Debate on the Address

Part of Orders of the Day — King's Speech – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 27 October 1948.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Ivor Thomas Mr Ivor Thomas , Keighley 12:00, 27 October 1948

There are still plenty left. It grieved him to see the donkey eat so much food, and he thought it would be an excellent plan if he could reduce the donkey's diet till, eventually, it could do without food. The plan went very well, but, just as he had accustomed it to doing without food, the donkey died. The poor British donkey is not dead yet. It is still allowed 81 per cent. of its 1938 imports and it is promised a "technically adequate," though "dreary," diet for the next 12 months. Perhaps in 1950, just before the General Election, it will get a carrot. If not, let the master take care, or the donkey may kick.

With nationalisation, a man does at least know where he stands, or he would if the Government could make up their minds about the relationship between Ministers and public boards. But, with planning, nobody knows where he is—except that the private manufacturer would soon he in Carey Street, if he followed the same methods as Whitehall. If I were a private manufacturer, I should feel strongly tempted to say, "If you want my business, take it and pay me out; but if you do not, for heaven's sake leave me alone." But the itching fingers of the planners cannot leave well alone. Their grasping hands stretch far beyond the confines of industry to the man who wants to run up a building for himself and the woman who keeps a pig, or a few hens, in her backyard. The system is supported by elaborate private police forces, of which we all know in our constituencies; and this is not the least disturbing feature of the system.

In the past, some individuals—too few, perhaps—have been able to resist the encroachment of the State because they have retained in their hands the assurance of economic independence; and they have been nuclei round which others could gather. But, on top of the universal control of our economic life, the Government are now wiping out the last vestiges of independence by confiscatory taxation. Not the least of the services rendered by Lord Catto to the country is his blunt warning to the Chancellor that personal saving is incompatible with the present rate of taxation. The disastrous effects on the capital re-equipment of industry were seen between the wars, and the social consequences are no less disquieting. [An HON. MEMBER:" Between the wars?"] Yes, I said between the wars, deliberately. Saving was very much reduced even under the rates of taxation at that time. I say the social consequences have become no less disquieting. Hard work, thrift and honesty no longer pay. The paths of duty today lead but to the tax-gatherer's office. The incentive of financial independence, which has been the mainspring of our economic life for centuries, has disappeared, and nothing has taken its place. Those who have no savings see no point in trying to accumulate any; those who have, are encouraged to spend them before the tax gatherer gets hold of them. The Government have created a paradise for the football pool and the bucket-shop; but they have undermined the foundations of our industrial greatness.

I turn to the fourth aspect I have mentioned, housing policy. There has been one form of saving against which the Government have acted with a harshness peculiarly difficult to understand; that is the ownership of a man's own house. For a man to own the house in which he lives is an expression of his personality. It makes him independent and self-reliant; it gives him roots in the ground and makes him and his family a stable element in society. The building society movement, which has made this possible, is the finest social service of the century. But do the Government want their citizens to be independent and self-reliant? Or do they want them to be docile and obedient? Their housing policy would suggest the latter. They say to people without houses, "Only one of every four of you shall have a chance of owning his own house. The other three shall pay rent to the council."