S the 18 trade associations queried by George Brown cook up their
answers to his price inquiries, a huge number of price increases have been declared. No less than 200 odd items in the grocery field are to go up in price. They include sausages, frozen foods, sweets, canned vegetables, custard, pickles, toilet items and biscuits. Mr. Brown’s inquiries appear to be intended to lull trade unionists into supposing the type of incomes policy he intends will be “fair.” But the active trade unionist will do well to pay more attention to what his wife has to say about the grocery bill than what the newspapers (nearly all of whom have recently put up their prices) say about the necessity, in the national interest, for wage restraint.
History shows that every attempt to hold back price increases, under capitalism, in conditions where inflationary pressures have been generated by Government policy are useless. | De Gaulle tried this with the full power of the state and failed. The most that can be achieved is a complex system of controls, which if they leave control over manufacture and distribution in the hands of private enterprise lead to artificial shortages and a black market.
If George Brown really wants to do anything in this field he will have to give teeth to a system of consumers’ price control. This means raising the question of access to the books of capitalism. And it means not merely access but power to interfere with the control private capitalists exercise over the manufacture and distribution of commodities. To pose the question any other way is to deceive people and will, be interpreted as mere ‘flannel’ to soften them up to accept wage restraint.
We are extremely glad to see that the Transport and General Workers’ Union, confronted with this situation, decided, when discussing the ‘Declaration of Intent,’ to. adopt with it a reaffirmation of their opposition to wage restraint. Unions must be tensely vigilant in this cause, and must reject all forms of wage restraint. Unless an incomes policy can be based on workers’ inspection of all the accounts and control of profit-levels, expense accounts, and other employer incomes, it can only serve to constrain trade union power,