Property Draft

The question of whether war industry should be run under public or private control is not confined to the U. S. It is a live, disruptive issue in embattled Britain at the present fateful moment.

Last May when Parliament passed the Emergency Powers Defense Act, the British Government became potential boss of the whole British works. The Government thereupon said it would draft materials, workers and factories, as well as fighters, into the war against Adolf Hitler. The Government has long since drafted materials. But it was not until last January that it announced plans for drafting workers (TIME, Feb. 3). And it was not until last week that it announced plans for drafting factories.

All this time, behind the scenes, the Churchill Government has been persistently lobbied by private interests working against the conscription of private property. They have said it would be Fascistic or Communistic or Socialistic or just plain unpractical. Sometimes they have really meant something by their words. And sometimes they have merely used words to cover acquisitive purposes.

Meanwhile private property in Britain has remained private property. Britain's industrial war effort has been run through bodies similar to the NRA in each of the key wartime industries.

Last week's Government plans were announced by spruce, aristocratic Captain Oliver Lyttelton, President of the Board of Trade. For months Britain has cut the production of consumers' goods by price controls, taxes, limitations on supplies, propaganda. The aim has been to free labor for war industries, prevent inflation, encourage investment in war securities as against general spending. As a result most consumers'-goods industries have recently worked only part time, often at as little as 20% of capacity. Last week Captain Lyttelton pointed out that these part-time operations were eating up the factories' working capital "in the hope that conditions might improve."

He said the Government would now concentrate the production of consumers' goods--such as textiles, hosiery, pottery, shoes, gloves, corsets, furniture, gramophones, perfumes--in a few full-time "nucleus" factories, thus freeing the other "redundant" factories for war production or storage. The "nucleus" factories would manufacture not only for their owners but also--under the appropriate trademarks and labels--for the "redundant" factories taken out of production. Profit pools would be worked out in each case.

The output would be allocated on the priority basis of: 1) a maximum for exports; 2) an adequacy for Government needs; 3) a minimum for domestic, civilian needs. Captain Lyttelton warned that the industries in question and their workers would be given five months to reach agreements with the Government, that where agreements had not been reached by that time the Government would do whatever it wanted.

He thought the scheme would involve 70 to 80 industries, would free 250,000 to 750,000 workers for war industry in addition to the 100,000 already transferred without factory drafting. Specifically, he predicted that the "redundant" cotton-textile industry would furnish 50,000 workers, the woolen-textile industry 40,000. The proposal raised many carefully muffled objections from factory owners. How would the pools work? Wouldn't the "nucleus" factories have a decided jump on the others when peace came? Wasn't it all Fascistic? But the average Briton-on-the-street was encouraged. Though he may have no detailed notions on the subject of public v. private control, he is fervently committed to the idea that private property as well as persons should be subject to conscription in the Empire's emergency. Last week the Briton-on-the-street was inclined to agree with the Manchester Guardian, which growled: "The broad principles and purpose of the plan will arouse no criticism. It is twelve or eighteen months overdue, that is all."

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