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TRANSITION TO THE PEACE-TIME ECONOMY
Now I turn to the special measures for the transition. As I said at the outset, the transition is an entirely different problem. We shall have to exercise extraordinary care in the transition period. If we do not adopt the right measures then, we may not be able to adopt them at an early date. One must feed into the other. That is vital. To do it, there has to be national discipline. I do not suggest that we shall need all the controls that have operated during the war, but let me mention one or two. Let us assume for a moment that everybody is agreed that the export trade has to be revived. The home market will be clamouring for goods; are we to start on the export trade when we have satisfied the home market? I suggest that if we wait, we shall have lost our export market. Therefore, we shall have to ration supplies for the home market, to reserve a proportion, and to begin building up goodwill and trade for our exports. It is no use people turning this thing into a political conflict. It is a question of absolutely essential measures.
The same thing applies in the home market. One of the things that have carried us through this war is that people accept the view that if we have not always been fair we have done our best to be fair. This deferred buying means a pent up purchasing power. Millions of women will still go to work while lots of others will have time on their hands when they are released. If you want to keep peace in this country and not have disturbance, the woman who goes to work and has not the same advantage in shopping must be able to get her sheets, blankets, and other domestic utensils on exactly the same terms as those who have plenty of time on their hands. These are simple domestic things, and some form of rationing will be absolutely essential until the market is full. We do not know what the food situation will be in Europe for a considerable time after the war. No one can foresee it. There may be a great strain on the foodstocks of the world. Who, then, would be foolish enough to say, immediately the balloon goes up and the Armistice is signed, "Away with controls." You must keep order by maintaining these things, and a sense of fairness right throughout the community.
Then we have to make a selection, according to our use of raw materials for home production of the industries we can start up and develop. We have not foreign investments from which to buy anywhere. We have to get from abroad things that we can turn into finished products which will maintain our purchases of foreign materials. Therefore, control of raw materials is absolutely vital for a considerable period after the war. In that, there may be difficulties about patches of unemployment, but I can assure the House that we shall utilise all the experience we have gained during the war in order to get over them. I have been asked whether this will involve the direction of labour. It may not, but I do not believe I should have any difficulty, if it takes a long time to re-tool an industry in a given place and if I have an industry 20, 30 or 40 miles away, in making temporary arrangements, to develop where I can develop, during this interim period. The working people of this country are not unreasonable. They have common sense like everybody else, and I am certain that, handled properly, this thing can be got over without any very great difficulty.
Mr. Loftus (Lowestoft) Not as a permanency?
Mr. Bevin No, purely in the transitional period. You cannot switch over. There will be co-operation among all parties to maintain stability and order while we get on to a more stable level and can see where we are. Another very important thing we must do during this period is to keep up the savings effort, to maintain the surplus savings of the country. That must be done. We must control the use of capital and access to the capital market. All these devices are intended to give the Government of the day a stable, steady position during the transition, so that they can devote their minds and attention to working out by an ordinary method, the more permanent conditions.
I conclude by commending the Motion to the House, with this word: It is not final, it is pioneering, it is blazing a new trail. It is turning our backs on the old system. It is introducing, as against automatic control, conscious direction. It places a great responsibility upon Parliament and upon the Government of the day, and the integrity of its action: to have in its hands the direction of the economic life of the country as it wills, is not something to be taken lightly. But having taken on that responsibility, then with the great standard that has been built up in our Civil Service, with the standard of our public conduct in dealing with these affairs, and with our great traditions in public life, both local and national, we can with safety start out on this road this week and begin to say that we have left the old vexed disease of unemployment behind us.