle.
To-day in Britain the majority of people accept it as self-evident that prices ought to be controlled, that they themselves ought not to be free to buy or invest overseas, or to own, let alone purchase, gold. Selling overseas, exporting, is regarded as an inherently virtuous activity, no more open to discussion and question- ing than the rescue of a comrade under fire.
Government makes mone
It therefore specially behoves those who are prejudiced in favour of freedom of human intercourse and individual decision, and against economic control by government, to examine attentively something which evidently motivates men so powerfully to give up their liberties.
Governrent makes money. From primitive times it has been an attribute of sovereignty to be able to say: "See, this is money". Even when the underlying medium of exchange was the substance itself, such as gold or silver, still the making was an act of authority, whether it were the authority of a tiny Greek state or of the universal emperor. Thisl'Js not only because the making was an act of certification, and thus of authority in that sense of the word. It was because the power to certify implied the power to certify falsely; to say, "See, this is the same money asall the rest", when in reality it was not. Where the underlying substance of money is intrinsically worthless (as with paper-money), or non-existent (as with bank credit), the act of money making must be an exclusively sovereign act, because the whole value resides in the certification - or, to be more accurate, the value resides in the presumption that the power of certification is being used in a partioLlar way, namely, so as not to lower the value. A state which fails, by design or otherwise, so to exercise its sovereignty is doing the same as a state which utters alloyed coins under the same stamp as pure coins. 2
External value of currencies
When the money which a government makes is of little or no intrinsic value, its value where the writ of that government does not run depends on the strength of the rest of the world's desire to make purchases (including investments) in that country, and the strength of that country's desire to make purchases (including investments) in the rest of the world. Thus the exchange rate between any two such national moneys is the price at whidh supply and demand for each is balanced. A nation's payments in and out must always and of necessity balance, as total sales and purchases internally must balance, and the exchange rate of its money moves to express that balance. The rate will fall if external demand to acquire the money is falling. This can hagpen because a unit of the national money buys less at home; but it can also happen because external demand for what that country has to offer is falling or its own demand for what the rest of the world has to offer is rising.
Debasement of mone
All government has a vested interest in uttering debased money, in meeting its obligation by making money; and insofar as the result is a fall in the purdhasing power of money, the operation represents a once-for-all act of taxation without the consent and often without the conscious knowledge of the governed. However the operation can be repeated. As governments are normally net debtors, they also have an interest in a progressivefall in the value of their money, since the real cost of Interest and repayment is thereby reduced. On the other hand, since the very presumption on which the money-making power of the state is conceded and accepted is that it certifies something constant (either the quantity or the quality of the underlying substance or its equivalence in goods and services), governments are always eMbarrassed if they are caught debasing the currency. Thus an internal conflict is set up in the body politic which is fruitful of evil consequences. Broadly speaking two lines of action are adopted to resolve the conflict: one is to allege that the money-making power is being exercised not only by the government - to allege, as it were, that forgers are at work; the other is to attempt and be seen to be attempting, to enforce a constant value. Under one head or the other most of the major activities of British governments in the last decade can be classified.
Before examining the forms which these actions take, it is worth recalling that the very idea of a constant value of money, though one with which it is impossible to avoid operating, is a conundrum, not to say a will-o'-the-wisp. This is the torment of the index-makers. The index ought strictly to change at frequent intervals to reflect changing conditions and demand; yet the whole purpose of an index is to provide a constant standard. There is a deeper layer of this conundrum. Suppose the terms of trade turn against my country, so that I have to do more work in order to obtain in exchange the same quantity of a desired foreign product, and suppose that I adjust my budget and my pattern of consumption in order to obtain less, but not proportionately less, of that product. Suppose further that the price of my work in national currency is constant. Has the value of that currency remained constant or fallen? An unaltered index will show slow depreciation; but is it not equally or more true to say that the value of that foreign article has increased, but the national currency has not depreciated. We shall find that this conundrum has probably had considerable practical influence on the behaviour of governments.
Veloci of circulation as the alibi
The whole attempt by governments to place upon a section of their subjects (e.g. the trade unions) or upon the whole body ("the nation insists on living beyond its means" or "we are paying ourselves more for the same work") some or all of the responsibility for debasing the currency depends upon the theory of velocity of circulation. After all, nobody would believe that the trade unions operate illicit printing presses or that the public utters its own money. On the other hand, - 3
nobody doubts that velocity as well as quantity is a factor of monetary demand. Therefore the most natural thing in the world is for governments to assert that their subjects are responsible for increasing the velocity of circulation. The assertion is not self-evidently absurd and it furnishes the desired alibi. On tnis base are erected the twin theories of demand-pull and cost-push Inflation, both of which mean "it-isn't-the-gavernment's-fault, don't-blame-me" inflation.
In order to prove the alibi, however, it is necessary to do more than assert that from time to time the velocity of circulation increases spontaneously. It is necessary to assert that this spontaneous change is uni-directional and ratchet- controlled. The admission that velocity sometimes increases spontaneously and some- times diminishes spontaneously will not help, because it would still be necessary to find sone other factor which accounts for inflation in the sense in question, namely continuous and cumulative inflation. This must be a factor which fills in the valleys and piles Pelion on the Ossa of the spontaneous acceleration and deceleration.
Hence the importance for the apologists, of the theory of an unlimited increase in velocity, which our Royal Commission in 1958 erected. The device conceals not one, but two, logical tricks. In the first place, it confuses "unlimited" with "indefinite", the distinction which Malthus illustrated by his observation that "there is no cabbage so large that it is impossible to be certain that a larger cabbage could never be grown, and yet we know for certain that a cabbage can never be grown as large as a house". In other words, there is no increase of velocity suCh that a further increase is inpossible; but this does not mean that velocity can be increased without limit. The second sleight of hand is that increase in velocity is taken to mean increase but never decrease in velocity, whereas there is no ground for such a proposition unless it is deduced, by circularity of reasoning, from the fact of inflation itself.
The theory of unlimited velocity has improved upon, and rendered almost obsolete, the alibi that the banks make money, which is not, I think, now heard in fashionable circles. The fallacy was the same: the banks can expand credit, and there is no point such that it could not be positively stated that they cannot expand it further; but they contract as well as expand credit, and they cannot expand it without limit unless some extraneous factor is al5o at work, which is precisely the factor required to account for inflation.
Having got hold of their theory of unlimited increase in velocity, governments are provided with the alibi they want: the spontaneous generation of money, rather like the Democritean theory of the spontaneous generation of worms from mud. Armed with this, they can accuse, attack and demand to control, the behaviour of every section of the community.
Wh should British vernments fuss about inflation?
Granted, however, that governments have a natural predisposition to debase the currency and that they have developed a means of doing so without being caught red- handed, still the extraordinary preoccupation of British governments with inflation during the last twenty years calls for explanation. Unlike Germany, with the haunting memory of 1923, Britain has no historical reason to be specially prejudiced against inflation; on the contrary, the pseudo-Keynesian orthodoxy of the post-war generation has been predisposed in favour of it, even to the extent of believing that only inflation has stood between us and a repetition of the massive unemployment of the inter-war years. Moreover, apart from governnent itself, there are powerful groups with an equally vested interest in inflation. The constant upward adjustment of wages (as of prices generally), which inflation implies, provides employment and an appearance of usefulness, even indispensability, to a host of trade union officials and organisers who live by persuading the credulous that they are the cause of a phenomenon which would occur if trade unions had never been Invented. Again, though the government is the greatest debtor, it is not the only one, and all debtors gain, or what is more to the point believe they stand to gain, by repaying in debased currency. if
When so large a part of the income of the poorest consists of state payments (as well as state services in kind) which are readily adjusted (not without political kudos), the fraction of the public whose real standard of living has actually been reduced by Inflation must be tiny indeed. Why then could successive governments persuade their subjects that inflation justified - nay, more, imperatively demanded - inflicting upon them as the presumed guilty parties the severest limitation, restrictions and interferences with their freedom? The persuasion has been expressed and supported by a whole vocabulary of expressions which imply the condign punishment of profligacy: "squeeze", "freeze", "harsh budget", "corrective measures", "end the spending spree", "mop up purchasing power".
The reason is certainly not that the rate of inflation in Britain during the last wo decades has been exceptionally high, either in absolute terns or in comparison with other countries. On the contrary, in the last decade, taking one year with another, the rate of inflation in Britain was slower than in nearly all the other countries of Western Europe and not very much faster than in the countries of North America. However unsatisfactory Britain's position in other 'league tables', she has been not far from the top in the moderation with which her governments have debauched the currency.
Balance of a ments "crises" and the fixed exchan e
There is no real doUbt where the angwer lies. The preoccupation with inflation has been stimulated and constantly renewed by the series of what are so misleadingly cafled "economic crises". These "crises" are in fact the periods when Britain's balance of payments has moved into deficit or more accurately - since payments always do and always must balance - periods when the Bank of England was paying out reserves or borrowing from other central banks - both being processes whioh by their nature cannot continue indefinitely. This phenomenon was the result of the parity of the pound sterling being fixed in relation to other principal currencies since, if the exchange rate of a currency is free to reflect the balance of international supply and demand for that currency, the payments of the country concerned are bound to balance automatically without increase or diminution of reserves or lending or borrowing between central banks. On the other hand, if the parity is fixed, there is bound, except by a miraculous chance, to be some surplus or deficit that has to be met In one or both of those ways; and if the deficit is substantial or continuing, it is called a "crisis".
Now, one among many factors in the international demand for a currency is its prospective internal purchasing power - and that for two reasons. If a unit of that currency is going to buy less, those who want it to purchase goods or services from the country concerned will not give so much for it; and those who want it as a store of value for future expenditure there or elsewhere, will similarly look on it with less covetous eyes. There are, of course, other factors which alter international demand for a currency notably a change in the outer world's demand for the goods and services which the country has to offer. Thus, if for any reason such as obsolescence or the growth of production elsewhere, foreign demand for our exports declines, the demand for our currency will fall, even though its internal purdhasing power may remain absolutely constant. Since, however, world demand is beyond the ability of the country concerned to alter; attention is concentrated on internal purchasing power, which is within domestic control. Hence the obsession with inflation which has been engendered in Britain by her balance of payments "crises". Thus the fixed external parity of the pound sterling has become a powerful engine for the extension of government control over the individual. The mechanism works as follows: the balance of payments moves into deficit at the fixed parity of the currency; although the government has been debauChing the currency and intends to continue doing so the blame is attributed to the behaviour of the citizens and not of the government; therefore the balance of payment "crisis" results in more control being imposed on the citizens; the balance of payments, nevertheless, continues in deficit or returns to deficit again after an interval - probably (though not necessarily) because the government continues to debauch the currency; therefore it - 5
follows that the citizenshave not been subjectedto sufficientcontrol and that the controlsmust be intensified. This viciouscycle is no mere imaginationor jeu &esprit,. It is what Britishpeople have lived throughsix or seven times since the idea of freeingsterling was abandonedaround 1955.
Fixed exdh e and diri isme
The fixed externalparity of a country'scurrency is a key instrumentof dirleame, somethingwith which no dirigiste regimewill voluntarilydispense. The French Presidenthas often,and rightly,copplained that Arericaninvestnents in Europe have been financedon French savingsbecause, the USA being in balanceof paynentsdeficit vis-6.-visFrance, the counterpartof the investmentswas the increase of dollars- whetheror not subsequentlyconverted into gold - at the Banque de France: the real consumptionwas being foregoneby French citizens,not by American citizens. So far so good; but Presidentde Gaulle need not have permittedthis to happen. He had it in his power at any moment to put a stop to the whole lark and preventthe Anericandeficit with France from growing,sipply by either revaluingor floatingthe franc. He did not do so. The socialistgovernment in Britainhad it in theirpower at any momentfrom their advent in 1964 to escapefrom the whole cycle of repressivebudgetary measures and odious legislationagainst the trade unionsby pullingout the peg of the fixed parity of sterling. What is more significantstill, the left wing of the BritishLabour Party (who revolt against their own government'scourse of action and "denandfreedom from the international bankers"in order that a socialistgovernment may be able to spend as a socialist governmentshould) never dream of advocatingthe one step which would automatically strike the shacklesoff. Instead,they demandPore and more controls,controls over imports,over private expenditure,over trade,over movementof capital. Why? Becausea fixed exchangerate is the supreme"commanding height" of a controlled economy. Put in py hands the leverwhich controlsthe parity of a country's currencyand, with the aid of the superstitionthat the citizencauses inflation,I will guaranteeto enslaveits inhabitantswith their own consentin double quick time.
Britain'ss ecial circumstances
It is aggravating,however, that with a currencyless debauchedin recentyears than those of most of their neighbours,the Britishhave sufferedso conspicuously from the effectsof a system of fixed paritieswhich they sharewith the rest. The explanationis complex,and severalseparate causes are no doubt at work. One is that the relevantinitial parities of the currencies(e.g. the Park in the early 1950'sor the franc after 1958)were much lower in relationto the free narket value than that at which the pound sterlingwas fixed in 1949. We never had a fly- ing start, as it were. Nbreover,there were two separateconspiracies or - to use a less sinisterterm - internationalvested interestsin the overvaluation,as well as in the fixed parity,of the pound; and these conspiraciespersist to this day. One was the combinedinterest of the overseasholders of sterlingand of the leading coppetitorsof Britainto keep the exchangerate of the pound fixed as high as possible. It was amplyworth theirwhile to make short-termloans to the British if therebythey could persuadeus to stay in the prison of the rulingparity and labouron the treadmillof tryingto adjust our internalpurchasing power to that parity. And to be able at the same time to read the British lectureson our profligacyand idlenessadded piquancyand enjoymentto what was anyhow a sound businessoperation.
The other conspiracywas a more intimateaffair - of les An lo-Saxons- in whidh, strangeto relate,we were ourselvesone of the partners. The fixed inter- nationalparities of the post-warworld were an Americandesign, of whidh the lynch- pin was the classicequation, a survivalfrom the 1930's,of one ounce of fine gold with $35. In the financialsphere it played the same psychologicalrole in maintainingAmerican hegemony as the belief in the nucleardeterrent and the trip- wire did in the militarysphere. It was a necessaryarticle of faith, to be 6
repeated but not to be examined, that world trade somehow depended not on the maintenance merely of fixed parities but of these fixed parities - like the equally questionable but contradictory dogma that the outflow of gold from the United States (resulting from parity of5 dollars e uals one ounce), somehow fertilises world trade and keeps it expanding. To the maintenance of this system and these myths the collaboration of Britain was highly desirable if not essential, and fatefully as so often our national vanity, titillated equally by the "special relationship" with the United States and by the heroic saga of "defending sterling" (both at bottom post-imperial reflexes), kept our noses firmly to the grindstone and enabled our rulers to pile one control and restriction on another in the sacred name of the pound.
Conclusion
While there are thus special and domestic lessons here for us British, there is at stake a general principle upon which I would end, since it is applicable to all men and all nations. Every interference with a price - as here with a particularly important price, the exchange rate of a national currency - leads inexorably to interference with other prices and thus to the substitution of state control for market forces. As "no man is an island", so no price is an island - least of all the rate of exchange. The jamming of the international price mechanism by fixed exchange rates is the most serious threat to the maintenance or restoration of free institutions. THE MONT PELF= SOCIETY: AVIEMORECONFERENCE 1968
The Role of Government
Hon. J. Enoch Powell,M.P.
THE FDEED EXCHANGEAND DIRIGISNE
The BritishSetting
Governmentmakes money
Externalvalue of currencies
Debasementof money
Velocityof circulationas the alibi
Why shouldBritish governments fuss about inflation?
Balanceof payments"crises" and the fixed exchange
Fixed exchangeand dirigisme
Britain'sspecial circumstances
Conclusion THE FIKED EXCHANGE AND DIRIGISNE
by
Hon. J. Enoch Powell, M.P.
The British Settin
Since World War II politics in Britain and, I suspect, in many other countries have been increasingly preoccupied with money. One only realises the extent of this preoccupation in retrospect and by a conscious effort. If I think of the controversies of the first span of Labour Party administration, from 1945 to 1951, and compare them with those of the second span since 1964, I confess to being astonished at the contrast. Then, the burning issues were preponderantly concrete - they turned on ownership, organisation, redistribution. Now, everything else has been overshadowed by questions of money - the pound sterling abroad, the pound sterling at home. The central preoccupation of government and parliament has been with maintaining its value.
Another notable feature has been the almost hypnotic effect which this pre- occupation has had upon the public in general. Extensions of state control, limitation of freedom, even acts of tyranny, which in any other context would have been ferociously resisted, have been uncomplainingly and almost unquestioningly accepted in the interest of what is called "the defence of the pound". At the signal of that trumpet, persons of all parties and classes submit to higher authority as instinctively and uncritically as atcall theof the fatherland itself, "the defence of the realm". Like Circe's wand, callthe to defend the value of money, internally and externally, has been able to turn free men into slaves and rational beings into obedient cattle. To-day in Britain the majority of people accept it as self-evident that prices ought to be controlled, that they themselves ought not to be free to buy or invest overseas, or to own, let alone purchase, gold. Selling overseas, exporting, is regarded as an inherently virtuous activity, no more open to discussion and question- ing than the rescue of a comrade under fire.
Government makes mone
It therefore specially behoves those who are prejudiced in favour of freedom of human intercourse and individual decision, and against economic control by government, to examine attentively something which evidently motivates men so powerfully to give up their liberties.
Government makes money. From primitive times it has been an attribute of sovereignty to be able to say: "See, this is money". Even when the underlying medium of exchange was the substance itself, such as gold or silver, still the making was an act of authority, whether it were the authority of a tiny Greek state or of the universal emperor. This was not only because the making was an act of the word. It was because the certification, and thus of authority in that sense of power to certify implied the power to certify falsely; to say, "See, this is the same money asall the rest", when in reality it was not. Where the underlying substance of money is intrinsically worthless (as with paper-money), or non-existent (as with bank credit), the act of money making must be an exclusively sovereign act, because the whole value resides in the certification - or, to be more accurate, the value resides in the presumption that the power of certification is being used in a particular way, namely, so as not to lower the value. A state which fails, by design or otherwise, so to exercise its sovereignty is doing the same as a state which utters alloyed coins under the same stamp as pure coins. - 2
External value of currencies
When the money which a government makes is of little or no intrinsic value, its value where the writ of that government does not run depends on the strength of the rest of the world's desire to make purchases (including investments) in that country, and the strength of that country's desire to make purchases (including investments) in the rest of the world. Thus the exchange rate between any two such national moneys is the price at which supply and demand for each is balanced. A nation's payments in and out must always and of necessity balance, as total sales and purchases internally must balance, and the exchange rate of its money moves to express that balance. The rate will fall if external demand to acquire the money is falling. This can happen because a unit of the national money buys less at home; but it can also happen because external demand for what that country has to offer is falling or its awn demand for what the rest of the worId has to offer is rising.
