The French government has announced that six European countries would go ahead with negotiations on the Schuman plan to pool coal and steel resources—without Britain.
The British Government wanted a preliminary conference of Ministers on procedure. France turned this down.
The daily press in the last few months have given the Schuman plan a great deal of publicity. The British government has been reluctant to commit itself, and by requesting that discussions be held in order to clarify the practical application of the French proposals, hoped to avoid friction with the French government without having to either commit itself or give a complete rejection of the plan.
The chief point of the Schuman plan is the scheme to pool the coal and steel resources of western Europe.
The British Labour Party in April, 1950, published a pamphlet on behalf of the so-called International Socialist Conference which met at Witten, Ruhr, Germany, in March, 1950. The pamphlet, an individual work by W. Fienburgh, is entitled “International Control of Basic Industries.”
On page 2 he states under the heading “ The present position in the basic industries” the following:—
“Europe is nearing the end of a period during which, as far as the basic raw materials are concerned, demand has outstripped supply." On the same page he states “ . . . there is ample evidence that the main producing nations are expanding towards export targets which, in sum, exceed the import programmes of the importing nations of Western Europe and may exceed also the effective demand anticipated from the rest of the world. This raises the possibility of a restriction of expansion and production accompanied by a price war in European and world markets.”
He goes on “. . . To avoid these consequences it is essential, before the event is upon us, to make some approach to inter-European organisation in the basic industries.”
After stating that today, supply and demand in coal and steel at least are almost in balance, and talking about the possibility of a restriction of expansion and production he states on page 3, under the heading “The Aims of International Control,”—“International control should be designed to ensure that the basic industries were expanding fast enough and efficiently enough to meet the maximum demand for the product in the whole area, plus whatever export volume is needed to meet the over-all Western European balance of payments problem. Assessment of demand should be based upon the maintenance of full employment.”
If the supply has caught up or nearly caught up with the demand on the market, why all the plans for International control to ensure that the basic industries were expanding fast enough? One of the ideas as explained later in the pamphlet is “To gain the advantages of Rationalisation,” that is the most economical use of resources leading to greater over-all efficiency and lower costs.
This is the real reason of the plan. Talk of ensuring that the basic industries are expanding fast enough is put in to make the scheme attractive to workers seeking employment or who are fearing losing their jobs. For on page 4 he writes: —
“International control should ensure that basic industries do not expand production faster than the ability of the rest of the industry to consume the product.”
Like most members of the Labour Party he believes that by state control the government can run the economic life of the country according to plan.
Despite their failures they still draft new plans as fast as the old ones prove their bankruptcy. W. Fienburgh puts the cart before the horse when he states “The full employment economy is expansionist. The unemployment economy is restrictive.”
In actual fact the expansionist economy tends to lead to full employment, but when after a war the shortages are made up by the expansionist economy, capitalism reverts to the restrictive economy which leads to large scale unemployment.
The conclusions given by W. Fienburgh at the end of the first half of the pamphlet are interesting. Firstly he states:—
“It should be firmly noted that we cannot hope, through international control of basic industries, to impose socialism on countries which have not accepted it at the moment.” The fact that Socialism cannot be imposed on countries which have not accepted it is correct. However when a member of the Labour Party speaks of socialism he means state capitalism. Secondly he states ”. . . that each country should run its economy with the objective of maintaining full employment . . .”
It should be apparent that the economy of the country is not run with the objective of maintaining full employment, but is run with the idea of making a profit for the members of the capitalist class.
The competitive nature of the capitalist system, the economic rivalry between the national states for raw materials and markets for the commodities they produce, foredoom all the plans for international control of the basic industries to failure.
To sum up the scheme by an understatement, we quote the final sentence on page 8 of the pamphlet. “On balance the prospects of immediate internationalisation seem dim.”
D.L.
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