Herewith a loosely wrapped bunch of Ideas—or reflexes—dedicated to the National Party on the occasion of their threat to remove the subsidies on food.

Little sum for you, Hollyhock. Remember that we have never had It so good: that we have a 40- hour week: and an hourly wage of, say, six and six. At M2 on the Ir 12 (that is, a man's keeping the old girl and a couple of sprogs) the result is a take-home pay of just over 12 notes a week.

The heart of the matter is this. One cannot live well on £12 a week, in our present conditions. The lower incomes could be raised in our present conditions. They could be rained further in different, and possible, social conditions. And this—in terms of living standres—is one of the wealthy countries of the world. And yet we are always short of overseas exchange; we cannot sell our food, and our neighbours are hungry. Nor, perhaps, are we In the most healthy of places. A country rich in food, within reach of a hungry continent is living, as they say, on borrowed time.

It is doubtful whether we should go on trying to solve our problems in the time-honoured way of pretending that they do not exist. Yet this is a speciality of the National Party (whom we have just voted in) and of the Labour Party, whom we have thrown out. Therefore, as a radical third party is out of the question, it remains to us to reform the Labour Party.

Good-bye Walter

We could start, perhaps, by getting rid of Walter Nash. (Oh. what an awful thing to say about that dear old man, who has given such long faithful service!) By the time Mr Nash has become a dear old man he should stop being Leader of the Opposition, or he'll never be anything else. Which brings us to the other characteristic that contemporary Labour leaders seem to share (the first being that they are all Conservatives). These old men, Old Wykehamists. Old Etonians, new Earls and prospective peers—they all seem to be much more at ease as Her Majesty's Opposition than as anything else. It is a tenet of their faith that they are unlikely to be put into office except in the 1929 Depression; and if by some mischance they get more votes than anybody else they spend a bewildered term trying to avoid giving offence, and successfully raising the taxes. This last tactic sends them thankfully back to their appointed place on the other side of the House. The worker in their election posters would be closer to life if he was pocketing his depleted wages with the comment, "A man's a Joe Hunt to vote for this bunch ..."

Three Tasks for Radicals

There are three main tasks for a reformed Labour Party in the Sixties.

The first is the unceasing need (" . . . but my dear some of these navvies get more than a schoolteacher does." In that case, lady, you raise both their salaries) for a higher standard of living. Within the country this should be done mainly through increasing the public sector of the economy, and increased control of that large private sector (shops, small businesses and so on) which cannot efficiently be nationalised. High taxation should be used only for levelling incomes—to a certain extent—and not as a primary source of Government funds. The Public Service, with its increased responsibilities, would have to submit to drastic and continuing reform; and wherever possible employees should be displaced or complemented by the mechanical and electronic equipment that will handle probably an increasing amount of the drudgery of administration.

Presumably the progress of production in the U.S.S.R. has disposed of the myth that nationalised Industry is a mass of tapetied inefficiency, quite unable to compete with keen, peppy, private enterprise, which is engaged in a constant cut-throat battle for lower costs. It is true that there are many Soviet methods of producing efficiency that we would scarcely care to use. But on the other hand we are starting off in much more favourable economic conditions, and we do not have Churchill and Woodrow Wilson trying to wipe us out.

As noted, we continue in these favourable conditions by favour of our Asian neighbours, and that ominous protector Polaris. It is desirable both from practical and humanitarian points of view, that we should spend rather more of our national income in Asia.

And speaking of Asia, the second concern of a radical party is international. Like, I use quite a bit of air in a normal day, and I prefer it clean. No little black specks, huh? (So you're tired of hearing about the Bomb. Me, I'm just tired of having it around). Clearly, any government not quite so willing to stand up and be counted as Hollyhock and Co. would take us out of this infant's game of Free World versus Communists. (Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand, etc., against the Rest.) Our place is with India and the uncommitted nations—and this waiting gets on my nerves.

The third item is much more general. Simply, it is a demand that a radical, left-wing party should make some attempt to combat the endemic conservative reaction which comes with affluent times. In New Zealand it is incredible what our liberals will take. Just at random—Holland's fences Act., the censorship of strike breaking, the Police Of-books, our record in U.N., the attack on food subsidies, and now, if you please, our good Judges want the birch. (Consider our juvenile delinquency. Perhaps by birching we could bring it down to the level of the Ngalia tribesmen, was it? I think they have less than we do.) Perhaps these legal men have minds of high juristic excellence. Perhaps their ductless glands are hypertrophied. Both possibilities should be mentioned.

To Raise the Corpse

What can we, as students, do to raise the corpse of the Labour Party? Primarily, we can make it clear that It should not be a corpse, if we had the courage to fetch in the Labour working votes, National would be as far in the wilderness as we are now. (That, of course, goes for Britain too: except that there Labour has at least a slim chance of throwing out Gaitskill and Macmillan on defence alone). We need, as I have said, new leaders (not, please God, depression men or Methodists). This new leadership will be no more than middle of the road, but it can hardly fail to be more alert than the old. Then the fight becomes one to get a Socialist M.P. in on a strong seat, and wait until opportunity or—less likely—opinion gives him power.

Complementary to this, the Party needs far more powerful publicity. The Unions must be persuaded that it is in their own interests to give up their little capitalist ventures for a while, and put up the money for a national left-wing newspaper. After a probationary period such a paper could be expected to become self supporting, provided that it subordinates politics to matters of more immediate interest, such as sex and sport. With any luck this could make a nasty hole in the circulations of the clean fingered Dominion, the Herald, and their kin.

The other great publicity channel television, should be exploited as far as possible. Again the accent should be on entertainment, this time aimed at the middle classes. Here the Left has the advantage. Judgring from experience overseas. Socialists can put their arguments cogently; while Conservatism is largely intestinal, and its arguments more fantastic than fight.

On a smaller scale, it is possible that a group of students or graduates could themselves be a national force, provided that they had, as a group, training in the requisite fields. Figures such as Keynes, Woolf, the Webbs, Laski, come to mind. They were themselves rarely politicians, but their training in such fields as economics, political theory, science and writing gave them often greater influence than the lawgivers. Their merit was not that they were more dedicated than their opponents, but that they were better trained. It still should not be hard.

A recent article in the Listener remarks the periodic shattering of radical parties. It's about time we Picked up the Pieces.