Debasement of mone
All government has a vested interest in uttering debased money, in meeting its obligation by making money; and insofar as the result is a fall in the purdhasing power of money, the operation represents a once-for-All act of taxation without the consent and often without the conscious knowledge of the governed. However the operation can be repeated. As governments are normally net debtors, they also have an interest in a progressivefall in the value of their money, since the real cost of interest and repayment is thereby reduced. On the other hand, since the very presumption on which the money-making power of the state is conceded and accepted is that it certifies something conStant (either the quantity or the quality of the underlying substance or its equivalence in goods and services), governments are always embarrassed if they are caught debasing the currency. Thus an internal conflict is set up in the body politic which is fruitful of evil consequences. Broadly speaking two lines of action are adopted to resolve the conflict: one is to allege that the money-making power is being exercised not only by the government - to allege, as it were, that forgers are at work; the other is to attempt and be seen to be attempting, to enforce a constant value. Under one head or the other most of the major activities of British governments in the last decade can be c3assified.
Before examining the forms which these actions take, it is worth recalling that the very idea of a constant value of money, though one with which it is impossible to avoid operating, is a conundrum, not to say a will-o'-the-wisp. This is the torment of the index-makers. The index ought strictly to change at frequent Intervals to reflect changing conditions and demand; yet the whole purpose of an index is to provide a constant standard. There is a deeper layer of this conundrum. Suppose the terms of trade turn against my country, so that I have to do more work in order to obtain In exchange the same quantity of a desired foreign product, and suppose that I adjust my budget and my pattern of consumption in order to obtain less, but not proportionately less, of that product. Suppose further that the price of my work in national currenqy is constant. Has the value of that currency remained constant or fallen? An unaltered index will show slaw depreciation; but is it not equally or more true to say that the value of that foreign article haz Increased, but the national curreacy has not depreciated. We shall find that this conundrum has probably had considerable practical influence on the behaviour of governments.
Veloci of circulation as the alibi
The whole attempt by governments to place upon a section of their subjects (e.g. the trade unions) or upon the whole body ("the nation insists on living beyond its means" or "we are paying ourselves more for the same work") some or all of the responsibility for debasing the currency depends upon the theory of velocity of circulation. After all, nobody would believe that the trade unions operate illicit printing presses or that the public utters its own money. On the other hand, 3
nobody doubts that velocity as well as quantity is a factor of monetary demand. Therefore the most natural thing in the world is for governments to assert that their subjects are responsible for increasing the velocity of circulation. The assertion is not self-evidently absurd and it furnishes the desired alibi. On this base are erected the twin theories of demand-pull and cost-push inflation, both of which mean "it-isn't-the-gavernment's-fault, donet-blame-me" inflation.
In order to prove the alibi, however, it is necessary to do more than assert that from time to time the velocity of circulation Increases spontaneously. It is necessary to assert that this spontaneous change is uni-directional and ratchet- controlled. The admission that velocity sometimes increases spontaneously and some- times diminishes spontaneously will not help, because it would still be necessary to find some other factor which acoounts for inflation in the sense in question, namely continuous and cumulative inflation. This must be a factor which fills in the valleys and piles Pelion on the Ossa of the spontaneous acceleration and deceleration.
Hence the importance for the apologists, of the theory of an unlimited increase in velocity, whidh our Royal Commission inerected. 1 958 The device conceals not one, but two, logical tricks. In the first place, it confuses "unlimited" with "indefinite", the distinction which Malthus illustrated by his observation that "there is no cabbage so large that it is impossible to be certain that a larger cabbage could never be grown, and yet we know for certain that a cabbage can never be grown as large as a house". In other words, there is no increase of velocity such that a further increase is impossible; but this does not mean that velocity can be increased without limit. The second sleight of hand is that increase In velocity is taken to mean increase but never decrease in velocity, whereas there is no ground for suCh a proposition unless it is deduced, by circularity of reasoning, from the fact of inflation itself.
The theory of unlimited velocity has improved upon, and rendered almost obsolete, the alibi that the banks make money, which is not, I think, now heard in fashionable circles. The fallacy was the same: the banks can expand credit, and there is no point such that it could not be positively stated that they cannot expand it further; but they contract as well as expand credit, and they cannot expand it without limit unless some extraneous factor is also at work, which is precisely the factor required to account for inflation.
Having got hold of their theory of unlimited increase in velocity, governments are provided with the alibi they want: the spontaneous generation of money, rather like the Democritean theory of the spontaneous generation of worms from mud. Armed with this, they can accuse, attack and demand to control, the behaviour of every section of the community.
Wh should British vernments fuss about inflation?
Granted, however, that governments have a natural predisposition to debase the currency and that they have developed a means of doing so without being caught red- handed, still the extraordinary preoccupation of British governments with inflation during the last twenty years calls for explanation. Unlike Germany, with the haunting memory of 1923, Britain has no historical reason to be specially prejudiced against inflation; on the contrary, the pseudo-Keynesian orthodoxy of the post-war generation has been predisposed in favour of it, even to the extent of believing that only inflation has stood between us and a repetition of the mnssive unemploynent of the inter-war years. Moreover, apart from government itself, there are powerful groups with an equally vested interest in inflation. The constant upward adjustment of wages (as of prices generally), which inflation implies, provides employment and an appearance of usefulness, even indispensability, to a host of trade union officials and organisers who live by persuading the credulous that they are the cause of a phenomenon which would occur if trade unions had never been invented. Again, thougn the government is the greatest debtor, it is not the only one, and all debtors gain, or what is more to the point believe they stand to gain, by repaying in debased currency. When so large a part of the income of the poorest consists of state payments (as well as state services In kind) which are readily adjusted (not without political kudos), the fraction of the public whose real standard of living has actually been reduced by inflation must be tiny indeed. WIly then could successive governments persuade their subjects that inflation justified - nay, more, Imperatively demanded - inflicting upon them as the presumed guilty parties the severest limitation, restrictions and interferences with their freedona The persuasion has been expressed and snpported by a whole vocabulary of expressions whidh imply the condign punishment of profligacy:. "squeeze", "freeze", "harsh budget", "corrective measures", "end the spending spree", "nop up purchasing power".
The reason is certainly not that the rate of inflation in Britain during the last wo decades has been exceptionally high, either in absolute terms or in comparison with other countries. On the contrary, in the last decade, taking one year with another, the rate of inflation in Britain was slauer than Inall nearlythe other countries of Western Europe and not very much faster than in the countries of North America. However unsatisfactory Britain's position in other 'league tables', she has been not far from the top in the moderation with which her governments have debauched the currency.
Balance of a nts "crises" and the fixed exchan e
There is no real doubt where the ansuer lies. The preoccupation with inflation has been stimulated and constantly renewed by the series of what are so misleadingly called "economic crises". These "crises" are in fact the periods when Britain's balance of payments has moved into deficit or more accurately - since payments always do and always must balance - periods when the Bank of England was paying out reserves or borrowing from other central banks - both being processes whiCh by their nature cannot continue indefinitely. This phenomenon was the result of the parity of the pound sterling being fixed in relation to other principal currencies since, if the exchange rate of a currency is free to reflect the balance of international supply and demand for that currency, the payments of the country concerned are bound to balance automatically without increase or diminution of reserves or lending or borrowing between central banks. On the other hand, if the parity is fixed, there is bound, except by a miraculous chance, to be some surplus or deficit that has to be met in one or both of those ways; and if the deficit is substantial or continuing, it is called a "crisis". Now, one among many factors in the international demand for a currency is its prospective Internal purchasing power - and that for two reasons. If a unit of that currency is going to buy less, those who want it to purchase goods or services from the country concerned will not give so much for it; and those who want it as a store of value for future expenditure there or elsewhere, will similarly look on it with less covetous eyes. There are, of course, other factors which alter international demand for a currency notably a change in the outer world's demand for the goods and services which the country has to offer. Thus, if for any reason such as obsolescence or the growth of production elsewhere, foreign demand for our exports declines, the demand for our currency will fall, even though its internal purdhasing power may remain absolutely constant. Since, however, world demand is beyond the ability of the country concerned to alter; attention is concentrated on internal purdhasing power, which is within domestic control. Hence the obsession with inflation which has been engendered in Britain by her balance of payments "crises". Thus the fixed external parity of the pound sterling has becone a powerful engine for the extension of government control over the individual. The mechanism works as follows: the balance of payments moves into deficit at the fixed parity of the currency; although the government has been debaudhing the currency and intends to continue doing so the blame is attributed to the behaviour of the citizens and not of the government; therefore the balance of payment "crisis" results in more control being imposed on the citizens; the balance of payments, nevertheless, continues in deficit or returns to deficit again after an interval - probably (though not necessarily) because the government continues to debaudh the currency; therefore it •
5
follows that the citizenshave not been subjectedto sufficientcontrol and that the controlsmust be intensified. This viciouscycle is no mere imaginationor leu d'esprit. It is what Britishpeople have lived throughsix or seven times since the idea of freeingsterling was abandonedaround 1955.
Fixed exchane and diri isne
The fixed externalparity of a country'scurrency is a key instrumentof dirigisme,something with which no dirigisteregime will voluntarilydispense. The French Presidenthas often, and rightly,complained that Anericaninvestments in Europe have been financedon French savingsbecause, the USA being in balanceof paymentsdeficit vis-A.-vis France, the counterpartof the investmentswas the increase of dollars- whetheror not subsequentlyconverted into gold - at the Banquede France: the real consumptionwas being foregoneby French citizens,not by Anerican citizens. So far so good; but Presidentde Gaulle need not have permittedthis to happen. He had it in his power at any moment to put a stop to the whole lark and preventthe Americandeficit with France from growing,simply by either revaluingor floatingthe franc. He did not do so. The socialistgovernment in Britainhad it in their power at any momentfrom their advent in 1964 to escapefrom the whole cycle of repressivebudgetary measures and odious legislationagainst the trade unionsby pullingout the peg of the fixed parity of sterling. What is more significantstill, the left wing of the BritishLabour Party (who revolt against their awn government'scourse of action and "demandfreedom from the international bankers"in order that a socialistgovernment may be able to spend as a socialist governmentshould) never dream of advocatingthe one step which would automatically strike the shadklesoff. Instead,they demand more and more controls,controls over imports,over privateexpenditure, over trade,over movementof capital. Why? Becausea fixed exchangerate is the supreme"commanding height" of a controlled economy. Put in my hands the leverwhich controlsthe parity of a country's currencyand, with the aid of the superstitionthat the citizencauses inflation,I will guaranteeto enslaveits inhabitantswith theirown consentin double quick tine.
Britain'ss ecial circumstances
It is aggravating,however, that with a currencyless debauchedin recentyears than those of nost of their neighbours,the Britishhave sufferedso conspicuously from the effectsof a system of fixed paritieswhich they share with the rest. The explanationis complex,and severalseparate causes are no doubt at work. One is that the relevantinitial parities of the currencies(e.g. the mark in the early 1950'sor the franc after 1958)were much lower in relationto the free market value than that at which the pound sterlingwas fixed in 1949. We never had a fly- ing start, as it were. Moreover,there were two separateconspiracies or - to use a less sinisterterm - internationalvested interestsin the overvaluation,as well as in the fixed parity,of the pound; and these conspiraciespersist to this day. One was the combinedinterest of the overseasholders of sterlingand of the leading competitorsof Britainto keep the exchangerate of the pound fixed as high as possible. It was amplyworth theirwhile to make short-termloans to the British if therebythey could persuadeus to stay in the prison of the rulingparity and labouron the treadmillof tryingto adjustour internalpurchasing power to that parity. And to be able at the same time to read the British lectureson our profligacyand idlenessadded piquancyand enjoynentto what was anyhow a sound businessoperation.
The other conspiracywas a more intimateaffair - of les lo-Saxons- in which, strangeto relate,we were ourselvesone of the partners. The fixed inter- nationalparities of the post-warworld were an Americandesign, of which the lynch- pin was the classicequation, a survivalfrom the 1930's,of one ounce of fine gold with 435. In the financialsphere it played the same psychologicalrole in naintainingAmerican hegemony as the belief in the nucleardeterrent and the trip- wire did in the militarysphere. It was a necessaryarticle of faith, to be 6 -
repeated but not to be examined, that world trade somehow depended not on the maintenance merely of fixed parities but of these fixed parities - like the equally questionable but contradictory dogma that the outflaw of gold from the United States (resulting from parity of dollars e uals one ounce), somehow fertilises world trade and keeps it expanding. To the maintenance of this system and these myths the collaboration of Britain was highly desirable if not essential, and fatefully as so often our national vanity, titillated equally by the "special relationship" with the United States and by the heroic saga of "defending sterling" (both at bottom post-imperial reflexes), kept our noses firmly to the grindstone and enabled our rulers to pile one control and restriction on another in the sacred name of the pound.
Conclusion
While there are thus special and donestic lessons here for us British, there is at stake a general principle upon which I would end, since it is applicable to all men and all nations. Every interference with a price - as here with a particularly important price, the exchange rate of a national currency - leads inexorably to interference with other prices and thus to the substitution of state control for raArket forces. As "no man is an island", so no price is an island - least of all the rate of exchange. The jamming of the international price mechanism by fixed exchange rates is the most serious threat to the maintenance or restoration of free institutions. THE MONT PELERIN SOCIETY: AVIEMOBE CONFERENCE 1968
THL FIXED EXCHANGE AND DIRIGISME
Comment on Mr.Enoch Powell's a er
b Professor W.H. Hutt
Mr. Enoch Powell has exposed very effectively the government-propagated myth that inflation is caused by business men or other citizens who insist upon over-spending - a form of irresponsibility which governments claim to be trying to rectify when they are "fighting inflation". But his case could be strengthened, I think, by a recognition that the supposed irresponsibility is mainly a form of speculative activity which always assists and never hinders the correctly discerned and honestly disclosed objectives of monetary policy. If people know the intention is to deflate, they postpone purchases as far as they can and thereby assist the deflation, and vice versa.
The phenomenon Mr. Powell is really discussing under "velocity of circulation" is the reduced valuation placed on money when its value is believed likely to decrease in relation to non-money, and I think that his exposition would have been simpler and even more persuasive if he had explained it in these terms. In my judgement, the concept of "velocity of circulation" has done enormous harm to conceptual clarity; for 4 increased spendings (changes in the ownership of money units) relative to real income do not affect the level of prices. Putting the issue in terms of the quantity theory identity, MV E PT, and assuming T (output, or real income) to be constant, it is only when people decide to maintain a higher or lower real value in the form of money that factors other than M influence P. The frequency of changes in the ownership of money has neutral consequences, every payment being balanced by a receipt. Of course, if prices generally rise, more money units must be paid for any given quantum of non- money. But this is a consequence not a cause of the higher prices. The cause is a reduced valuation of money, M being assumed not to decline in proportion.
We can use the conventional term V in the identity to mean all factors other than T with which the demand for monetary services (and hence for money) is correlated. I Then, the phenomenon which governments blame is a decline Vin - which occurs when people believe, on balance, that monetary policy is bringing about a rise in P.
It is absurd for governments (or central banks) to argue that they are powerless 1 against such a decline in--V' for if the term "monetary policy" has any meaning at all, it must refer to the determination of the value magnitude M (the aggregate value of money assets in actual money units) in relation to the two sources of demand for mone 1 1 T and v. If - is declining, non-inflationary monetary policy will aim at reducing M V 1 in like proportion. And if the forecasts which cause a decline in v are unjustified, it is due to the monetary authority having failed in its most important function in a credit economy, namely, the creation of faith in its proclaimed intentions.
I do not think t a controversy about the relative merits of fixed and floating exchange rates is relevant to Mr. Powell's main point, let alone crucial to it. Fixed exchanges certainly exert pressures on any one country to inflate or deflate if
- 2 -
other countries are doing so; and, the weaknessof the IMF system is that it does not yet have a mechanism for restraining general inflation by member nations. But if we had floating exchange rates, governments and central banks would continue to blame "spenders" for any tendency for their currencies to depreciate in terms of other currencies. "The superstition that citizens cause inflation" would remain.
The really vital point is that in any well-ordered world, every country's money unit should have some defined value, either in terms of some other trusted currency or group of currencies (the fixed exchanges case), or in terms of gold, or in terms of an obligation to maintain a defined price index constant, etc.
The use of a measuring-rod which is a measuring rod because its real value is defined ought never to be regarded as a price rigidity, still less as a form of dirigisme. The advent of central banking has transferred responsibility for the
, maintenance of the relevant defined value from the free market, bound by contract, to a governmental agency. But no-one would have applied the term dirigisme to the system that existed when commercial "banks of issue" carried the contractual obligation to honour their notes (and deposits) in gold. Whatever the merits of floating over fixed exchange rates, I do not believe that "the fixed external parity of the pound sterling" has been responsible for the "expansion of government control over the individual". More than three decades ago, I forecast an eventual accelerated prolifer- ation of government repressions (if Keynesian policies were followed as I feared), and for reasons Mr. Powell perceives as clearly as I do. Inflation has a crudely co- ordinative effect when it has not been fully anticipated. But as it becomes increasingly expected, it ceases to have any co-ordinative power. "The extension of government control over the individual" is simply the attempt by governments to prevent the remnants of the free market economy from being used as a means of escape from the injustices of inflation.
