The State in Business: Or the Collectivist State in the Making (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The State in Business: Or the Collectivist State in the Making

HE battle that is being waged against Nationaliza T tion is extraordinary, both in volume and intensity. The public ownership of services and undertakings has always been opposed by those whose pockets would thereby be affected, and, as a matter of course, also by the Press and all other organs of opinion controlled or influenced by the same interests, but it was not until the appearance of the reports of the Coal Commission early in 1919 that the big coal-owing interests and their associates realized the force of opinion that they were up against, and saw that they really did run a risk of losing their hold on the industry out of which they were making large fortunes. They were exceedingly wroth with Mr. Justice Sankey on account of the statement in the interim report signed by that gentleman as Chairman, and three other members of the Coal Commission (none of them nominated by the miners), that even upon the evidence already given the present ownership and working in the coal industry stands condemned, and some other system must be substituted for it.

All possible means of influencing public Opinion have been employed to prevent the community from removing any further services or industries from the domain of private profit to that of public service. Meetings of shareholders have been called, and chairmen's speeches directed against Nationalization have been advertisedat great length in the newspapers; pamphlets and publications have been given away. By the hundred thousand, attempting to prove how injurious to the community it would be if the mining and delivery of coal were to be placed on the same footing as the collection and delivery of letters and parcels, the re moval of household refuse, and the provision of a drainage system; the greater part of the Press, which, it is only too well known, is owned and controlled by the rich, has carried on a long and bitter campaign against Nationalization; in short, everything that money, power, and influence could do has been done to persuade the great public that feeling generally is wholly opposed to the principle of Nationalization everything has been done, I say, except that which would reveal the relatively small number of people this organized campaign against Nationalization represents. There have been no Hyde Park demonstrations, and not even an Albert Hall meeting against Nationalization of coal mines or any other industry, whereas in every town in the United Kingdom it is easily possible to organize a huge demonstration in favour of national ownership and removal from the sphere of private profit of the coal industry and several others essential to the well being of the community. The fact is-and it is a most dangerous fact - that the mass of the population is rendered inarticulate on account of the Press and other channels of Opinion being in the ownership of a small section of the community - the section which benefits, or thinks it benefits, by the existing state of affairs as a result, things go on until they become unbearable, when there is an explosion similar to the first police strike, the miners' strike, or the railwaymen's strike, this being practically the only method left open to the working masses to show their feelings.

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