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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 1241.PDF
having failed to secure any satisfaction at the last attempt, has given notice that he will raise it again in the House and we trust he will find the Under- secretary in more informative mood when he does. • • • An Inter-Allied Parliamentary Com- An mittee, on which Great Britain, France, International ItaIy and Belgjum were represented, pendent'' nas passed a series of resolutions dealing Air Force with the problems of the War and after. Among the resolutions is one to the effect that : " The Committee urges upon the Govern- ments associated in the war the necessity of constitut- ing an inter-Allied Independent Air Force for the pur- pose of overcoming, if need be, the last resistance of the enemy, by a campaign of raids over his territory, and suggests that the most effective method of accom- plishing this would be by common industrial control of the production of aeronautical material." Admirable as the idea is in the abstract, it is a bit late in the day to advance it now. For all we know a general armistice may have been proclaimed before "these lines appear in print. In any case, we know that even if Germany, isolated and deserted by all her allies, elects to fight the war out to the bitter end, she cannot prolong her resistance for more than another six months at the outside. To attempt to set up all the machinery for a common industrial control of production now would be redundant. It would take more than the six months, which is by common consent the extreme future duration of the War. Moreover, the Allies' power in the air has now asserted itself to be so overwhelmingly superior to that of Germany that it does not seem as though any useful purpose would result from a change in our methods either in administration, command or production. It is eminently a case of letting well alone. Moreover, upon mature reflection, we do not at all like the sound of a "common industrial control." What we are all thinking about now is how to get rid of all the "control " which the War has fixed upon us and certainly not of how we are to extend the principles and incidence of the incubus. Already the aircraft industry in this country has so far passed into Government control that we fear it will be diffi- cult for it to free itself entirely from the trammels. That being the case, we are certainly not going to sub- scribe to the doctrine that a further extension of the control business, common or otherwise, would be a good thing. Indeed, we doubt if the common indus- trial control idea would have been a good thing, even if it had been evolved at the outset of the War. On the whole, the resources of the Allies have not been badly co-ordinated, considering that the whole organisation for production had to be created from a mere nucleus. It has taken us a long time, it is true, to establish the necessary preponderance of power over the enemy, but we have so established it and it is too late now to talk about modifying or altering the system under which it has been achieved. Speaking at the National Liberal Club LAfterr the other day> Mx- C1ynes' the Minister the War °f Food, who is one of the soundest ofthe Labour representatives in Parlia- ment, addressed a strong warning to both Capital and Labour on the questions that will arise after theWar. He pointed out that problems will arise which can only be solved by securing happier relations NOVEMBER 7, 1918 between the two sides. The whole body of employers and the State, acting through Parliament, he said, could do much to create the right spirit in the mind of Labour by understanding that Labour would not remain a submissive victim of any system which it considered to be unfair. Even if Labour were wrong it had the power of numbers, and that quality for wealth production which was reposed in muscle, so that it could for a considerable time place the country at its mercy. But this was exactly what Labour should try to avoid, and in order that it should be avoided employers and the State should take every reasonable step to reconcile Labour to a just accept- ance of a particular system, rather than leave Labour in a temper of serious discontent, or in actual revolt against a new system— We agree entirely with the point of view enunciated, though we should like to add that, in addition, Labour should take every reasonable step to arrive at a full understanding of all the factors in a particular situation before allowing itself to relapse into a state of dis- content or revolt. We have written elsewhere about the strike at Aintree, which seems to come under the heading of the cases in which Labour has not taken the trouble to acquaint itself with the whole of the facts before breaking out into active revolt. We have certainly no desire to cause controversy where there should be peace, but we cannot refrain from expressing the view that the attitude of Labour during the War has not invariably been characterised by that spirit of reasonableness that Mr. Clynes admires so much. The Government, Mr. Clynes told his audience, will keep its pledge to restore the trade union restrictions on output after the war, but he appealed to Labour not to enforce those restrictions, because the whole of the conditions have changed during the past four years. It would be injurious to Labour itself to wipe out the scientific methods of production which the war has compelled us to adopt. Furthermore, it would be a grave injustice to turn adrift the host of unskilled workers, and women whose bread-winners have given their lives during the War. Unfortunately, the Government has given its word that the methods of the trades unions shall be re- stored as soon as the War is over. There was nothing for it but to concede the point at the time the hands of the Government were forced by the unions. Had the point not been conceded we should have lost the War through sheer inability to produce essential supplies of munitions and war material It is as well that we should speak quite plainly on the matter, because it leads up to another and almost equally important point. Now, there is no manner of doubt, as we have said, that if we had tried to produce our war material under the system of output restric- tion insisted upon by the unions we should have been defeated and neither the unions nor their methods would have been of any further interest to anyone. If we go back to those methods after the War we shall lose the industrial fight that is to come. If we scrap the scientific methods we have adopted during the War, and which have brought our basis of individual production almost up to that of the United States, we might as well lie down quietly and give up the attempt to reconstruct our industries. The question that remains unsolved is : Will British Labour take the long-sighted view ? If it does, then we have no doubts as to the future of our industries. If it does not, and if it persists in returning to the pre-War 1242
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