The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

Xxil FOREWORD

integrity of Government resting upon the people’s will.

Let it be clearly understood that we are not opposed to the principle of administering industry by the new method of the State Trust or Public Corporation. We are well aware that this new method is justified as a means of avoiding the evils of bureaucratic management and political interference, and places economic policy and industrial administration in the hands of technically qualified experts. Weareall for efficiency. In socialised industry there must be a higher standard of efficiency, better technique, sounder discipline than in capitalist industry. What we challenge, in the Labour Government’s application of the principle, is the reckless abandonment of control to corporations which are not responsive to any restraint of a democratic and representative character, and are subject to no proper authority to plan and co-ordinate their operations. Russia, under Soviet rule, has gone farther than any other country in the creation of these new organs of economic administration. There are probably more than 500 State Trusts of varying importance in Soviet Russia. But they are all under the control of the Supreme Council of National Economy. The House of Industry would exercise analogous functions of economic planning, co-ordination and regulation of industrial activities. This in our view is an essential condition of success in the working out of the Socialist programme for