Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 15 Rhagfyr 1949.
Not only the House but, after all, the country are entitled to an answer. Was it because the publication of the accounts and of even the amount of the big subscribers would show that his party is being financed by industrialists who have plans for the future of this country quite different from the rosy promises given in "The Right Road for Britain"? Let me just give one example to the House. "The Right Road for Britain" says:
We steadfastly refuse to combat our immediate difficulties by deliberately forcing a reduction in our living standards through lowering wage levels or injuring our social services. To do so. would be to embrace a policy of despair.
But this is just a policy of despair which is embraced by the paymasters of the Tory Party.
I do not know if anyone on the other side of the House will be able to tell us how much the group of financial interests which is centred round the United Dominions Trust and the Austin Motor Company have contributed to the Woolton Fund or, indeed, whether they have contributed at all; but their principal spokesman, Mr. Gibson Jarvie, talks as only a man would talk who is in a position to see his policy enforced. Hon. Members may have noticed that in this morning's Press this Mr. Gibson Jarvie was the gentleman who was chosen to explain to the Austin shareholders why they should pay Mr. Lord £100,000 tax free; but, of course, in an article which was circulated by the Aims of Industry,—and I will deal with them in a few minutes—Mr. Gibson Jarvie explains that he has quite another policy for the man in the street:
Cuts of a few hundred million, some of which are not immediate, are only one more expedient. Although five hundred million was
the least cut we were entitled to expect, it is obvious, to anyone who understands our position, that a cut of nearer a thousand million should be our target….
But if this is the financiers' policy, and the other, "The Right Road for Britain," is the policy of the Conservative Party, why do these financiers contribute to Conservative funds? Do these financiers believe—and I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will deal with this argument—that they can, as the German financiers did, compel the party which relies on their secret financial support to accept their policy? Is it because of pressure from those paying for their propaganda that the party opposite are already hedging on the glib promises made in "The Right Road for Britain"?
Of course, hon. Gentlemen opposite are right in their Amendment in this sense, that it is no use compelling the publication, for example, of Tory funds unless one deals, for example, with underground Tory organisations. But our Motion, I suggest to the House, already advocates that, for example, under-cover political bodies, like the Aims of Industry and the Economic League, should tell the public just where they get their money from and just what they do with it. There is, of course, nothing wrong whatsoever in a business arguing its own case before the public and then leaving them free to judge the issue. What is objectionable—and I hope this will be endorsed from all sides of the House—is for an organisation to pretend to have no political aims and thus secure from commercial concerns Income Tax-free and Profit Tax-free contributions which are then used for political action.
The first of these bodies which my hon. Friends and I suggest should publish separate accounts showing the political expenses that it incurs is the Federation of British Industries to which are affiliated 280 trade associations and 6,000 firms. Recently its retiring president, Sir Frederick Bain, of Imperial Chemicals, said that the Federation is not a political body. Of course, they all have to say that if they are to have tax-free contributions. The new president who took his place, Sir Robert Sinclair, of the Imperial Tobacco Company, explained just how in practice the F.B.I. implemented its impartiality. He said:
I believe in stating with all the emphasis at our command and on every possible
occasion the case against nationalisation, State ownership or State management in any degree, including, of course, State control of what are generally called the terminal markets, the Cotton Market, the Metal Market, and so forth.
But unfortunately F.B.I., as they explained in a circular to their members after their meeting in 1949, have not quite enough funds for all this non-political activity in which they indulge, and they therefore advised their members to subscribe to two other non-political bodies, the Economic League and the Aims of Industry.
As hon. Members know, the Economic League has a broad, non-party council, of which, perhaps, the most important member—and I am sorry he is not in the House—is the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers). [Interruption.] Oh, yes, so he is here. If the hon. Member for Orpington has the good fortune to catch your eye, Sir, he will be able to stress the non-party aspect of his organisation.
What I was going to remind the House of was that when it was formed in 1925—I am quoting from the 1925 report—the objects of the League were given as
To disseminate economic knowledge, particularly (a) to combat the fallacious economic doctrines of Collectivism, Socialism, and Communism, and (b) to uphold individual freedom, enterprise and initiative.
I take it that it has been carrying on on the same non-party lines ever since.
The other organisation recommended by the F.B.I., the Aims of Industry, Limited, is, of course, just as the Economic League, impartial and non-political. Hon. Members may have received some of its publications. There is one that says,
Housewives, a word in your ear! Don't shoot your butcher. He's not to blame for tough meat, poor quality, tiny rations. The cause is State bulk purchase of meat and State control of distribution.