Governments engineer inflation not mainly because it enables taxation without democratic authorisation, but because, when its speed and duration are unexpected, it brings about less harmful price-cost ratios than strike-threat pressures, other private collusive activities, and minimum wage-rate enactments are tending to establish. But when we all (or too many of us) expect such a crude method of co-ordinating the economy to continue, costs rise pari passu with prices (or even ahead of prices). It is then that governments feel they must "control" those who, correctly foreseeing governmental policy, would otherwise protect themselves and thereby compel governments to take politically less popular steps to remove obstacles to the co-ordination of the economy under free market pressures. gxtract from speech by the Rt Hon.J.Enoch Powell,NP, at the Conservative Rally at Bosworth Park, Earket Bosworth, Leicestersh 2.10 p.m., Saturday,3lst August,1968.
On leaden feet the weeks and months go by which separate us from a General Election and so from what, by all indications, a large majority of our fellow citizens deste the demise of the Wilson administration. On that question the country appea7s to hav made up its mind. But there is another question on ,hich the country has not yet made up its mind. In fact, I am not if the country generally is aware that this other question exists at all. Yet ik does exist, and it is a more important question even than the survival or dismissal of '!iil- son'c government. For such an important question not to be
answered, or rather only to get itself an- swered by default, would be a bad thin fo 2 any country and a specially had one for ours at this moment. Therefore we of the Tory Party, to whom responsibility must fall when it slips from the nerveless grasp of the socialsts, have a duty to propound that question, and to pose it so clear and unmistakeable a way that it cannot be evaded and is answered, clearly and unequivocally, before one government goes and another comes. The question can be simply stated. It is this. "Do you want to make a little change, as little change as possible, or are y u ready to make a great change, as great a change as possible?" To put it another way:"Do you believe this country needs a slight adjustment here and there, an alteration of emphasis, a trimming of
the sails, a touch on the wheel; or do yia r!, believe that it needs a major change of out look and direction, something which will he almost as great a contrast with the years immediately before 1964 as with the years sinfe 19647" In short:"Do we need a shake-u a sholio.a revolution even - or don!t we?" Once one begins to pose the alternativet in this form, the magnitude of the Aecision becomes apparent, not to say daunting.If we decide that lyittewant the brains, energy and enterprise of our people to create wealth and power in the fotms which they wish it t take; if we decide that we want success, as the world judges success, to be rewarded and failure penalised; if we intend that profit and price and preference shall guide t#e direction of people's efforts and pro7id the expression of t‘heirdesires; then tre- z--f mendous deductLons follow. We coil no longer be satisfied with the limbo of semi-socialism - with the ; "semi-" continually'4444. and the "socialism" - which has been our consensus system for more years than most of us care to remember. We should nc,t be able to put up with the state owmership and management of/our in- dustyy, from coal mining to civil aviator-11 from atomic energy to steel production c - -a system which is the direct negta4en of the tmstr—principles of private enter- prise and capitalism, set to work at once to dismantle state socialism in indistry and reorganise it on capita- list lines, which means private ownershtp ofequity.IThere's a facer for you, to r- begin with. (Incidentally, we don't seem to have been hearing too mcmh lately a- about the pledge given in Parliament by 5 the Conservative Party to denationalise the steel industry. It might be a goo4 ide to fresheri 44 up a bit.But 4.--.44-g4.484,) ooraet We could no$ longer be satisfied with th huge bureaucratic apparatus for controllin, advising and interfering with private in- lustr4lon the assumption, the essentially socialist assumption, that not capaas of delivering the goods an,q of doing so better, on the whole, than' *1.m-se who have no stake, onership OT responsibilityAA- it
So into the dustbn would have to march that great legion of big neddies and little nedies, councils to advise on thtsar boards to promote that, headed by the great Perandrum itself, the frices and Incones Boas", wIlose renegade Conservative chief appears to have an insatiable appetite for advising everybody in' managing everything, If i.1" Jones knows what the price of an article ought to be, then Socialism is right and you and I are all wrong. If Mr Jones knows hov thisindustry ought to be organised and that industry ought to be managed, the Russians have been on the right road all the time and we havebeen barking up the wron,; tree. I don't want t j. tile on the agony, & I win-Itirst-refer
44 - 1204.&& - te thE vast systems for subsi4 ising this inftustry and that,for pulling and pushing firms into going where they ,Iont want to go ann dei.:17 7,hat they dolAt want to do, for promoting this investment and discouraging that investment. They woul I" have to go. We could no longer be stisfied444r,
, ..t.444:1 steadyincrease which hastakienice . ( since eb 195Ein the proportion of the national income spent by the state and other public authorities, -irttt ,'ould hove 7 to reverse that trena; for the expenaiture - 1.p,„) 14fr4.i.aarafpeop- (DI national income isthe 414 , / le's efforts/. It is all very well to talk about reaucing airect taxation ana re- shaping the tax system. That Is gooa, ver gooa; but it misses the main point. The main point is public expehaiture itself, ana the key issue is the proportion of the national income spent on gy.blic account, whether 40- is to go on ri'Sing or remain , stationary or fall. If the aecision yere 4;.1intg ,that it mtst fail, that,woula mean ana reversing the automatic growth of yeaistribu public provision / r t , rvic. 'Iohe principi tion in our social s 410 of "selectivity', a40,i0w47e-1 is
11".141 is Ievoia of meanin7 unless it
proauces tha effecte
Finally we coula no longer :e satisfle 8
-r with an external policy 49?- %444,ok every- body's business is ours except our own. If you want to be rich of effective or successful, you must mind your own busi- ness; and so it is with a nation. There would have to be vl end to =X oi being all things to all men ,11 round th.,L- world. The safety, the well-being and the we lth of the people of tehse islands would become the sole criterion of our policies and engagements, which would cease to include such operati ons as overvaluing the pound in order to oblige our creditors or buying our own ex ports in order to give them awayett. I have surely not exaggerated in descr bing as "revolutionary7 these alteratio s and others like then inthe common policy of all gc)vernments during the past ten or fifteen years. They wou ,? represent a 9
sharp anr1 rieliberate break with the recent past; they woul;, be an affront to the as- sumptions an-1 the consensus uroer which we have recently been agreel to live. That much is clear. What is not clear is whethe q sufficient number of our people feel suc a break to—be necessary, If they rio not, they have the right to say they want thing to go on mpach the same as before, with minor mof3ifications here anr1 there, this way or that, anr1 to continue to live in th
sort of twilight existence_of a nationx whose neighbours and friends adeWh t is it that has gone out of them?4- I lo not know what the nati- n's verrlict in this case will be.I 10 know that it ought to have the opportunity to give a verlict,
Ex frorn spierch theit c e 1 tThe e 3choo1 os t:-,e 1,o-aon -- fo C.;u'br c Thefenee7
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C : O NEWS SERVICE Release time: 20. - C) HoIll's i 0th July, 1
514/r--38
7 ]xtract from a speech by the Rt. lion. J. Thnoch POV1ELL 7.P. (Thlverhampton 7:3outh-est) at the Levis Girls Grammar School, 7strad iTynach, Caerphilly on - ednesdy 10th July, 1968.
ho tvio things can be imag,ined vhich are co opoosed to one
another as the spirit of Hales anc the spirit of ;ocialism.
The very meaning of 73ocialism is that the life and activities
of the citizens shall be determined not by themselves, acting
and interacting as individuals, but by the etate. It means-by
defi_L,ition,a transfer of decision and responsibility from
indivi&uals to government. It also means, equally by definition
transfer of decision and re-seDonsibilityfrom the different
- .1,F2,2to - the country to the centre. fll S'ocialists are
centralisers. 'hen they coaze to centralise, they cease to be
',ociaiets; for then they ad,:e_tthat the sflm,-arobleno can be
solved in to, three or an infinite namber of -Hays and that
- 10 0 ' in different situa,_lonc,and dif-f'erentaread can be left
to ca7Le to their ann conclusi ns.
One of the reasons why this Goverrme-,tt'airoemos ?olicy
is so fetested is just this. It rePresarts thie attempt to
1Mlose from the centre a. rigid mattern ffnieh p00:00 l&no-..does
-aot corresoond oith facts a they 2"-- then at their oYn
places rh. ,'Peoale hna that
Issued by Publicity Department, Conservative Central Office, 32 Smith Square, London SW1 01-222-9000 51 163 PO' - 2 -
Peoele know that for the government to try to regulate all
the myriad bargains that man ann man, or unions and employers,
arrive at is either an absurdity or an absolute tyranny,
These are things against which the whole hietory of Thies
and its people is a protest. rZight from the beginning every
form of centralisation has been anathema to the elsh; they
have been disposed to -aush independence and decentralisation
almost to a fault. To settle his ov,n affairs in his own way,
beholden and subservientto no man, has been the demand of the
-7elshman down the ages. The right to dissent has been'the right
te which he attached ovcrvrhelrsirgimportance. In the modern
world the decisions which matter to people in their daily lives
are the economic decisioni-i. That is why politics has moved
a_ay from the old battle grounds of religion and, the franchise
and is fought teriodically on issues of economics. In economic
terms, it is the right to dieeute to manae one's c n affairs,
to resist and disagree with the central power hich cialism
denies and seeks to take away. The only guarantee for that
right is an economy in which the centrol is rested en the
individual, as producer, os investor, as consumer. COTSERVATIVE COLLEGE
June 28th-30th,1968. CourseNo. 27/68. week-end
C011=',T;,TIV:IDAS
TH_ HISTO_dC_,LBASIS Ov cousLwr,TIsn. The Hon. idisdair1,orrison.
CCI'SERV.TIS11 ND TE INDIVIDUAL. Mr. Geoffrey Howe, ,.C.
COIrSERVTIEUEMS THE STATE. -he 7,t.:Ion. Sir f]dward 3oyle, M.P. cors:RVTIV,,,TTITI1D-S IN HORLD tYFSITE. Me St. Hon. Sir ,lec Douglas-
CCNSEV,,TITI,JD SOCIAL PSOBLANE. The '2-b.Hon. J. _]nochPowell, N.3._.,N.T. co:32_,RVAT:Isn END ENS CC.ONY. Mr. David K. Clarke,C.B.S. TH1]HI3TO:RICnI, BASIS OF CONSTIWATIAM. The Hon. Alisdair Morrison.
"The Conservative 12artyhas always existed. Conservatism is just part of the natural order of things.1
Although this remark by a serious left-winger was intended as a sneer, it is in fact very close to the truth. Conservatism is a very old and very natural way of looking at things. (The distinction betwee-; a way of looking at things and a set of principles is a very important one, as will become clear). It is old because it goes back at least to Aristotle, whose 'Athics' and 'Politics' are a fund of good sense. It is also extremely natural. Indeed the vitality of Conservatism is due to its closeness to the practical commonsense of the ordinary man.
However, Conservatives are often presented with the question: "What are Conservatiwprinciples?" 'rjhatdoes the Conservative Party stand for?" This question is answered simply by our opponents who claim that Conservatives do not possess principles. In one sense, they are quite correct; in another, wholly wrong. Moreover because it is felt to be unrespectable to lack principles, their charge is denied. Conservatives often rush off to a sort of intellectual Moss Pros, to fit themselves out with garments, which are not their own, but for which the nature of the occasion seems to call. Yet this is to fight the enemy on grounds of his own choosing with weapons of his selection, when his choice of weapons is precisely the error in his approach to politics - his weapon being the belief that the key to political wisdom is a coherent theory or doctrine.
In what sense, then, does the Conservafive Party have princiPles? After all, the Conservative Party is a continuous institution which has changed its ideas freeuently and on important subjects. During the Civil War, there was a Conservative Party led by Charles I and his friends. But if Charles I had won the Civil War, the history of this country would have been radically different in ways which might seem uncongenial to us. Similarly the 1832 P,eformBill was sternly resisted by Conservatives, although their resistance might not seem reasonable to us. In short, one cannot easily identify with past generations of Conservatives. Th-ir principles are not our principles, and we would often be unh:J.ppyif they had won. (They have usually lost).
Certain reflections follow from this. Notice, for Instance, how often one seneration of Conservatives firtts to conserve wbt a previous generation has fought equally bitterly to onpose. The next reflection is that perhaps Charles I was not really a Conservative. Conservatism is more than simple reaction; it is wrong to eeuate Conservatism with the autometic defence of the status quo. On the contrary, Conservatism reeuires adeptation and change. As Burke said, "a State without the r:ens of some change is without the leans of its conservation..' Tor this reason, there miht be cuuse for Conservatives to praise those like Henry JTh , Cromwell and the prudent revolutionaries of 1683,who by concedin7 chan7c Ty"ovented violence. Compare the 'Glorious evolution' with the disastrous .7rench experience a hundred years later. Similarly, the Duke of 'ellinzton rendered great service to his country when he persuaded the Conservative Ipeersof his day not to be caught 'dead in the last ditch' over the 7.eformBill. In our century, Stanley :Baldwinperfored a similar sorvice when he reconciled the industrial working-class of this country to the Constitution. Great Conservative statesen know when it is necessary to chan7e, how to limit change, how to control it and how to preInnt it [zping too far.
Che next important point is that what is nocessary and ri7ht in one period may be wronge and unnecessary in another. l'woexables will demonstrate this. First, universal suffrage is now so accepted as to be almost a bedrock assum7ctionof the Censorvative Party. Indeed it may :even need to be conserved against certain force.sand trends in contemporary societ. Slatthe Conservatives duving the 19th contry were extremely hostile to democracy. is therefore universal suffrage Conservative principle? ;_r..dif so, in what sense isit a Conservative principle? Thcondly, durin the 19th Century, Conservatives were among the most hostile critics of 'laissez-faire'. - 2 -
Today the Conservative Party proclaims itself to be the party of free enterprise. Is therefore free enterprise a Conservative principle ond, if so, in what sense? Remember in this context that Conservatives fought bitterly for rotten boroughs and against Home Rule for Ireland. History is littered with unsuccessful Conservative stands on dead issues.
What therefore is the reply to the question ''',[hat do Conservatives stand for?"? One normally answers by offering the details of policyon particular contemporary issues - reform of the trade unions, structural changes in the economy etc. But the questioner is rightly dissatisfied with this reply. He ra7luires something deeper, more substantial and more permanent. The temptation is to say the same things again, only louder, perhaps writingdown the detailed policies in high-noun prose in a brochure as '10 Points of Conservatism'. This fools no-one, least of all the questioner, but it may corrupt the understanding of the writer, who could be led to believe by his own advocacy that this is all politics is about. However a distinction must be drawn here. Among contemporary policies, there are those which are completely ephemeral like the earnings rule for pensioners, but there are also those which appear more basic and permanent. Therefore when we are pressed to produce principles, we say such things as:
"Conservatives believe in the defence of the Realm." or'Conservatives support the preservation of the institutions of the country." or ''Conservatives value the family and personal liberty." or "Conservatives believe that society should encourage excellence."
We usually go on to claim that our detailed policies are attepts to implement these general principles in the changing conditions of modern society.
r:ow these statements are vslicj, but two difficulties arise from the general approach. First, the list is very 1 ose, not to say vague. There do comparatively new ideas like economic growth fit into the scheme? In fact there is no hard-and-fast distinction between policies and principles. They shade into one another. Moreover, even a deep-rooted principle may be rendered obsolete by the passmge of time, as Disraeli's insistence on maintaining the Tmpire has been. The second and more serious difficulty is that there are conflicts between these various fundamental eims, not in the realm of abstract thought, but in the particular, deteiled, actual, concrete, real world. As a result there is a need to strike e balance between these various aims.
Thus the first 1._.ey element in Conservative thought is the re-elisation that it is simply not possible to implement immediately all those things we support. Conservative thought is anti-Utopian, in contrast to the doctrinal Left which is inclined to ovr-emphasise one principle to the neglect of others. Conservatives are continually palling others back from extremes, oversimplifications and absurdities. They call the country back to common-sense. Hence their opposition to doctrinal i'laissez-faire" in the 1340's and to the philosophy of active State intervention today. The emphasis in Conservative policy changes from time to time.
Conservative principles are therefore important considerations to be borne always in mind, 'stars to steer by'. In Conservative thouht, no one principle has abselute priority. aalinces must be struck 7:_nd compromises reached. This means that principles do not determine what must be done !--t any particular time. That is the task of people. Indeed it is fTlir to say tat Conservatives comrromise their principles because only thus can principles enter into politics. This reluctance to base political action on a single principle universally applied stems from the fundamental Conservative insisht that human condition is complex and imperfectible. Prudence is consequentl7 a c?=acteristic ConsrwItive virtue.
Finelly, there are two more Clernents in the Ccnservative way of looking at things. The first is e ste;7-tdy Ccnervative awareness tJat pe,ople are very different from one anoth::=,r rend that society must reco7nis thc, fact. In this view all .7ocieties ere intricate harmonies of different individu7as. Hnce tan necessity for both ine,lulity •nd mutul 7issiE7taho. In short, - 3 Oonservatives accept people as they are, and do rot attempt to force them into a mould, the shape of which is deLctated by a single abstract principle.
The second element is the Conservative view that society :rnd 7overnment are necessary and natural, that society is a necessary precondition for the achievement of human happiness. The polar opposite to this view is anarchism, which is latent in both Liberal end arxist theory. Order, Authority and Obedience as necessary features of society are some of the implications of this -view. At the same time, their concern for society makes Conservatives aware that the world outside is a dangerous and hostile environment, against which society needs protection. The intesrity of the country is a first charFe on Conservatives, and patriotism their traditional civic virtue. Thus Disraeli could say - "The Conservative Party is a national narty or it is nothing."
To sum up, the historical basis of Conservatism is nct to be feund in a set of principles, dogmas or theoretical statements; it is to be found in a natural but reflective understanding of the realities of man's situation. We are more realistic than our opponents in our assessment of what human beings are and what the conditions of their life are.
T J.
CONS-2:2VATIS1,1 AND Ti. INDIVIDnL Nr. Geoffre- Howe 7%.C.
When Conservatives consider the individual, they almost automatically think of freedom. 'Jhat, however, do we mean by 'the freedom of the individual'? Broadly speaking, there are three different areas of freedom.
Civil Liberties. These are .eee traditional freedoms of speech, association, trial by Jury etc. Moral Freedom. This covers our sexual conduct, use of alcohol, drug-taking etc. Economic Freedom. This includes the freedom to grow rich, to use one's wealth as one desires, to change one's job, or indeed to have a job.
