from Jim Stevens
The Economist which piloted the call for a wage standstill, and has been a persistent advocate of American policy in Vietnam is now calling for the nationalisation of the aircraft industry. We wonder whether Mr. Wilson and his team will fret this piece of advice as they have followed so many other ones. It is interesting that the paper should make this call at this time and it illustrates a fact that left wingers have know for a long time: the capitalists and their conscious representatives have no hesitation in supporting nationalisation if it is in their wider interest as a class. It makes all the more relevant the calls, which are gaining wider curreacy in the labour movement, for nationalisation to be carried out under workers! control, No one will see the Economist advocating that! The call was made in the major article in the Business section of the September 3rd issue entitled, "Nationalise an be Damed!". +his article concluded, after reviewing the state of the industry: "..."hy the Government does not accept the logic of nationalisation in industry: in this situation is difficult to explain. The industry itself # would be unlikely to oppose it, although companies may put a fairly fancy price on their assets, For, apart from the monopoly aspects, a public ~ corporation run on the lines of the Atomic Energy Authority is probably theonly satisfactory way of obtading an extensive research programme in an e expensive and rapidly developing industry. There are obviously some things no British aircraft industry could touch now; ...elike light aircraft because successful production requires really big turnover and then returns are minimal. "But there are fields that the industry obviously should work on. Some, becatise, like variable sweep wings, they represent a basic advance in design; some because, like vertical take-off, the expertise is here and the market is probably not big enough world-wdde to make it worth the Americans! wg while to duplicate it. If the aircraft turn out to be good enough, the services should buy them, but it ought also to be a principle of firstifr importance that the security of this country is not jeopardised in order tb to keep the aircraft industry happy. "Nor, for that matter, should the commercial viatility of the sircraft corporations be jeopardised, It is impossible to feel entirely at ease about the Government's decision to order British Buropean Airways to buy British to the probable tune of £80 million in the next four or five years. But atl least let this money be spent where it will do most good, and that is in developing dhe newest of the three British candidates, namely the BAV One Eleven, zather than the older Trident or the VC 10. A policy of developing the One leven as comparable American aircraft will certainly be developed, would be proper planning, Anything else will be pxtching, and the industry has had enough of that. But has the Government? The course is plain enough nationalise and be dammed,”