Labour policy—false and true

by Lynden Livingston Macassey

First and foremost, land is to be nationalized. Many evils and much oppression are attributed to private ownership. Landlords have obstructed every measure of land reform; thwarted food production; obstructed housing, small holdings and land reclamation; demanded extortionate prices for land for public needs and appropriated as unearned increment a large part of the value of every tenant’s improvement. “For the Labour Party” therefore “the substitution of public for private ownership in land (subject to equitable treatment of each person whose property is required for the public good and to a proper security of tenure for the home and the homestead) underlies in principle all its specific proposals.”

Councils for Agriculture

Councils for agriculture are to be constituted for each county, one-third thereof elected by farmers, another one-third by farm labourers and the remaining one-third nominated “by the various public authorities in the county, including the county council, to represent the public interest.” Some good work is credited to the existing county agricultural committees, but they are condemned as hampered by their constitution. Members of the councils would receive travelling expenses and payment for time spent on public service. The primary duty of each council would be to supervise farming in the county and secure and maintain an all round improvement in cultivation, an increase in the area under plough and an aggregate increase in the production of food stuffs. In the event of bad farming, councils would have power to take over the land and cultivate it in the public interest. A Central National Council of Agriculture would advise the Minister of Agriculture.

A Legal Minimum Agricultural Wage

A legal minimum wage (whether on a national or district basis is not stated, but presumably the latter) and standard conditions of employment are to be established for every farm, market garden and fruit orchard worker and gardener in domestic employment, to all of whom the National Unemployment Insurance Scheme would be extended. This in the first instance is to be effected by re-establishing the National Wages Board and County Wages Committees of the Ministry of Agriculture, the abolition of which in 1921 is characterized as a “flagrant breach of faith.” The fund out of which increased wages are to be paid is to be created out of the profits of better farming, increased production, organized marketing, less costly transport, lower retail prices of farmers’ supplies and the elimination of profits now taken by unnecessary middlemen. A national scheme of insurance managed on a co-operative basis by agriculturalists themselves is to be established against the risk of unfavourable weather and sudden falls in world prices.

Workers’ Control of Agriculture

“Democratic control” is to be introduced into the agricultural industry as in other industries, “to supersede the economic dependence of the agricultural worker on the farmer for employment and livelihood with the implication of inferiority involved.” The operation of the councils of agriculture is to be a step towards that end. But the statement of policy is prudently non-committal and the full meaning of “democratic control” and its implications, so far as agriculture is concerned, receives no explanation.

CHAPTER IX
THE LABOUR PARTY’S INDUSTRIAL AND LAND POLICY
2. A CRITICISM

What Capitalism Is—Our Debt to Capitalism—The Alleged Defects of Capitalism—Where Reform is Admittedly Needed—The Failure of Past Socialistic Experiments—Limits within which Nationalization is Practicable—The Different Schemes of Land Nationalization—The Taxing-out Scheme—The State Purchase Scheme—The Socialistic Confiscation Schemes—The Conceptions Underlying Each Scheme—The Disadvantages of State Ownership of Land.