All in all, these freedoms come down to the capacity to control one's own life and to exercise choice over as wide an area as possible. If anyone doubts the importance of choice, let him observe children with their pocket money.
Over the last 100 years, capitalism (or technology, if a more neutral word is required) has produced three distinct developments affecting freedom.
It has vastly increased the range of options open to people. Take a simple example. Family life 100 years ago meant large families, because women bore children up to their fortieth birthday. Today in America, the average age of a mother at the birth of her last child is 26. In Britain it is 29. This remarkable change has taken place because women are eyeercising tHeir option of family planning. As a result, women can begin their life anew after the children have left home, taking part-time jobs, doin7 voluntary work etc.
There has been an increase in the necessary scale of organisation. .inereas in Victorian England one man might own a coal nine, knowing personally the 25 men working for him, now a coal-mine, to be economic, must employ at least 1000 me". This is onJ sign of a general trend to bigness, affecting trado anions, industry, sociel services etc. This affects individual fre,2dom.
Finally, cnpitalism/technology has increased the scope for ineauality. It is possilk in modern society to become more wealthy, morn quickly but less conspicuously, than in, sa:i, the Niddle ;ges.
lhat are the attitudes of the political parties to th individual in the face of this kind of society? Left-winq7 parties have a curiously schizophrenic attitude to individual freedom. Since the primary objective of the Left is economic cluality,they pursue policies leading to high taxes and State (i.e. large) or-anisation. As a result, people are made more reliant on largo organisations and on the State for their p,--tternof life and for what they enjoy. The pursuit of eouality ofton produces two re.'sultswhich diminish freedom - for the wealthy, the invasion of their lives by the tax collector; for tho poor, dependence on etate welfare services and 7.tateagents. merican study hos shown how welfare recipients lose their self-respect, develop a feeling of depenence on 'the system', and foel themselves to be at the mercy of those in authority. Life at the bottom ond of a Yelfare State c•n be immensely unpleasant. It is in fact a "waiting-list societyi;with shortao:es,queues and ailing "free" services.
Compare the choice available to p•ople as commercial customers End the lack of choice presented to them as welfare-recipients. This must be remembered when so many people urge that State provision be extended to other areas of life (e.g. housing). If, for instance, food were a 'free' or subsidised State servoce, there would be food queues in the approved distrib- ution centres, a limited range of goods, and protest marches :gainst shortages to the local drab Co-op. This is the pattern of or:,,anisation that results invariably from the Lefts pursuit of economic equality.
?he contradiction arises, as Professor Tom Wilson has pointed out, because the Left instinctively supports the "permissive society", legalisation of drugs, the abolition of theatre censorship etc.
That should Tory attituds be on the various types of freedom? Civil Liberties command general all-party support, but the dangers to these freedoms are frequently misperceived or overlooked. Take, for example, the right to vote. It is possible to imagine a situation in which the vote affects so few decisions or such trivial ones that it becomes a meaningless right. There are many other threats now visible. :noch Powell has pointed to the threat from the indiscriminate use of State power implicit in the decision to examine r. Jocelyn Hambro,'sshlary; the B.H.C. fights fiercely to maintain its monopQly in sflundbrcradcasting. The right to trial by decision of a unanimous Jury vms eliminated in a few mnths; the value cf a :'3ritichpassport tt7.,Kenyan osians was destroyed in five parliamentary days. Is there not perhaps a need for a Hill of Rights cn the American pattern to prevent a temporary Parliamentary majority from destroying our civil liberties. American contitutional protectian guarantees such things as freelTe of the press, protection against unresonnble searches and seizures (which was used recently to outlaw wire-tapping), and freedom to travel.
As well as finding some method of entrenching our basic rig.hts,the next Tory Government must also attempt to ooko Government decisiens more open and available, to revise the structure of hdministrative Courts, and to give individuals the right of effective protest. The c-hoiceof school is a good example here. If someone keeps his child at home, the will serve a school attondance order on him. He can then name tha school he wishes his child to attend. However the L.—A., if it considers that the choico of school is incohsistent with 'the aveidanco of undue public expenditure', cn evorrulo the choice. The parent has a right of appeal to the ";ecretary ' „,thtefor 1:ducation. Yet this is only par)or democracy. In fact, the parent's -:.ppealis ,almostcertain to bc.rejected because of the close links betweon the and the Department of :Zaucationand Scionco. If, on the other hand, the system were ohen with, perhaps, a right of appeal to an independt,ntpublic tribuh=d, the potntiol publicity that would threaten buro7lucr,2.ticorror or hihhandodness would make officials f-hroore amenable t arontal wishes-
Mother area worth_considerin, is equality before tho law. nst people accept this rehdily enough, but particular issues raise difficult problems. 7?aceis the obvious instance. In the U.u.A. a coloured minority of 11 of the population has be,en,:henicd fair access to opportunities through the practice.of discrimination. The trouble in 'moricT.r:cities, which has resulted, in a warning o72inst noloct of this problem. In th]s country, the coloured minority is 2:.; by the end of the century, it might Here is a (3,7,,swhere tTh law is alr,:lyjustified in intervening to - 5 - outlaw discrimination, with the purpose of preventing similar outbreaks of violence. Similarly women have the rioht to demand that tin: local disabilities, from which they still suffer, bo romoved. 4,,e is ancthor case in roint.• Because marriages betwer.r. p,Jorle under 21 linve only4 a 1 in chance of divorce, whereas marria:;os between those ovor T1 have a 1 in 10 chance of divorce, thc existence of a parental check is a .4!ustifinble intervention by society to curtTil individual freedo.
A very important area where individual froodom is curtailod unnecessarily is that of o:r.rpirront. The way to restore individual self-respect and self- reliance is not co-partnsrship or participation, but security and staff status. It is ouite wrong that workers should fa2 th,emselves to be chattols in the labour market to be discarded at will by the employer. However, we should remember that Unions can exercise a tyranny harsher than employers. Recent statoments of Conservative policy mo.ke it clear that a Tory Govern- ment would protect the individual wcrkor against discrimination, against dismissal from his Union without rino7ht of appeal, and against dismissal from his job in a 'closed shop' situation. An employment -rea of especial coneern is where the individual faccs a monopoly employer like th3 National Health 0ervice (N.H.S. If, for exaple, a top Consultant is in some way unsatisfactory, he cannot simply bo dismissed as he wo uld be in a competitive situation. Instead he has to undergo a virtual State Trial, because a monopoly employer means that, once dismissed, an employer finds its almost impossible to find similar employment. Conservatives should therefore seriously consider 'demonopolising' the N.H.S. by giving independence to hospital authorities in such matters as money-raising and staffing.
Lot us finally look at the social services generally, because freedom and self-respect are essential for consumers as well as for employees . Examine housing. One-thin::: of the population are dependent on the waiting list for council tennncies and, once they have got one, they will never move because it is such a bargain. Wheroas 1 in 5 American families move house once a year, in Britain only 1 in33 families do so. On the other hand, the Conservative Government encouraged house-buying by means of tax reliefs so that from 1951 to 1964 the numbor of people owning their own homes rose from 1 family in 5 to 1 in 2. icre could bo done. T3y giving aubsidies directly to needy tenants and charging the economic price for council acconodation, the tenant would have choice of housing and the ability to mOVe when he wished.
Pensions are similar to housing. By givino; tax relief for rension provision, the Tory Go-sn,rnment created a system whre 2 out of 3 male employees enjoy the prospect of a lint pension, which gives options no State scheflie could offer.
The encouragement of private provision by tax relief was successful in housing and ponsions. Tay should it not be o,mployed in health and education? In health provision, the United Kingdom spends 4 in percentage of G.N.P. compared with the U.S.A. The N.H.S. offers one standard and little choice. Yet if we allowed people to contribute their own resources on bettr health provision, more money wonld be spent on health 7r,d more people would enjoy choice. At present, two million people provide for themselves through R.U.P.A. They can choose who cuts out their appendix. 2,ut Socialists argue that, since choice for all is not possible, no.:;e should enjoy choice. Conservatives should use tax reliefs to encourage people..to snter the health market. And if additional funds aro to be created in this way, the hospital authorities 7aust be re-designed to have access to inderendent funds and to provide a more fluid employment market in the health service.
The same argument applies to education, where it involvos the voucher system. At present half a million children are at independent schools. In nurs2ry education, where the State has failed to provide the nursery school places it promised, parents have pnovided. their own nursery schools, now growing at 25 a year and larger in total than the State sector. It makes sense to enable all parents - and not only thu parents of the halfmillion - to enjoy choice in education beyond nursery level. Let us moke use of the willingness to bay education s0 as t provide the resources which will enable the State to: provide for thoa.- who cannot afford to buy. - 6
.11::L TH2 ST',T7 The Rt. Hon. Sir T;dward ko1e M.P.
(Government activities have ,x:eanded over a very wide area during the last 100 years. AS well as policy-riaking, there are regulatory functions, such as enforcing standards against the adulteration of food, which only the Government can perform. These functions .=Je ri7:11tly been fulfilled by the operation of Law rather than by interventionist measures. In this respect t..:e abolition of 2esale -2rice ?aintenance was a se=ible action. Moreover, the 2xecutive functions like the payment of maintenance grants to University students have to be carried out efficiently.
Let us now turn to the most important function - Government policy- making. Hc.re four points should be borne in mind:
All now agree that it is the duty of Government to remedy avoidable social evils. This attitude stel'Is roughly from the 1944 Full Employment White Paper. Perhaps there is now too a7reat areadiness to del7and Governmentwtion to solve a problem, ,,,Lenever one occurs. After all, the best ideas don't invariably come from Whitehall. Sometimes - school provision for handicapped children is a good example - the Government should merely encourage the adoption of the best existing practice.
There is again general agreement that it is right to seek to regulate by more deliberate policy a rr:Imber of matters that were formerly left to the law of supply and demand. A few examples will der,!onstrate this. Town and Country Planning is/rcognised as an area of decision-making where collect- ive decisions should hold sway. Here the distinction mad by Figou between social cost and private cost is generally accePted. Today the controversy rags on how to compensate the individual who is adversely affected by collective decisions. Similarly, no-one imagines that the Government could do -Jithout a policy of forwrd planning for the supply of teachers. This argument also applies to planning the expansion of University places. If the expansion of Universities were to be halted at a time when sixth forms are expanding, then either the entry to University would beceme more competitive or the sixth forms would need to be deliberately helcr!, down in nubers. These are some areas where collective decision-making is essential. Indeed there is ana-gument that, beoause of our balance of payments problems and of the shortage of available economic resources in relation to the expectations of the community, we in this country require more collective decision-taking than either the U.S.A. or Germany.
',]ver since the mid-fifties it has come to be widely accepted that the Government has a responsibility to foster .conomic growth and, indeed • to reach broad conclusions on how a larger national product should best be used. This view may Ilave been exa4-7.gted at ene tim. For, since Frrowth can only be led by cuccessful firms, it is important to relise the distinction between the idea that growth is a good thing which the Government should encourage, and the view that the Government can plan successful enterprise. It cannot.
hOre is expected from Government because people take a morctimistio viLw of human possibilities. Thus, educational advance is desired not just to increase rates of economic growth but because we believe the pool of ability is deeper than was once thought. Tbis belief is an important devA_opment. When the 1944 Act appeared, it was generally believed that there ,fere three typs of children and three types of school suitable for them. Now we ralise that average children have a much higher potential. As better educational facilities are provided, we are discovorinas that real natural ability is high. The "0" and 'cl," level results show this clearly.
H..ving stated why people now ex-bct flre from the ';tate, let us now examine the reasons why Conservatives feel that there must he limitations on State activity:
1. Conservatives reT:lise that Governments, how•er cannot achiv,J all thy wish bJJcausri oircumota7tos impose thc,ir own limitations. Gov,-rnment of the Left frequently fail to rcc7ni:3e this. 'ior instrJncc, in 1964 the 1_,I.bour Gover=cnt refu,7ed recognisc aii7,ittions ie its policy i.posd by economic prcsur,::s. Ls a rult, onsud a dev7duation and thre sT,v71,-:c deflations. Oco:-J.sionlly, t-:1,::m7c1v,72s f(J-ret - 7 -
limitations as during the ;Suez crisis. Another absurd decision was the 1947 decision to carry cn uith low r.orn3y rates when all the world had high interest rates. The pressure of external conditions is very important and cannot be ignored.
Although we expect more of Governmcnt today, we should nonetheless not confuse greater expectntions of Government action with a steady movement towards universal contral control by the State. Tories always draw a distinction between certain powers and functions, which the State must carry out, end direct central control. Th ,2 manner of the State's involvement in collective decision-making is co:nplex, and the outside comnunity must be ninvolved. There must be a mutual involveaent between the Stnte and outside bodies, such as teachers' associations, Conservatives try to find the right noint of Government involvement.
Conservatives realise that there must be priorities of Government expenditure. As Lord Keynes said: "The proper function of the State is not to do things people can do for themselves„and try to do them better, but to concentrate on those essential functions which, if they are not done by the State, won't be done by anybody." This distinction is vital. Instead of lifting and then re-imposing prescription charges, it would have been far better to say: "As we become a richer country, there are certain things which people can a'ford to provide for themselves, like school meals and prescriptions. At the same time, hospital wings and university places can be provided only by the State, and it would be wrong to be niggardly in providing those services."
Uhat can the State do and not do? The State cannot plan success; it cannot plan or forecast which firm is going to be a successful exporter. Ultimately the wealth of the country depends on competitivo enterprise. Faamine other successful exporting countries. No-one could possibly have predicted those industries which in fact expended their exports. Yet if a Government cannot plan success, nor should it penalise success, as has the present Government in its budgets.
Now let us turn to areas of disnut, within the Consservative Party, where there is a clash between the legitimate interests of individuals and the public interest:
Incomes Policy. On this issue both sides can present a good case. Cric Heffer, on the Labour side, hn.s pointed out that an incomes policy is dangerous insofar as it takes away from wage-earners the feeling that they hnve influence on matters that affect them. This is the =re important bacause, whereas salary-earners can expect their income to rise throughout their working lives, wage earners reach thcir maximum earning power at an early age. Thus it is wrong, in the view of some, to take decisions from the workers and cc,ntralise them in -11-litehall.
On the other hand, 1;T. Maudling has a strong case when he says thnt, if the annual wage round worked out at lower than it does, our competitive position would be 'cotter. Moreover, despite Professor Paish, it is possible to imagine a situation in which parts of th, oconom7 sufferot from sevare unevnloyment, while in othcr parts wage-costs were rising faster than l?roJactivity. Those who nrgue that, without uxcess Henand, wa7e costs solve themselves are being over-sirlplc in a complex 7latter.
',Print is th e ,Inswer? Undoubtedly the rin2snt 2rices nnd incom(is dill goes too far in the panoply of contrels it npplies. But n Consrvative GovernrIcnt would ne,ed to be courageous in the we negotiations in its own sector, and it would also have to exert influence to see th-,.t wa7e rigotintions were strung out. If tb.ere were lonFzer intervals 'netween rises, the situation would be :nuch butter. Government should encourage those in the private sectflr who want to fir-sht wage demnds. I'very now and thri crnsh action on wages is required.
Mere is a real clash L.etween ti::te private intrests and the public interest in the reorvanisation of secondary orTnnistion. hnny parents feel that tn,ir children hnve a. right te 1-nmr,r School education, and thus str ngly ablect tc the Governont plens fan reorzaation. On the other hand, Jaere is a very large middle group of parents who object just as strongly to selection at eleven, and refuse to see their children deprived of opportunity so early in life. In my viow, the trend away from rigid segregation has set in fOrmly, but non-selection cannot be introduced overnight. The reorganisation schemes must be c.ound.
3. To what extent should th,,State consciously int rvo , on behalf of a minority? This question r7tisesimportont difficulties for the Tory Party. Take first the example of "Educational Priority Areas" (A.P.A.), as suggested in the Plowden 2Jport. Of cours, 7e support "positive discrimination"in favour of the older city area schools. But are we prepared to do so, even if it moans marginally fewer teachers in the areas which are wall suppliod? The powerful argument for doing so is unpalatable to many Conservatives.
Another axaripleof special assistance for minorities is the Race Plations Pill. Here the question is similar to that posed by the 2.P.A.s. No-one doubts the need for immigration control, but if a 'lestIndian boy works well at school, achieves good examination results and yet has great difficulty in getting a good job, he is being discriminated against. .Thatcan be done? i.11that is proposed by the 1,acePlotions Bill is to mo:kediscrimination more difficult.
Both the 7.P.A.s and the Race Relations Bill can be justified on one of the Tory Party's most important principles - 'a level start but an open race'. Both help to make the start more level.
Let us look at the final aspect of the attitude of Conservatism to the State. How far is it the job of the State and the community to enforce, by means of lpgi3ation and policy, morslity as such? On this point there has been a fierce controversy between Lord Dorlin omd Professor lart. Lord Dorlin's view used to be that the Criminal Law ought to be j',ecidedby the views of the ordinary man. According to this view, laws in favour of morality denonstrate society's detestation of certain acts, for example homosexuality. Professor Hart, in reply, has arguod that tho use of law to enforce morality is wrong in matters of personal behaviour which have no social consequences. Surely this is the riht approach. j.O'S.
CONSERVATIVE ATTITUDES IN i0RLD A:TH=S. The Pt. Hon. Sir Alec Dou-las-Home
The primary purpose of diplomacy is to create the political framework which will contribute most surely to the physical security of Britain. :.econdlyit should identify the essential British interests and secure their protection with tHe minimum number of external commitments and the maximum economy in the use of power. Thirdly it should recognise that at all times the general well-being of Britain depends on gathering and holding friends - if possible friends with power, Conservative attitudes to foreign policy can best be revealed by examining how Conservative Governmentsin recent years have incorporated those precepts.
After the war when :72uropewas weak and the Soviet Union strong, the first necessity in terms of the Physical security of Britain was to keep the big battallions on our side. That meant keeping merica as an ally. The second necessity, in view of Britain's historic reliance on the Triuropeanbalance of power, was to encourage and assist the unit of 'pestern Thrope in defence - which Ernest Bevin achieved in the found-tion of If:.A.0. :jurdetermination to retain the link with America led to t?F,'special relationship' which continued to be effective for a loaf;timo. One example of its workings was the :assau Agreement under which Britain received the Polaris oissile.
In r trospect it is easy to ciai th=-Atthe Soviet Union hod no intention of encroaching further into Europe, but this was not the opinion of European statesmen, particularly in Germany, at thc.time. Indo,edit thenzeomed that large parts of i]uropeLi71.1t be takan ovsr by the Thmmunists whether int,rnally, as Czochosiovaki in 1946, or from outs.d_d. Collective -7trength a major role in tt:rrin5 :Thviet wh.ich*v!:-ts a very - 9 - genuine threat, as recent events in Czechoslovakia have shown,
But the practice of diplomacy in modern terms, the exercise of power and influence, is dependent on a strong economic base. This in turn requires a large market; hence the decision to apply for entry into the C.E.O. One example will demonstrate this: although the T.S.R.2 was a marginally better aeroplane than the American T.F.X., the T.S.R.2 had to be abandoned because the British Government could guarantee an initial order of only 140 for the T.S.R.2 in comparison with the american Gevernmentb initial order for the T.F.X. of 1400. Differences of that order show clearly that Britain must acquire a market eeual to those of America and the U.S.S.R. But the inportance of iairope is not only economic. In an age of great constellations of power, small nations must be linked if they are to wield effective influence. Our physical security depends to a large extent on the greater unity of Turope and, for that reason, we should welcome the rapprochement between France and Germany. If the close and regular contact between the Foreign Ministers of nuropean states, which is now an accepted part of day-te-day diplomacy, had been in operation before the 1914end 1935 Wars, it is highly unlikely that those wars would have taken place.
What are the alternatives to the Common Market? Do they offer any real opportunities? The alternative most frequently mentioned is the North Atlantic Free Trade Area (N.A.F.T.A.). Clearly -11 alternatives ars worth exnmination, but N.A.F.T.A. would involve a surrender to the Industrial lobby of the TJ„.S.A., in comparison with which even General De Gaulle is an attractive figure. Moreover the American industrial lobby has already swallowed enough in the Kennedy Round tariff reductions, without embarking on another more ambitious set of trade proposals. Nor would the scheme be acceptable to the Americans if it included Japan as the advocates of N.A.F.T.A. envisage. At the moment, N.A.F.T.A. is a 'deaA duck' although it might be resurrected at some later date.
There have been two recent international developments which affect Britain's security. First the Soviet Union is pursuing for the first time a forward and aggressive naval, oceanic strategy. This will be of major concern over the next 25 to 50 years. The key to this strategy is the long-distance submarine. The importance which the Russians themselves attach to this new stratesy can spare be judged from their recent agreement with the Indian Government to store parts in !Bombay. The second development is that in future all oil for this country and for Western tAlrope will be transported not through the Mediterranean but around the coast of Africa. Treviously we have had little anxiety about our trade routes through the South ,tlantic and the Indian Ocean, but the Russian naval strategy has changed all that. One result is the imperative need to keep our relations with South Africa intact, and thus to keep the Simonstown ngreement operative. (Indeed during the Simonstown negotiations it was even agreed that, in time of war, Great Britain could use all of South Africa's ports. This is the position today.)
1.uropean. unity and the freedom of the seas are obviously the two major interests of Great Britain. There are also important 3ritish interests farther afield, notably in the Persian Gulf, Singapore and Maleysia. However, it is quite certain, that we cannot embark on major wars in the i'ersian Gulf and in no circumstances could we sustain large land forces on the mainland of Asia. Indeed the degree of power which we can employ is a matter for very nice calculation. If the presence of a modest British force in the Persian Gulf is able to ensure political stability and to create an even climate for oil development,distribution and investment, then it is worthwhile to accept the necessary overseas military expenditure. But the reality is that the opport- unity tc station troops in the Persian Gulf will not exist in 1971. In Singapore a British presence for some time ahead is perfectly possible because the time-scale and the threat of Chinese aggression is different frem a possible angression in the Middle 7ast. Our main role, hcwever, is nrobably to hel-;, in training the 1-lalays and the Thais until an Asian Defence Force can be created. What is more important, the opnortunities to carry out this policy will still exist in 1971. It is worth remembering in this centext that eitish forces successfully nrevented Indonernie from taking over Llaya and Sins apore durin.; the per-i_od of confrontation, ..2„nd that these forces, to7other with n7.7-7a and air forcos, were kept :]ast of IAiez Within a dc:fnce ex7enditure that a7lountod to rather less th7,t 7;: of our aross National rcuct. - 10 -
But what will be the international climate of opinion within which British policy will have to operate? It will certainly be a climate of power politics, however much some people regret the fact. 3ut the important question is this: what will be the policy of the Soviet Union over the next 25 years? Will the policies of international subversion be continued? For at present, the scales are nicely balanced between the old policies of subversion and infiltration and the new policies of co-operation and peaceful co-existence. On the debit side, there is a steep increase in the Soviet budget for conventional arms, in particular for the naval submarine force; there is the irreconcilable attitude in Germany and Berlin; there is the dangerous decision to arm and rearm the Arabs, thus encouragirgthem to push Israel into the sea; and there was - perhaps still is - the refusal of the Soviet Union to use her influence in ending the Vietnam war. On the credit side, there is the fear of China in the Soviet Union, which must influence the Russian leadership to reach agreement with the 'lest; there is the recent development in which the 1-ussians have agreed to attempt to set a ceiling on nuclear weapons, presumably to avoid another arms race, in this instance an anti-missile missile race. (Although this deciSon, taken in conjunction with the increased expenditure on conventional arms, may simply signify a strategic switch to a subversive policy); there is also a dilution in the fervour with which Communist doctrine is regarded in the Soviet Union. Russia being a rich nation, is now more inclined to favour a world of political stability in contrast with one of total confusion. Russian policy in the Middle East will give some Indication. Either the U.S.S.R. will attempt to disrupt the oil supplies on which Western Europe relies, or she will attempt to bring stability to an area which has often been dangerous to world peace.
All in all, the balance sheet of Russian attitudes is a very nice one. But there is a perceptible identity of interest 7rowing up between the Soviet Union and the West, because of the increase in Chinese power. As a result, a kind of 'crescent of opposition' to Chinese power is beginning to take shape from the Soviet Union through India to South-East Asia to the U.S.A. It may therefore be in the West's interest for the Soviet Union to establish a close relationship with India in military affairs - a novel thought te those nurtured on the ideas of the British Raj.
Let us now consider how the West should react to the evidence of Chinese expansion. To begin with, fear of Chinese aggression must be treated with some scepticism. Admittedly, the Communists have succeeded in regimenting Chinese society possibly to a greater extent that ever occurred in the Soviet Union. Even the disputes in China are between groups which differ only in the extent of their allegiance to Mao Tse-Tung. There are no 'nnti-hao' forces. Yet, whatever the internal political situation, the fact that concerns us is that China is weak. Ever since 1958 when the Sino-Soviet split took place, China has been economically weak and therefore militarily weak. The assistance from China to North Vietnam amounts to anly a labour corps and a few small arms, compared with the oil and sinews of war sent by the Soviet Union. The attempt to use Chinese minorities in Asia as instruments of policy guffered a tremendous setback when the Indonesian Communist Party was destroyed and massacred. What then is the likely course of Chinese policy? If all European and American influence were to be removed from South ..ast Asia, then China would be a great power in that area. But there is no possibility of her posing a threat to the U.S.S.1.?. or to the U.S.A. in the immediate future. Nor will China recover economically without considerable outside injections of capital.
Finally, let us consider the prospects for Africa. It is difficult to reach reliable conclusions about the power of Africa, bec:ause it is still an essentially tribal continent, and thus disunited. Pan-Africanism will be meaningless for a long tine ahead. Thus Africa will have no influence on the bc,lance of power. Ne are therefore brought back to the relations between the United States cnd the Soviet Unicn with ..Airope thrown in as a make-wAght. i1uch will depend on the degre of coexistence that the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. c,n agre;_: upon. In this situ7,tion a Conservative Governmnt should strive to rctain the alliance with the United States. The 'big battalio:_s' -,ust be the first priority. The other priorities, flow from this - the necessity of encour7in7 the greter cohesion 7.1nd unity of alrope, the military power to prota,ct our '--,ea-lanes and trade routes, ,specilly around :,frica cnd, having fulfilled those: conditions, the use of our resilmtl power to pTotect our interests further
j.0'S. CONSaRVATISM AND SOCIAL P-ROBLirs. The Pt. Hon. J. Lhoch Powell,
It is very tempting to treat Conservatism as the same sort of thing as, though opposit?to, Socialism. This is a mistake at the outset. Socialism is a system or a theory which can be defined, which would be the same for all branches of the ;7enus homo sapiens since, if valid at all, its validity must derive from general characteristics of the human species; and a Socialist party is thus a party, which exists to realise the theory of Socialism, and of which all the members must accept the theory - or a theory - of Socialism. Contrariwise, Conservatism seems to me to be merely an abstraction from observation about the way in which Conservatives live, behave, think, act and, in particular, the way in which the Conservative party views society and life and acts in politics in the history of this country.
At the outset, then, let us establish that it would be a mistake to suppose that we can draw out a theory of Conservatism which will match the theory - or any of the theories - of Socialism.
Let us now take the word 'problems'. How dangerous that word is in politics, because we approach it from a particular background. At varying distances in the past, we have all ben presented with problems, frecuently on an examination paper, to which we were required to provide the solutions. And the use of the word 'problem' immediately conjures up in the mind the-twin notion of 'solution'. And we import this notion of problem/solution into politics and into life, when we allow ourselves incautiouly to talk about Problems.
Now, in the sense that the materials for a complete answer, a disposal of the phenomenon, are offered and available, there are very few solutions to political problems. Inded what we call political problems are not of the nature to be solved in the way that mathematical, logical and other problnms are solved. Insofar as they are 'solved', they are only solved by the effluxion of time and by the disa7aearance of the problem itself. But, of course, that is not whst people are encouraged to think when politicians talk of a party's policy for solving this or that problem. Thus, by the use of the word 'problems', one summons up ideas and undertones, which are misleading md may be dangerous.
Now, that leaves the word 'social' which is where the really serious difficulties arise. I7irst, I thouht of 'the social services', and contexts where 'social' seems to be used in a similar sense. Now what is there in common between those organisations, institutions and services which we designate as 'social'? -;h..t, for example, is the contrast between a social service and a railway s:rvice? It seems to me that, whereverwe use the word 'social' in the above way, we really mean 'redistributive'. We are really concerned with some form of bringing assistance from the majority theto minority, or from the whole to the part. Inded if I may use a very old- fashioned word, we are concerned with the problem of poverty.
Now, people often talk about the abolition of poverty and, indeed, abolishing poverty is a notion implied in the dascription of poverty as a problem. It is often stated, JSo, that the problem of poverty has been 'disposed of', or that a rslatively short time should suffice, under a Conservative administration or whatver, to see the end of poverty in this country. 'So me, no Conservative can talk thus for a numbor of reasuns. First, povrty, thouh a rolative term, arises out of t"e obsrved nature cf Llenkind. povrty is relative in the sense that the poor today would have been reFardA as well- off purhaps threu or five hundred years ago, they are nonetheless poor today, fsr they r,.4n-sont the results of a variation in exrerieac. and in inherent chnracteristics between one human bein7 and anothr, which is reflucted in the external circumstancbs of their livin; and unless amd until human experience is lcvalled out and r,nered unifor., then 'the poor aru alyays wita us.' Pcvor as much a built-in characteristic of human society as diseasu .rnd death are characterists of human exi:3tuncu. Tiderofor, oliics t rid of povrty raist bur politics which aim to c}c.. human nature or which airs to organise society in such a uay as to suprruss or dny the banic caractristics of humanity. - 12 -
• But the way in which Conservatives behave, when confronted by 'the problem of poverty' is not to say 4Let us abolisj:.this." or "Let as change human nature so that there will not be these variations in oxperience or in attainment." or ''Letus find the inadecluateor the incorpetentand preach at then until we bring them ub to the level of the average." ',Ihatwe should do is to apply ourselves to the task of alleviating and makinF telerble in our day and generation these permA-lentphenomena. H-:tcearises the fund:Im,:mtallydiffrent approach of -;onservativesto the i)re'plemof poverty.
It is possible to analyse from this standboint a great dcal of the social legislmtion of the last two or three g,nerations. For the principle of univ- ersalism, the principle of eliminating ooverty by providing the same to everybody, with its '...orollaryof forbiddinF:everyane to have anythin:Mut tho same, has been widespread in the last sixty years. Indeed it has permeated very deeply the thinking and the actions even of our own pArty. There are many illustrations of this. In social security, for example, the whole trend in the alleviation of direct purchasing-power poverty has been to turn aside from the identification of the poor and move across to a system of universal distribution, even if, necessarily, distribution of a minimum. ::111-1t1 find particularly significant and :J_armingis that, even where we endeavour to escape from the notion of the universal minimum, as for instance in the proposal for graduated pension benefits, we still retain the principle of universalism in that it is to be compulsory by law that bonefits shall be received in accordance with the gre17.:tion.Compulsory firaduation of benefits is not an escape form univeralism. In the _]-Istfew years, however, we have been talking about identifying and alleviating poverty - inde_d the specific alleviation ofaffernt forms of poverty. This assertion involves a profound rev:.rsalof the whole direction of thinl:ing,leislation cuid habit of the last fifty years. Are we even near to meaning what we say?
One of the forms of poverty is lack of care in sickness. Accordinc;lyone of the fundamental forms of the alleviation of overty 11.5b,en the ,;:rovisionof succour in sickness and injury. Here again we have sou7ht to eliminate poverty by universal provision of what is called, sometimes 'thc best', and sometimes 'the same', attentien in sickness. Thus we 1-Iveconstructd a system which is designed to enforce the same standard of comsumption on all, in orm1r to deal with one aspect of poverty. And, once again, the corollary readily follows that no-one should be )ermittedto provide outsie -tc univrsal provisions. Even Conservativ of-L,narTue th',.tthose outside should be brouht insid, whilst retaining the advantes of beina outsid, as in the proposal that private patients should receive drugs on the I.H.7;. In c,ffectthis is saying that there should be indivi5ual choice but thct what is aios.enindividually sha:_ldbe financed coLunally - a form of univers.ilism. lhe fl,onservative approach to the problem of poverty is thus directly antithetical not only to the developmQJntof Law, nstitutions and thinkin in recent years, but also to a great a:al of wh.:twe have :,llowed.ourselves to say.
Another charitable impulse towards the poor is to en°-:blethe children of poor families to obtain a certain education. Grammar schools for poor children are a historic form of charity. •loweverthre are other 7:ctives_).-t work which render the picture more complex - communl motives to produce an educated pop- ulation for the i,,rny,the Civil ;.3ervice,and economic yrowth. The concern of the community for the educational system springs, at least in part, from such considerations. Yet, once again, the tcndency of educational policy over the ldst thr, ge=ations hns been to Jlii_nL,.tetle c,insocuuncs o-2T=,,(Tvrty Ii:r ..-.rnforcin a urivrsal system; .:1-1(1.me of th:-aspects of the c r aprehoac-ivei.octrine is object of eliminating differences of endowmnt and the conce.unces of family b •-ound. Thre enough the corollary follows that no-one an ,scape militry sc.rvice,or L,:etout of the prison, or m,:k :7,-er,i,his exit from tne slave c:T:T It is often urme., in short, t'ieteducation outsid the universal provisom ouht to he 72Llm:eci.
In housinF7,universal provicir, ir3not :77tan ecucrnllsb fact. ..-nted housing, howevL:r,lar,f; bcen larly .s.ti,.,ne„liser.:1byecinF ':-.-iliniip7:liscd'in order that it sh= be hiotrihut,::(1,im-„s-ective of incy, on the basis of physical need. PoioT,.r, the distrI7mtion .--,ndratirlin F,J.,otms,:,,do,)ted by local authcrities, iive fruently bce.r,sp ot f2ii to :!:irect-tttention to pove-rty. Ther, i-cthus irTlicit in th,.:cesystems 7in-tt :Iptto C Ellwith -filrcrtyby m.:ans of univ.rsal provision of housinm.
Po sum up, all the renedics for prvertp, Jtsit appe= iiiti:c, s:cific saar'Jpiesof ho 6in:7,hclth, ePic tir. nd sccial security, P rye• in common the - 1 3-
elimination of self-expression and a system which is centralised and authoritarian. The denial of poverty as an inevita'cle cencomitant of human nature and human society leads to the construction of a socaety where all initiative and decision is unioue and centralised, and where therefore the differences between individuals and families are eliminated. If we •re guing to r=odel the vs„st mass of legislation and institutioHs, which has grown up during the last half-century, on an entirely now and essdntially Conservative approach to human nature in society, we aLeuld bd aware that the undertaking is an immense one.
Let us now turn to another sense, in which we use the word 'social' in political discours. The railway line from Littlo 'Jivenhoe to Pudlcombe, built in 1889 to serve the farmihg communities of the district, which has not paid since 1915, is to be closdd by British Rail. Although very few peoPle travel on this line, the auggestion that it he closed is grd.Aed with a storm of protest from people who could not give the names of the intervening stations and who would be found dead rather that using the train to reach their destination. Yes, the inevitable arument is produced, the clesur of that line would create 'social problems'. Yortunately, one of the advantages of a beneficent institution like British Rail, which does not operate on the principles of hard- fhced economics, is tntt it can take social factors into account. And sure enough, everyone lines up - including N.P.s with commuters to consider - and agrees that a puffer or two ought to be kept chugging up and down thu line.
Yhenever the pattern of tho living of mankind changes, a canflict arises betwon the new environment and the existing habits - sometimes habits which are formod by institutions and sometimes given legal expression. Bc this conflict we 4ve the name of social problem, just as the inevitable results of the variations between human beings and human :3xperiencc, depositing themselves as poverty, are designated a social problem.
There is no escape from this. It is built into human rvlure. han is a creature of habit. Indeed our survival, both as individual and as a adecies, depends on our ability to form habits. Yet it also depehds upon cur ability to conform to changing outer environment. Consequently the a is in human nature a constant md i=solvable dilemma between the nocessity of habit and the necessity of change. When this dilemma is approached from the itealistic or reformist point of view, however, the solution offered is tu deny the dilemma and thus to ,-crovent change. Let us keep the railway line open. Ltt us keep buses on that route. Let us kecp mi=s digging coal in Tife. Let us keep the iarth-Last of z]ngland an industrial area. I.et us not admit change.
If one recognises that there is a dilemma, however, one is ablo to mae an ontirely diffengnt approach. Par, itis the business of the politician, not to banish this conflict from human experience, but to alleviate the impact o" individuals. Indeed, his first concern should be to examine thc: work of his own hands, and that of his predecessors, to see whether adaptation to change is being :lade more difficult by the institutions and laws which they have made and still maintian. This brings Us to a particular aspect of the dilemma, because the essence of Law is not to change. The service of Law a society is to be certain and constant, both b...tweon man and man, and also through time. Thus wo are faced with a specific and subsidiary dilemha that, although we know laws become obsolete and require to be changed, yet the nature of Law is to lirovide certainty. an in3rtia is thus built into all human societies, not because of a failure, but bocause this inertia is a presrvntive. ll is howevdr, a preservative that at times is capable of being ''estructive.
row, tho supreme function of the -tlitician, certainly uf the Toryci- is to enable laws and institutions to abandon thtir in,rti, and to judge the gH.nt at which the benefite of inortia are outeig-hod by its disadvantaoo:,. )1-1ly in this sense is reform an admissibl..; concept fur a Tory.
The recent contrevorsy on irtmigration illustrates very well the social conseouencos of legal inertia. Itwas a principl(: of ',,ne law of fais country that our status derives from our bein7 born within the all,:giance. However, it came about by a geries of3t1:c. tit the law of this country could not distinguish betge'dn those 11(3 belng, tc t174.scountry, hoeuor one identifios the idea of 'belonging', and some spvan er eight hundred million human boings living in other parts of tboe world. This: stat, of law was net only unharmful; it was benefic,nt, as long as only minimal ago was made of it, for the purpose cf immigration to the Unitod Lingdom. As sten as ',1;:1S made of it, for - 14 - technical and economic reasons, then that state of our domestic law became harmful and, if unaltered, positively fatal. It created, shall we say, a social problem, which rose to considerabl, dimensions because of the delay in altering the law, to adapt it to a chang,Jdenvironment.
Now, the alternative approach to th banishing of change is to provide automatic mechanisms, whereby change can be digested,and to minimise the institutional and legal provisions which are bound to come into conflict with change. Perhaps I might illustrate what I mean by going back to the example of the branch line. The ordnance map is littered with old railway lines, many of which were closed down before the war, and indeed before the 1914 -4ar. Then, however, the change involved did not become a social problem, as the closure of the line from Little -,:ivenhoeto Puddlecombe is such a problem, to be dealt with by politicians, because the framework then neither fossilised the past and the existing, nor inhibited the acceptance and digstion of change. The provision of transport has been detached from that process cf capitalism and the market, whereby people tend to get what they want, by the act of nationalisation, and in its place there is a statute which states that it shall be the duty of the hinister to provide an adequate system of transport for this country. But the more such services are politicised, the more social conflict will be created where change and law, and change and institution intersect.
:Fromhere follows what seems to me to be the characteristicallyTory respect for all social modes which enable people to absorb and adapt to change currently, and which fix behaviour, and in particular economic behaviour, as little as possible in legal, institutional and political frameworks. Recently the wnrd 'Towellism' has rather changed its connotations, much to my regret. It used to represent an almost unlimited faith in the ability of pople to get what they want through price, capital, profit and a competitive market. This mode of self expression is inherent in Toryism, not because of any theoretical beauty or acaemic precision of such a system, but becnus it enables a great range of changes to be absorbed currently ambulando by people themselves. It thus minimises the conflict which is inevita,blewherevr institutions and Law are in operation between habit and environment. In other words, it recognises and, seeks to live with, a built-in dilemma of humnn nature and human society.
As a Pnrty, we are encouraged by this systm to criticise a whole range of policies which would sterotype human life in ordr. tc .]:liminatethe social conflict. Indeed this has been the socialist plea for nationalisation, for centrol of the economy, for planning of industry. If these activities are placed in the hands of the State, so the argument runs, the social Problems will be solved. In the last resort, this is the authoritarian, centralising universalist answer. It must be the or.,esisf what we have to say about the nature of human life, of society and of the nation.
J.Ols.
h?Ihh hD THEC,CIJM)7. hr. David K. Clarke C.B.
any people looking at the 1=artyfroN outside commont on the wide spread of economic views within it. Thcy rightly ask whether such diversity would be comfortable in Government even if it is tolerable in opposition. These wide differences should be discussc-d,not to emphasise thml,but rather to find the common ground on which policy can be supportnd.
Ono difficulty in this task is th,ltthe major difftrences cntre rsund sl.71ns which are not always preciscly defined and can be given a variety of meanings. 6n the one side there is talk of planning and incomns policy; on the other the cry is for competition and fren markets. Between 1,Th,etwo there has alsc bech a third school cmphasising efficiency and the impo,rtanceof the new mana7erial technologies. This is ossentiol but it is also ssentially non- political and wo :717.ytako it as rea.
The two appreaches of rilannini;and conr etition, to f7ivetheta short titles, both have their attractions to d-Dncervatives. The fortsr attracts tho&J whs 3mchasise orde:ran-1 authority; the "itter those who leon twards froedom and choice. Tha former is en7-2,hasisedby a g,t2-rreraticnwhich is huuntod by the instability of the -:)Osand b,elievesthat ritateactien was necssry to achi vs • - 15 -
stability; the latter appeals to a now generation who properly challenge thr- beliefs of an older one with an essentially- simple idea which evokes qualities of dynamism that today seem lacking. Both have an intellectual appeal; the former to those who find a challenge in the complexity of institutional relationships, the latter to those interested in the theoretical ingenuity of successive generations of economists. B:th equally have an aPpeal to the common sense of which Alasdair Norrison spoke. The former appeals to the commnn-sense of those steeped in the practice of g:nrernment who tend to see problems as matters for government action rather than inaction. The latter appeals to those who wish simply to be left alone to pursue their own ends in their own way.
In order to explore the common ground, we must bring these two general approaches to two tests, to that of our Conservative beliufs and to the test of the reality of the world in which we live.
Je are the party of balance between both elements of or0,2r and freedom. As Inrd Butler once said, we must always suck the mean between the dynamic and stabilising aspects, ading characteristically that in 7particular circumstancs we must "lean without losing balance". Conservatives do not regard man as a wholly economic animal nor economics as the only form of rationality. he regard well-being as superior to wealth. The end of economic activity is, therefore, to Provide and enlarge opportunity for individual development not only in the economic field but in the security of home ownership and in the fruits of leisure. he see the Govrnment as a liberating agricy while acknowledging that liberation of some efforts may require the restriction of others. It follows that we do not regard motivation in the economic field as wholly economic. Economic gain and wealth, but also Power, creative effort, pride in the job and pleasure in the social life of the work place are all ecually valid as motives and must find a place in our thinking.
We see innovation and technological advance at once as the expression of personality and of variety of motive -And also as givinF now opportunities and satisfying growing aspirations. Provid,?d the opportunities are there, change and innovation can be a self-regenerating system. it are the party of change because our sense of history giv,s us a sense cf chnnge. But it is change, as Disraeli said, in deference to the manners, customs and traditions of the nation and not change in defein.,nce to abstrnct principles. :je should ha,TJ no fear of change but care fur the mnnner and direction of change and succour for the casualties of cnange.
e also stress the importance of social unity. nore opportunities for individual development create more vnriety and differuncns of Quality. As these are nxprcssed in economic terms they mean differences in income, in wealth and in authority. This in itself poses problems in maintaining social unity. Lnd differences may be exaggerated when we live in a predominantly consuming (and sometimes conspicuously consuming) society. he must sometimes ask whether society and not only the economic part of society can become over-competitive for social unity and whether excess power, or its use, may have to be curbed in the name of social unity.
Finally, as Sir Alec has pointed out, economic prosperity lins at the root of our ability to fulfil cur commitments to our friends and allies pnd to protect our national interests overseas. It is not just that economic strength gives us a more powerful voice in the international management cf the world economy but it entitles us to respect in all our international dealings.
The second test which we must apply is to ask whether the asumptions we make in taidIng about state action and private enterprise 7tand up to the reality of these institutions as they ire todny.
It is natural at this point of tint that we should b, more inpressed with the deficiencies of stat: -0ower and action than with any advanta;:res. The lack of precision in official statistics, their lng tim,-lag, have made us increasingly aware that government has no certainty or monopoly of knowledge, let alone of foresight and wisdom. The govrnment m.-Achine by selection and training has no oxprtio.-_, for juLls-m,nat in commercial matters. Se al% also awnre that far va.rious reas.::ns cAn pet._:ntility of stat, power is
greatc2r thanever b:eforo and t±,t it ic a en i cosoting for ,ovornr,:lent to =IC fn)m persuasion t() compulsion. 'iot a rhats nero tiors 6-Jr prnoccupation - 16 - • in the last four years with the intrusien of the state into private enterprise - what is usually called state intervention - may blind us to another aspect of state :',.ctivity. Ye may be giving insufficient recopmition to the state as a major economic force in its own right as the source of currency, as a purchaser and aE an employer.
Much of the theoretical foundation of free competition is based upon assumptions of complete informtion, complete mobility of resuurces and small units of enterprise which are increasingly unsatisfactory as the foundation for an explanation of the behaviour of commercial organisatiuns. Indeed, limited liability, the foundation of free ,nnterprise as we know it, is itself an artifact of the law. There is also the question of whether the salaried manager has the same motivation as the traditional entrepreneur. This question may be raised with most justification about the middle m=gement of large companies J7ron whom competition in the market may be increasingly remote. Perhnps we should emphasise personal initiative and ambitinn and its rewards more than competition. Again in large firms which accumulate their own cap.tal resources new projects may net be brought as stringently to the test cf the market as they would be if capital had to be found outside.
One may in short ask whether the system of free enterpriso, is quite as dynamic as is supposed. 2eport-4 such as that of the Brookings institute, parallel the Fulton Committee in their strictures on industrial management. 'le should ask whether this is merely a natter of providing the right incentives or whether there is something lying deeper in national attitudes. Are we as a nation so wholly competitive as the United States or are we more naturally collaborative? And may this have some connection with our greater social cohesion.
e must recognise the limitations of free enterprise under modern conditions, such as tendencies to monopely or at least to the strength of sectional interests at the expense of the unorganised. e must recognise also that public interest and sectional interest do not necessarily coincide and that le;zislation is sometimes necessary to express the public interest since its erosion as a concept in the Common Law. We must be aware of these limitations, but not to the point of obscuring the central fact that private eatcrrrise provides a more efficient marriage of supply and demand than any known ,2,1ternative, that it makes for the richest divcrsity of individual c,xpression, and in doing so multiplies F:rowth points for innov7ntion, and that copitalism provides fsr the accumulation of nrivate wealth as a basis of security, opportunity and independence for the individual.
7rom these considerations it follows th.71t neither private enterprise alone nor the state alone will n,::cessarily chievo any -carticulir cconmio objective. ThLt bounary between their relative spheres of action will noossrily vary through time fls circumstnc,=:s change, ;--5 shown, for example, in the changing attitudes of the Party to tariff protection.
At present the Party has two major long term commitments in its policy. One is the commitment to full elployment. This is as much on social as on economic grounds. The other is the commitment to further conomic growth both as th,e expression of inititive and responsibility inc:1 b c.ouse the mat..2rial rewards of growth pave the way to new opprtunities for tht: individual. More ir-aJin.tely, and to enable these comNitnunts to be fulfilld, is th need to economy on a sound basis and particul=ly to reF.tore ,3ndmaintain Jsiness confidenc.
If we see the job of private enterprise71s to :7et on with its work accord- ing to the best judgment of those running it, we can turn to examine thL four mFjor roles of the :_tate in fulfilling t?-i_ese commit=ts.
Th..: first is that of maintaining 1Tzsinss confidenc, the ecromic ;,.quivalent of th,.2 maintem once of law end order. 711. most 7,nral aE7),:?cts of tlis or, the establishm€:nt of legal standards of business crlduct anri the 171-ction of trading intr,ots ovs, dot gov,rnn,nt -Cisn h,is a Juty to c7-itc: an atmosphere of confidc:nc, tLat th,J aesurootieno ad,2 in Food fith as the basis of business ecisions are not upst 7-:y arbitrary n:nd surldc:n intervention.
Th,3 second role f tin Stain is that of ction for soci-11 7Durposf_,s. This is tie. main historic purpose of tnti, cciviay in its concurn for th ocial - 17 -
111 consecuences of economic activity. It ay involve the correction of the excesses of private enterprise, as, for example, in the factory acts, or more positive measures, as, for example, in regional ev:lepment.
The third area of stato activity is that of government as an economic organ in its own right. Thsre is its role in the mnagement of the currency. There is its role in raising taxation and any form of trtxatinn is bound to hav..; economic consequences. Its role as a consumer is more important than ever before and, if we include local authorities, it is a dominant consumer in a number of industries. It is an employr on an enormous scala. It also carries out a number of national services such as the :]mployment -,xchanges and the statistical services.
The fourth role of the State is to maintain the public interest as against sectional intorests. This is the most difficult and controversial area of state activity. At one extreme it covers the role tf governmmt in providing parts of the economic infrastructure, such as rosIds. It includes legisIntion on mnnopoly and restrictive trade practices. It covers the activities of government in stimulating research, industrial training, and management education. At the other extrene there is the intensely debatable ground of the rnle of government in accelerating change by helping the reorganisntion of contracting industries, by assisting mergers throush the and by financing mnjor projcts in science-based industries where the finance requiredLE:as to be byond the scope of a single firm.
viithin these suheres of activity, wheth r defined broadly or narrowly, there are important political issues about the means used by guvernmsnt in carrying out its action. The Socialists -trid to use mosns which shift the balance permans!ntly frsm private to public provision and from divsrsity to uniformity which tonds to level down to a redincre level of sTunlity. Conservatives must try tu create conditions in which the mnin task is fur privat individuals and the role of govornment is to crnste conditions in which the individual can use initiative an b r responsibility nnd where within a known framework tho main task is the tsk of private ...nterprise.
This idea of a frnmnwork is often used as s. [:onral :'escription of the Conservative view of the role of the State. I ar suggesting that it should also be used to delineate tne means of state activity in each of its roles. For example, in regional development it brings out the contrast betweon the extrav- agant absurdities of present policies and a policy which concentrates on growth points and the infrastructure. It emphasises the difference between our industrial relations policy, which thrusts responsibilities on trade unions and employers and the Donovan Commission's proposal for fussy interference from the centrein local agreements. In the field of planning it stresses the importance of foresight and planning of the government's own exnenditure in relation to the resources of the community and the desirnbility of the three major economic forces, government, managsment and tras, unions considering the dtuation together and pooling their knowledge, wisdom and experience on a body like N.s.n.C. But at the same time it emphasises that planning is esssntially an educative and not a directive process. It is not itself the making of central decisions but an aid and a preliminary to jncisi ns the great multi- plicity of which must be taken by many -iffcrt.nt
The mood of the country tods,y is one of uncertainty nnd frustration. Partly this is due to sheer bad administration, wrong ci.ecisions, decisons not taken when neede and some not taken at all. -But partly also there is cnnfusion of thinking about the respective roles of government nnd fren2 enterprise. The result is the frustration of ,oxnectntions nnd n lnw level of nchievennt. Aspiration is reletsd tn nohievement and continued inw nchievsmsnt will dnnp ths nspirations and ambitions of individlills. But these nre not wholly matters of econo,:nics but things of the hunnn spirit to b strngthened or weakened by their environmcnt. One might- ,11.1 aDy that a basic charncteristic of Conservntism is the recognition of the nswor :snd importnnce of things of the spirit in economic affnirs, of the riOnness nf diversity, of the d-eveloping interests of the indivi,MuJ n t Oo uesting notsntial oYf the hunnn mind. Extr?ct from sueech by the at. hon. J. inoch Poell—2 Proposing the toast of the :est .dding Branch of the Institute of :Jirectors,t':-eir annual dinner 3t the Old S,N,Tn_ Hotel, HarrogAe 411 7.30 p.m., Friday, June 1968.
It is not long ago, as human memories go, in a country not very far from here, that citizens ere paraded through the streets by stormtroopers, Aith notices hung round their necks. The notices were accusations or admissions of guilt; not guilt before the law, but guilt in the eyes of a prty. After that experience they, and others,knew better.
They kne'• whatAr',S comi tothem. "The reign
of law Aas ending; the reign of tyranny Aas opening. It can't happen here, did you say': it can. It did happen here, this =Neck. banker, Joceln Hambro by flame, hsd just that thing done to him. irou recall that %Jug a socialist member of Parliament isked Castle if she -ould refer to the Prices ':L:nd Incomes Bo rd the increase of remuner-Aion of lr h'T,:mbro in the last l months 2
The Parliamentarj Secretry reblied that
Mrs Castle "is havins this particular case investigated". In 9 further reply, the
Yinister sail that "it is of tremendous concern that some peoble should apparently h7:ve an opportunity to escbe the incomes policy, and ae seek to put this right".
7ow, Lrs Castle h9s no laAful pov-lers
Ahatever to X-Woi-IW "investis'ate" r. Hambro's increase of salary, ary T,ore than the
BroAnshirts had to parade and billory Ci.erman citizens. 3oth are ,:icts of la-less bullying.
:That is more, they hive the S3fr..eobject, to get ad exercise pcmer by unl9Aful oressures und intimidatio, 4. If the Cloverninent believe that in the public inerest peuble must not h.ave increased salaries, let a 13A be mde to say so, and let it be applied by the courts; but there is no la'f4 Ahich sys sub"- 9 thins, and it is as laful fur D_r. o's salary to be increased by iL4,30D as to be reduced by
, 3 I aill giveYr Eambro novv :3 piece of ,.00d 411advice — if it is nut too late for him to take it. I see, alas, that the dan chorus of explanation -H3nd ,ipology has already st3rted — in the Citj columns, from four o,Nn institute. A spokesman of hambro's 3ank itself is reported as sayinE: "'Ihen the department axplsi ed Ahy it considered the slary rise infrinsed tte
nite Ppper on Prices and Incomes, the bank be in a position to state its own case". This is the clT,ssic error of the victim, on Ahich all predatory snim3ls rely for tr-leir s ccess. It constitutes an sdmission th t the Minister Las any stardin;:. in the Latter 3t all.
Onconcede that, and the tumbrils bein to roli.
Here then is my A.vice to ihr .:ambro. To every ;;;-)proc, eucmunication .:nd en uiry on
this subject from the ..;-overnment, uniessnd
until it is baoaed by sta tutor suurority, let him return one 3ns er and one only: ind your
can busi Let him not '1".D.16, or 4
or justify, or apolo-ise. Let him simply
repeet:"mind your ovIn business".
It is t,e only proper ansvler from free man to a useroer, and it is also - s I h-ave
been telling prospective victias for over three
ye-rs no , d your Institute =i..cnong them - the
only safe 9n.974er;f: for ever bully is a coard,
ond there is no g're.ter bully than ,overnment.
leesides hich , 1,Cr :-.2.1arLbro's c2use is ours, '.-3^d
.he shall r-t prejudice it, if I cT!n.
stiffen him. Fate h - thrust him i ,to :3, position
.iv_here other people's rights brd liberties re
et stake a ong -A_th hig. Every time a
usurption is allo•Aied to succeed, every time a la-mless :-:eTand is complied somethinu is
lost hich is more difficult therefter
o3C .
I do not kno,v uhether fr:e uestion p2..3 ted by the .3overn.etztart, thou.A: I su:.3pect it
I do not kno.. .,-.hether the ,.,uestion nd
r Aere deliber-tely desirneu s L ot
across the bo •,s to",m1rn off other firms 5
rnigh contiemolate subscribin to the • Conservative Party, nd other chairmen .,lho mi8ht be tempted to say somethin deroEatory
about the Prime I,inister. Jhat I do kno.%;
is that the Yember vd-io asked the :iuestion
could not have been further from the mark .'ihen
he talked about "o e laifJ for the poor :ind
another for the rich". The luu is inded o e;
9nd 7Iner the rule of l iS broken da,Nn, it is not only the -aell-to-do aho suffer, but
the very humblest ad most obscure, and, SS is the 1,.i-3„; of the :A)rld, they suffer most; nor
is /J/' hambro the earliest taret of the
G.overnme t's abuse of boer in the name of
its incomes and bribes policy. Every trade
unionist, :r.,c1 ever, •'“Drker, in the country
st-nds in the pillory today -ith Jocelyn
HE,mbro. His cause snd theirs is the sam • . . . . • . NEWS SERVICE Release time: Ii .L5 Hous/:2nd. 7ene, 1963
Text of a slpeech by the 17:t. Hon. -noch sO7'71a7., Hap° , (olverham-oton South '77est), at the :3nnual Conference of the Conservative National .:L.dvisory Committee on -7-ducation, at Overseas House, St James's Street, London 73:-.1. on Saturday, 22nd June, 1968
In December 1963 the last Conservative Government
'published their forecast of the gro":Ah of oublic oxoenditure
during. the following four years. It disclosed. that -aublic
oxganditure on the then estimates yould be growing at over
year in real terms. This was higher than the rate at
which our national income had aver been knoan to grow over
so long a consecutive 'period. 17orcover, the .21timatea: were as is usually th case with future estimates of -public
ex7oL;r1r-iture, to ba on the low a:ida rather than the high side.
It followed that they oortended either higher taxation or
inflation or ind,oad both. The 'a:lans ought therefore to have
bean revisd. to 'aring tlia rateof increase down to something
within the rate of growth of the national income which had
actually been exoerienced and. on -:hich it might therefore be
raconable to count for the near future.
This tnr- Consarvativa Government did not foel able to do.
Hoither however did they accawt the conseuenca that there
would ba hi tgh-r taxation, or -flurthar inflation, or both.
/So they took
Issued by Publicity Department, Conservative Central Office, 32 Smith Square. London SW1 01-222-9000 1'7:5 - 2 -
So they took the only may out. They assumed that the national income mould in fact rise at the unprecodonted rata of 45 a year for four consecutive years. To the natural g_uestion,
Tom do you know?, they gave the fateful anser: ''7.ecause wo intend to plan that rata of gro77th". !end that was rhere me e2ent out, and the Tliabour Party came in.
t:riong all the blocks of expenditure into which that
estimate was divided, the one which showed the bigest rate
of increase was '9Roads° 9 planned to incraasa at nearly 77',
per annum compound_ -r.ut the road programme only one-.
fluortar the size of the next fastest groming block of public
axgonditure. This was education, planned to rise at 5.7 Tporannum compound, or half as fast again as 'eishful think- ing for the national income, and twice as fast as tho best
recorded experience.
Lne incoming Occialist Government took a five-year
rather than a four-year vieT:r of public expenditure, and hitched
up tha Con5zervative figure te 1_oer annum excluding the
nationalisd. industries; but within that total tho share,
and the rata of increase, of the block representing oducation
rose still further. The cem:pL=LO annual rate of mooease
orojected at constant ericis w.as nom fully E-7,J:. The lai.:lant-
able story of the short-fall of the national income ond the
buoyancy of public expenditure in these last four, Occialist
years, is a matter of history. On any viem -0 margin by
mhiah onblic exanditure has overshot the groo:th of th:2
national income is the =jor aaus of the disatrous financial /events ef tho
475/b3 7011, - 3 -
events of the last four years, 1:thich still pursue us inter- nal inflation, external devaluation, and forein indebtedness.
The most important single driving force in all this has been the upard thrust of expenditure upon educ tion. Both in size, in prestige and in momentum educational oxnenditure is the key sector of public expenditure; and to address oneself to the :)roblem of inflation, lat alone to the reduction of taxation and of the relative burden of public expenditure, without a criticize of educational expenditure is wilful blind- ness. This political ophthalmia is exceptionally nrevalent for of all political sacred coos education is the most sacred and the most coy:like, and those rho presume to discuss, not to say Question, the size and rate of increaso of educational expo diture, as I am about tu do, must expect to be denoun- ced as barbarians and onemies to all progress and sound learn- ina. I am under no delusion that to have been a university teacher myself and to bo the offsrring of school teachers
afford no protection.
The past and prosp,- tive increare of the various parts of educational expenditure is not uniform.
The state in this country compels all children to attend school from tr to 15 and presently 16 years of ; and the number of children at school orill have risen 12T. by 1570 since 1564, and much the greater part of this increase is due to the surao in births after 1555. Thch a large demo-
ic change, even unaccom- 'lied by any improvement of atandares, movement of pepul tion, or inorrar ri 7)1'epansityto
at school after the mini. Tust one
influenc on educational oxp;nditures. cccli ex:,:yret 47J/68 PO--'7LL - 4 -
One would expect the cost of schools ane related exmenditure to rise disproportionately, and to call for a sloTing doTn cf 7-)nblic expenditure elsewhere cf the total eas not to be forced up by the same amount.
That is one's astonishment to find, on analysinf educat- ional expenditure, that this block - expenditure on th3 schools - although the largest, is tho slowest Frowing. In fact, rrith meals and milk throJn in, the pros-pective -rate of increase in the 5 years to 1970 vias under 5"7 por annum , and teacher training itself could "pe added in nithout brins:ing the rate much above The bi7 growers are thr3 universities, 56 at 33. over 5 years, and abo7e all "further education'' at
over 5 years. One-third of the total anticipated increase in
all educational expenditure is attributable to universiti s
and further education. '7e are therefore led to enouire more
closely into the pattern on 1-lich educational ex]penditure as
a whole is p7rowin, and to direct cur att3ntion quite sp02-
ill:! tO 'DOst-SC11001 education. I need h.ardl7. say now perilous
a Proceeding that is; for these are the most consecrated
'extremities of the sacred animal itself.
I begin with some theoretical remars. The concern of
th-.3 modern state with education is ar. activity of -hich it
is exceptionally difficult to analysi the motives ,Jith any
Trecision. In :Dractice, ,ee live '2ith several thcoris at the
same time, vithout troublin, or perhaps needin:r to troubla,
e Prefer one to another or say ',h.re one begins and, another
ende. One rationale iR that citizr-ns -re men'e useThl for // na-Lanal - 475/- P0-7LL - 5
national, communal purposes, e.g. as soldiers, if they have a certain minimum standard of education. (I might, for short- handy call this the 'Prussia motive.) Mother argument is that each generation has a natural iapulsa to illy° on that which succeeds it a certain conformity, as the means of securing the survival of the society, and of the nation in pa icular. (Lot us, again for shorthand, call this the
Toartan motive.) It is on such grounds of common interest
that the compulsory mart of an education system can most
easily bo justified. Howaver, th re arc doubtlss other
motives at ,work uhich result in the modern statc providinP:
ectflcation. If education is one of the good. thinLTo" of life
it is a work of charity to sec that none locks a modicum of
it, and the modern state, here as elsehere, hos canalised
tho charitable impulse of a community's members towards
their fellows, has become in some sense the residuary leg ue
of ecclesiastical and private beneficence. Indocd, ovon if
educ tion be regarded purely as a urivate good, it might be
arL:usd that the state is justified in oolicine the uubrining
of children by their parents so far as to ensure that by no
parental default do they lock a certain minimum of thot good
However, as more and more of the lower -,paches of
ec'ucation ars covered by comIpulsion, on uhatever motives
Trounded, tho charitable impulse is, so to spoor, uushed.
furohn out, ond the stats proceeds to offer, though not to
enforce, education at ever hi ner levels and conseol ently
oubloct to a test of untituda.
/ventlially one
47 13/6 8 - 6
--vontually one arrives along this line at thp me ingless extreme that everyone is to be offrod the 7117.::ira=education of which ha is capable.
Looking back on the history of our stato efucation system,
think there is no doubt thatup to the last tenty years or so the charitable motivation 77.s tending to increase and the communal motivation, 7Thethor of the "Prussian - the Mpartan type to f ll into the background. The state w-as providing
17.02C3and more educational opportunity, alpo/o the com:pulsory
Einimum, and 71as providing it as a "good thing', extended by tho carmunity to its individual members. The state was doing more and more a work of charity, ODUS carit tis, not to say, and opus_dei. Those enjoying higher education at the
or the exp,nse, of the state were receiving a personal benofit, eithe economic or cultural or both. I-ow, in the last tenty years or so, all this has been shr2ply rev-rsod,
nd at an accelerating pace, by the appearance of a new mot- ivation altoi;.:ether. At lr,ast, it is so immenso an extension of the old ''Prussian" motive of state irterast as to be ther.ou.ghly novel in its nature ord its affecs. I refer to th' adoption ° F,-..rowth as the pbsorbing objet of colicy ,
the= belief that oducatisn is -r indispensa'ple ingrefiont of zl'owth.
T?e rise ot' this motiv-tiol toexhin some of the characteristic phc.nomena and Tberrations of sur time in
o fiorld of aduction. /It alters thi 473/&3 PO-TILL - -
It alters the relationship betsween the recipient of education
and the community. Instead of being the beneficiary of a personal advantage, the student is no7 conferrinE a benefit
on the community, or at any rate performing an indispensable
function for it, by making himself available to be educated
and thus furnishing the means of futu-i'e economic growth.
He becomes a seller of laboPr, who can bariTain - collectively
of courso - for the terms and conditions on which he is -willing
- to perform this service. It is no accident, but significant
and logical, that the phenomenta of tha labour market - the
union, the shop steward, tha strike, even the lock-out -
have made their appearance in hiisher education.
The new motivation also 7..lters the relationship totteen
the student and the institution of learninE. The institution
is no longer distributin0 the largesso of berefactors past
and. Present, and therefore doing so upon its cy:n terms. It
is the channel through t,hioh ths resources drawn from tha
tax-fayer are put to work for the pPoduction of ''grovrth' and the
achievement of ''tarets'' -which the community is committed.
There nas long been anxiety that, as the proportion of state
money in total highor education expenditure rose, the institut-
ions r.7- 2 their staffs yould lose =ct,.-3mic freedom, meaning in
Plain terms the fredom which ultimately depends .:Tnncontrol over
the funds. The debate centred on tho liberty sf the insntitutions
vis-o-vis thoir 72aymaster 3 tho stts, -nd the fesr 7fls that the
faymoster- =aid call the tune, even threugh the intentionolly
Pnat.ue medium of the University C=ronts COMMis2iori. hatwas not
instit- .doressr-n 7M73 tho dangor from 7.'7thr auf7.1't::r - th7:t thi
utions pould lose th:ir indopendnes vio-a-vis thtir o-n students, /Not the o,-44 o:sTTuoJ oq/
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- 9 - 473/68 POWELL - 9 - " to realise the aspirations of a modern community as regards both wealth and culture, a fully educated popu- lation" (whatever that can possibly mean;) "is necessary".
The growth motive helps, too, to explain the preoccupation with university and above all with further education, which is such a marked feature, as I have pointed out, of the shifting pattern of educational expenditure. "Growth" is statistical, a matter of numbers and percentages; and while the number of pupils of compulsory school age is nut alterable at will, and the number of school pupils altogether only gradually, the most startling growth rates, absolutely and percentagewise, are obtainable in post-school education.
It is time that it was stated, quite categorically, that the gvowth theory of education is bunkum. Of course, tne volume of education, being one of the "good things" of life, is likely (though not certain) to increase with economic growth.
Of course, in nations with a large economic output per head
the level of education is likely (though not ce7,tain) to be higher than in poorer nations, just as there will be more cars,
television sets, domestic appliances, mere leisure, better housing and so forth. But economic growth is no more caused by the increase of education than by the prevalence ofleisure
or of motor cars. If there is a relationship of cause and effect at all, it is the other way round; there is raore education because theI'e has been econ=ic ,rowth, and therefore "Fiore of this good thing can be afforded. Obviously an advanced and advancing ind'strial econolay is unthinkable without a con- siderable diffusion of ini.corLation and i 'nowleoe and of certain luental - titudes and s1%.ills. /3Ut to suppose 473/68 POWELL - 10 - i But to suppose that this has any relation to the volume and
content of an educational system like ours - from sociology
to .issyriology and from Greek to pure mathematics - or arises
more than incidentally in the corse of it, is preposterous.
We come here to the distinction, which is vital to any
rational discussion of education, between two fundamentally
different sorts of knowledge and of acquirement: that which is
for its own sake, and that which is a means to an end. The
word "education" is widely used to cover the imparting of
both; but either that word of some other is indispensable
to denote the imparting of that knowledge only which men
desire for its own sake.
In the last analysis the distinction is subjective: so Me
knowledge which one person acquires only for an ulterior
reason another may think worth acquiring for itself. For
example, the laws of England might be studied for the sake
of that knowledge itself, or they might be studied in order
to practise in the courts. Nevertheless, over a large part
of the area of education the nature of the knowledge in
cuestion Indicates into which category it falls.
This distinction between two basically different activities
which bothEo under the name of education is of ,:r.eat practical
as well as theoretical importance. It is of Ereat relevance
to the expansi n of public expenditure on education and parti-
cularly further educatin. Where knowled - andLcquirements are
desired ao means to an end, then the end can detelmine the con-
tent and the quantum of the education, The answer can
arrived at by an automatic precess. The de...tent and the
quantum will tend to settle themselves, if wo will let them.
/There is 473/68 Pai,ELL - 11 -
Th-re is no point in imparting more kn-wledge of sur ery or legal practice or gentlemen's hairdressing than we need to satisfy the demand for surgeons, lawyers and hairdressers; and that demand will of itself settle be the right balance between effort devoted to imparting those types of information and skill and all the other ends to which effort might be directed. Public demand, if we let it, will call forth and will finance the requisite supply. Not only is it not a charitable act to increase the supj_y beyond that point;
it is positively undesirable.
No such automatic means are available for determinitz the volume and content of education in the stricter sense of the word, the imparting of knowledge and acquirements as desirable
for their own sake. The argument runs in a circle; for the relevant demand is the demand for education itself, and the assumed object of policy is to increase the availability of
that "0.ood thing" which is education, in pr-ference to all
other "good things". Thefefore the decision upon total ou.Llay
must be arbitrary - as much as the state if I may personify it
for convenience feels inclined, plus what is demanded or pro-
vided from private sources. is for the content, it would be
conceivable that this could be settled by individual prefer-
ences and tastes, suposing a sort of market system cauld be
organised and that the demand were created by supplyin1 the
whole of the requisite purchasing power te students or parents.
In pract,ce, it is determined by a very confused and complex
mixtrre of a small element of preference with a large element
of arbitrary decision.
On the basis of this fundamental _i.visian which we have
drawn it is passible to distinuish a large and gorwing pr partion
of further and university education which by its nature and can-
tent could be self-financed and self-detel7minea. /There is no 473/68 Pav-viTILL - 12 -
There is no inherent reason why the response of this major element in post-schoel educatien to the requirements of the economy - "growth", if you prefer - should not be automatic, leaving education in the more specific sense as one of the
Ifgood things" of life, which we, the community, were free to
increase as our means expanded and as we thoughtappropriate.
The disastrous myth of a causal link between "growth" and
state expenditure on education would be dissolved, and we
should Eet rid of the crazy rule-of-thumb expansion of the
undergraduate and post-graduate population.
I realise that we are not only not making any such dis-
tinction at present, but th-t the educatienal policy of both
parties, and not least our own, might in the last ten or fifteen
years have beendesigned to deny and obliterate it. V,hether
you think it is practicable and necessary to initiate a change
of outlook depends on how insistently you hear the callku.o.eyeajeiey
from our educatien system. It depends on hew long you believe
what I just now called rule-of-thumb expansi n can continue.
few years ago statistical comparisons between Britain
and other ceuntries on either side of the -tlantic were widely
urged in debates on University expansion. 1,fter making all the
qualifications thaueht necessary, even the Robbins Committee
in 1563 reported gravely that "when we leek at whet is planned
for the future, the comparison between this country and other
highly developed countries is disquieting". The Committee
it 7 hqd been jmesessed on their travels. In Francer , they
wrote, "l'exolosi scolaire" is publicly recognised in the
official Plans to increase the size of the university
populati , from 200,0, 0 in 1560 to 500,000 in 1 70".
/Perhaps after • 473/68 PCivELL - 13 -
Perhaps after recent months we may be glad that Britain has
escaped this recognition of the scholastic exolesion in terms
of the mass univerSity pepulations characteristic of other
countries. Our own arithmetic, however, demands close attention.
The basis of present projections of further and university
education - an increase 31 university students frem 117,000
in 1960-61 to 218,000 in 1973-74, which the Robbins Committee
carried forward to 346,000 in 1980-81 - was the principle that
the proportion of qualified school-leavers going to univereity
in 1980 shauld be the same as in the mid 1950's. I believe
that this Propositien, with its deceptive air ef simplicity and
obvieusness, needs re-examination, and not only in the light of
the fundamental questions of principle about the financing of
post-school educati n which I have already raised.
The key element in all education is the relationship
between the teacher and the student; and this depends not
merely on the numerical ratio but also an the quality of the
teachers. That a high rate 3f expancion of university and
other similar staffs diminishes the avera e age and the general
maturity of these staffs is axiomatic; but there is disquieting
evidence that the rate of expansion has already, as same predicted
years ago, outrun that at which univerSity teachers of the same
quality can be produced. The moSt strikuig and objectienable
feature of current indiscipline in universities and celleges has
been not merely the connivance, but the active participation of
staff in treaches of erder by their own students. There is a
far higher ratien of staff te students here than in the continental
universities; but it is evident th:et a preportian - the staff -
naw have neither loyalty te the institutiens which they sEnve
nor any netion of responsibility fer the persJnal example
which they set to students. /In shert, •
473/68 P0:7LL - 14 -
In short, they are incroasingly assimilated with the rising
numbers of undergraduate and post-graduate studonts who see
themselves not as receiving but as demanding.
Finally, I believe w have to go b ck to th. basic ouestion
which has been begged for the last five years. IS it right
to assume that as the prowrtion of children increases who
at school reach the level of attainment hitherto fefined as
univorsity entrance, there must automatically bo tho same
incroase in post-school education provided by tho state? The
::rouortion-- obtaining in th mid 1950s which has been
elovated intoa kinC of la 7 of nature, od no more validity
than any other r2lationship 7hich has come about through a
eris of unconnectof oast ovonts a,nd decisions. e cannot
allow ourselvos to be driven by it into manufaoturing academic
coursos an: places an: toachers at a predetermined rate,
regae:less of content, cuality and. cost. The universities, as
*7" had como to be in tho mif 1950s were linked on the one
banS with th'e school system., on: on th0 other with the socioty
oconomy, of earlier decades. It ould be astonishin if
with the enormous changes both in the schools on the one hand
and the economy on the ether, the sole constant was destined
to be the ratio of univorsity students to I', lo ols in the GOT.
I rould sum up, then, by offorini--, thoso br000sitions.
• reduction in the nrospectivo rate of ineroaso of total
state =enditure on education'isoimperative.
2. 7he -nrosnoctive rote of inc, oase of exaniture on tho
school system is aonsidrably loer than the_rest. Thy revis-
ion should tend to shift tho balance in favour of th: schools.
/Tn ainin. •
PO'TLL - 15 -
3. In examining the growtn of 'public extyenditure on post-
school education, we ought to iCentify those elements which
f.irectly meet economic dem -lido. Like other investment under-
taken on the orospect of firect economic return, these could,
and increasingly should, be finance( without call on
71.110licfuds.
L . There is no s7oecific relationship between education and
7- L:iv:_m rate of economic growth, ner does aducaton cause gro tie. There is no economic oresumetion in favour of any
earticular rate of increase of ioost-school education.
are free to deci e on the rate at which th stat shall afford
that incfease in the light of general financial and economic
considerations and of the quality and content of that education.
5. There is no presumotion in fa'our of any earticular ratio
of further and higher education to school education, and no
reaa.on to assume that the volume of oost-school educT:tion,
mndt necessarily .expanf -t the same rato as tin:, school poo-
ul tion generally or of sixth forms in -particular.
- • There is no -eresamotion that higher teachin:: staff can
he increas di, without loss of quality, as fast as the number
of Dotential students increases. mze and c7uality of strff
should be r arded as setting the cuter limit to thi: rate of
excousica of further and hi,r:,h .-22. education. • V! Extra6t from speech bV the Rt. Hon. J. Enoch Powell, M.P. at a Public Meeting at the Town Hall High Wycombe at 8.1" .m. Friday, 21 June 1968.
There is a point when even the British willingness to accept blame and carry the can comes to an end, and when even we cry out: "En- ough is enough". For years we have lain down and let other countries walk over us. They have told us that we suffered from inflation; so we pocketed our pride and admitted our guilt 44 indeed, there was no denying the fact. They hav told us that we do not grow fast enough and that our economy is slow and backward; we s*allowed the taunt almost greedily. They have told us that our exports are priced too high, and that we are not competitive; we acdepted the accusa- tion as if *it were as plain as the nose on our face. "Then", cried all the other nations in chorus, "these are the reasons why you are always in trouble and coming to us begging for help. So be asha_ed of yourselves and do better and imitate us, 47you British, the sick men of Europe". I say, we have hr,d enough of this. It is time we stood up and told our accusers where the get off. Who dares talk about inflation? Our record for retaining the purchasing power of our money,
though nothing to boast about on the other side -2-
of the Atlantic, is superior in recent years to that of most other European countries. Why, in France and Germany they have been bewailing tUeir economic stagnation, and since the mid 1960's their "growth" record has been nothing at all to write home about. As for not being competitive, why has France been so anxious to 7;_eep us aut of the Common 1+-AEket, and why have we been offering freedom of trade not only to EFTA, where it has become a reality, but to the rest of Western Europe as well, and would offer it to countries on the other side of the Atlantic too, if there were a ghost of a chance that they would look at it? Yet all this time Firance and Germany have been piling up surpluses and gold and a surfeit of dollars, while we have been lurching from one currency crisis to another and forced to take our cap round with monotonous regularity. This is nothing to do with their inflation and our infla- tion, their growth rate and our growth rate, their competitiveness and our competitiveness. It isn't, and it can't be. It is because their money has been undervalued while our money has been over- valued. At the expense of our national pride and self-confidence, as well as indebtedness to other countries and repeated violent interference with the course of our own economy, we have been forced to maintain our money at a price, in terms of other money, at which our payments do not balance. For a long time we have accepted this role without complaint, and even with a certain perverse pride. I once said that we treated the dollar parity of the sterling as a sort of "national totem". Perhaps the reason why we did so for so long and so meekly islasbecausE ordinary people did not realise the conse- quences and the extent to which they were being put upon. But the thing has now gone beyond all endurance, and the moment is coming when we shall have to get up and address the world as follows: "Gentlemen, henceforward the sterling shall be worth what it is worth, no more and no less. That 1- to say, its value shall be the figure, whateve that may be from time to time, at which demand to sell sterling and buy other currencies balances the demand to buy sterling and sell other currencies. Henceforward, Britons and foreigners alike will be free to buy and sell sterling as they theivikfit at whatever price it commands. Apres vous, messieurs; we a,e not afraid"4 • Speech by the Rt. Hon. J. Enoch Powell, L.P. to the Midsummer meeting of the Esher Comservativ ,;omens Advisory committee at St. George's Lill Lawn Tennis Club, ,eybridge, 11.40 a.m. Tuesday, 18th June 1968.
On ',aterloo Day it is worth pausing to take counsel of our glorious past. The twin victories of Waterloo and Trafalgar, and their two heroes, Thllington and Yelson, are built into the very fabric of our self-knowledge. The Englishman can not imagine his history without them. Yet they have lessons to teach us about ourselves whidn we badly need to learn today. They were battles for the safety of these islands. They were battles for the future of testern Europe, with which the safety of these islands is bound up for ever by the unchangeable facts of geography. The proud aspiration which Pitt the founger had put into the mouths of his fellow countrymen was tosafe themselves by their exertions and Europe by their example. Our fore- fathers of that heroicage did not regard such a
role as beneath their dignity because it was not 0
world-wide peace-keeping; nor did they scorn Pitt, Nelson and Wellington as "little Englanders" because they placed the British Isles at the centr of their concern and their pride. If they could return and observe how we talk and behave today, the men of Waterloo would wonder what strange abbeAtion had cane over their descendants, so uncharacteristic of the realism and sturdy commonsense which John Bull used to typify. They would hear a navy designed to defend Britain sneeringly described as a "coastal navy" and they would be astonished to find the sailors and the politicians alike engaged in endless discussion about something called "a presence in the Indian Ocean". Long before Nelson the Royal Navy won engagaments in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific; but the triumphants fleets of the Napoleonic jars never botched their essential
4.•1110 task of destroying the enemy in the AtlanticArtikait "011.4a444.44, ampillims which the Royal Navy of our own time, for Worldwide patrol and peace-keeping,
, almost to the point -3-
1*-1:/4-Z41, hr01 .461" ia pf disaster,: Young Arthur :Tellesley had won his spurs and fashioned his genius on campaigh in Gujerat and the Deccan; but the Iduke of ,ellington would have given short shrift to a British Army that despised the battlefields of Europe for something known as "real soldiering" around the fringes of Arabia, or somethin; else known as "putting out brush fires" on tne other side of the world. In Spain, in France, in Flanders - that was where the prowess of "iellinton's arms was most needed and best displayed. The Commonwealth Becretary A;as reported last week as saying in Kuala Lumpur; "I have no doubt that the strong Britain that will emerge" - he meant, (believe it or not) from the Labour Government's administration - %ill be a Q.lobal Britain, not a Eritain of European isolationists, still less of Little Englanders". Te must cure ourselves, before it is too late, of this peculiar disease which causes us to see whit is near 'inct real and vital as tiny and unimportant; and what -.4-
is remote and irrelevant and &lax= delusQl'y large 4Ad solid. .:hat is the matter with us that we, alone of all the nations ucon earth, have planted the centre of our world in scme oth hemisphere - in India, in South.,,ast Asia, in Central Africa - anywhere, in short, out where we are, anywhere but where we live'r This is the
reason why,in retrospect, our history of the la twenty years seems to have been one long series of retreats and humiliations, from Zuez to Aden, from Cyprus to ahodesia - the corsecuences of having never exerted ourselves except where we were weak. The only result is that ,we end lay despising ourselves and despairing of ourselves. Every healtty nation sees itself as being at the centre of things. Indeed they are ri.ht. For them that is th,- centre. 2he man of the world for a Frenchman has Paris in the centre, for an Italian; aome, for an Israeli Jerusalem. For the Americans the :Teo - :orld is the centrepiece, with the east shore of the Atla tic at one extremity • -5- and the west shore of thetPecific at the other. As for the Chinese,t- 44Le they not "the middle kindom"? Let us rub our eyes, wake up, and say to ourselves: "fOr us the centre of the world, the centre of our world, is Britain. For us the world radiates outwards from4here and so does ou effect, our influence and our interest". A natio which is always assuring itself that it is "still great" is like a man taking his temperature every half7hour - a fair indication that he is mentally if not physically. It is time this
nation reverted to3 defiant pride in bein,E what we actually are, an industrial nation that will top 70 millions by about the end of the century, an island blessed by situation with a wonderful accessibility to all the continents and oceans, yet a people linked by history and fact with the adjacent mainland of ''Testern Europe. Economically we are worth what this island has to sell, no less and no more. 3trategically, we are as stron -8- as our ability to defend this island, with allies or, in extremity, if it be possible, without them. aspire neither to duminate other nations and peoples nor to impose uoon their future the pattern which seems right to us, any more than we admit their right or their ability to dictate our own future. Our influence, as in the days of Pitt) ought to be ix that of our example, the example of a nation that knows itself and shapes its actions ard its policies by what it really is. IlEve spoken more than once of -esterri,
-Europe. Looking from Britain, we ought always to use that more accurate term rather than the vague word "Europe" by itself; for every European nation has a different Europe; Eurooe is different viewed from London, Athens, L:unich or Varsaw. In that 'estern Europe to which we are so closely bound our closest neighbour of all is France. X xixtJtaxxlzxxkitxxiiXtxxxxxxxxxximxtxxi It is as near as one can come to an axiom of British polio
that the strength and stability of -irarce are in • -7- tte highest interest of Britain, and that the deeper and stronger the understanding between France and Britain, the securer will be this counry's safety and the surer the conduct of its Policy. This might seem a paradoxical thing to say on -:laterloo Day of all days, and above all on Ylaterloo Bmy 1968 when a long series of events over recent years has found our two countries at loyerheads. At this moment there are all too many people who seem ready to relish the agony through which France is passing and to regard anything which humiliates her as so much gain to Britain. I say, they could not be more mistaken. On the contrary, the conditions as well as the need for entente between Britain and France exist today as never before - and for a reason too little understood. Until yesterday Britain had for a century an a half been not one nation but two. The Indian &Mire was a fact which placed its stamp on 150 years of our history. Durin:z. all that neriod our -8- concern for the security of the British Isles was equalled by our concern for the security of that long, tenuous link which joined Britain and India together. It was concern for that link which made Britain a it;trrepesn. power; it was that which made us an African power; it was that which made us a Uiddle Eastern power. Today we neither can nor need be any of these things because we are no longer one with India; and the almost i-2relevance of the closing of the Suez Canal which has turned the Eediterranear Sea for us into a pudding bag, has sy.mbolised that fact in physical terms. But a long as the India-British Empire existedBritain pursued not one policy in Europe but two - one concerned with the safety of the British Ides, the other with the maintenace of supremacy in the Mediterranean a d the Wear 9nd middle East; and the one policy often co_flicted fatefully with the other. The two most disastrous periods of mis- trust and hostility between Franceand Britain, -9-
the years before 1904 and the years between the two wars, were due more than anything else to thi double orientation of British policy and our overwhelming preoccupation with the route to Indi- Both came hear to costing us our existence. 7ow at last we revert to singleness of out- look. Hence forward for us the Yediterranean is the southern flank of Europe, particularly of our Europe, which is also most nearly, thougtinot precisely, France's Europe. Henceforward our policy in Europe is directed singly to the security of that 1estern littoral which embraces our own islands; and in that so far as human prudence and foresight go, the interests of France ard of Britain can never be separate. , Extract from speech by the Rt Hon.J.Enoch Powe to the Annual General Meeting og the Association 411of Conservative Clubs, Church House, Westminster, 11.45 a.m., Saturday 15th June 1968.
To-day we stand almost precisely at the mid poluit of the statutory life of this parliament, a point from which we can survey in retrospect and in prospect this phase in the history of the Tory party. For opposition can be much more in the life of a party than a period of enforced sojourn in the wilderness. It can and should be a period of formative, creative activity, right up to the hour of resuming power. Opposition is not just a disagreeable interruption in the nor- mal course of administration. It is itself an integral part of the governance of England, a time of absorbing excitement)when a political party is called upon once again to catch the mood and ins-tinct of the people and find new words to give it voice. There are three distinct aspects of opposition No two of them are complete without the third. The first is to restate a philosuphy, a view life, society and the nation, nnd show how that view has its application to all the political and legislative decisions that a goverbment must tak The public must understand broadly what a party stands for. If we assert our belief in the sovereign virtue of individual choice, expressed 2
through private owbership and private enter- 0 prise, we have to prove it by more than $0.p- service or abstract reasoning. We have to show that we are ready to criticise and, if need be, to alter even the most deeply entrenched insti- tutions, like the nationalised industries or the welfare state, from the standpoint of Our stated principles. The first necessity for con- vincing others is to be convinced oneself, and to be seen to be convinced. The second aspect of opposition is to pre- sent a practical and reasoned alternative in all the junctures of the nation's life which call for government or parliamant to act. In th face of devaluation, or of control of wages and prices, or of rising taxation, or of indus- trial dissension, it is necessary not only to give voicte to public dissatisfaction and alarm that is certainly necessary - but also to offer a firm and clear interpretation of the cause of the predicament and therefore of its cure. What is the basic nature of the problem? What m Must be the main lines of any solution7The public cannot be expected to approve the answe unless te 1,:e--;-tions are put before them in a form that common sense can understand. Govern- ments have often a strong preference for ob- scurity. The work of opposition thrives on clarity. "The people have a right to know", is 3
the message of opposition;"and if the govern- IIIment will not give the explanation, here at least is our own analysis and here is our an- swer". It is perhaps in this second aspect of ( opposition that the Conservative Party has been most successful in the recent past.
\>>— 'Ale third function of opposition is to re- act, and by reacting not only to express the sense of a section (often a large section) of the electorate but to illustrate the depth and genuinexness of one's own philosophy and policy by the attitude taken up towards the sudden, th unexpected and the menacing. This reaction is not the reaction of the detached observer or irresponsible commentator, bmt that of a party which shows by its reaction how it might itself be expected to behave. Just as a sudden questio van often jerk out the truth, so a party's re- action to the unforeseen can be an indieation of its character and purpose, an indication which the public are quick to sense and inter- pret. Let us take a case this very week. The peopl of this country, by an overwhelming majority, have been shocked and angered by the Govern- ment's decision, first to admit to this country at all, and then to permit to remain for an extended, period, an alien whose avo*wed purpose 3..s to promote disorder and encourage othrs in flouting authority. Why, people want to know, do we have to put up at all with somebody who has already made a laughing-stock of two go- vernments in Europe; and why, when he has been admitted on one condition, do we have to alter itimmediately he threatens not to go on tele- vision? When people then hear the Home Secre- tary justify it by saying that Cohn-Bendit "ex pressed a desire to see Buckingham Palace", and that he, the Home Secretary,"could think of nothing better for his education", their cup of indignation runs over. They simply would not understand it if there were no promp and unequivocal rmstlgn from Hor Majesty's Op position. If people/come to feel that their opinions and sentiments are apparently not shared, or worse, if shared, are not expressed by their natural spokesmen, the result would be bewilderment and suspicion - bewilderment at what it is that the parties and the politi- cians purport to represent, and suspicion that by some malign inft uence a tiny mlnority of leftwwing socalled "opinion-formers" have gained the power to frighten politicians of a parties into silence, if not assent.