BOOK REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1967.tb00524.x |
| Published date | 01 November 1967 |
| Date | 01 November 1967 |
ROOK
REVIEWS
The
Lde
and
Times
of
Ernest
Beviti,
Volume Two,
Aiinister
of
Labour,
1940-
1945
by Alan Bullock, Heinemann, London,
1967,
395
pp.,
63s.
IT
was Alan Bullock’s intention to complete his biography of Ernest Bevin
in two volumes, but in the event he decided to present Bevin’s years as the
Minister of Labour and Xational Service as
a
self-contained study. For this
decision students of industrial relations must be extremely gratefuI.
There can be no question that Bevin was a great Minister of National
Service. He mobilized the nation to a fuller extent than was achieved by
any other country in the Second World War (though he owed much to
Beveridge whose contribution to this achievement
-
he produced the plan
which Bevin followed
-
has been largely neglected no doubt because of his
other remarkable contributions to social policy). In September
1943
‘over
twenty-two million men and women out of a population of thirty-three
between the ages of fourteen and sixty-four were serving in the Armed
Forces and Civil Defence or were being employed in industry, an expan-
sion
of
three and three quarter million in four years.’ The armed forces had
been increased from less than half
a
million to over four and
a
quarter
million; the munitions industries had been increased by
two
million, while
the less essential industries had been reduced by three and
a
quarter
million.
This tremendous redistribution of manpower had been achieved
remarkably quickly and with the minimum of conflict. It was, as Churchill
acknowledged in a personal minute to the Minister
a
‘great performance’.
But the question must be asked, was Bevin’s performance as Minister of
Labour equaIly
a
great performance? In certain immediate respects the
answer must be yes, but there is more doubt when Bevin’s impact on the
Ministry of Labour is judged
in
broader terms from the perspective
of
twenty-five years on.
Bevin’s concern with the welfare of the disabled and the lower paid
workers and such groups as dockers, seamen and miners was manifested in
the National Rehabilitation Service and the Disabled Persons (Employ-
ment) Act, the Catering Wages Act, the Wages Councils Act, the estab-
lishment of the National Dock Labour Board, Port Welfare Committees
and the various wage awards made by courts of inquiry presided over by
eminent judges such as Lord Fuller and Lord Porter.
We
now
see that the Catering Wages Act has been much less important
in raising standards in the catering industry than the maintenance
of
full
employment and rising living standards. The Wages Councils Act has also
been found wanting in its primary purpose of protecting the lowly paid
410
BOOK
REVIEWS
41
1
and in supporting the extension of more effective collective bargaining.
Here again, economic developments have demonstrated the limitations of
the Wages Council system.
Bevin’s schemes were the product of his own personal experience. They
were well devised to meet the problems of the past, but they were to prove
inadequate instruments to meet the problems of the future. The limitations
of Bevin’s contribution as Minister of Labour were more fully exposed in
terms of his influence on the development
of
the
work
of
the Ministry.
Whilst it would be untrue
,to
say that Bevin left the Ministry as he found it,
since there were important developments in its welfare work, especially in
connection with industrial rehabilitation, in its basic philosophy and func-
tions it remained unchanged.
It is only in the last decade that the lessons of the war
-
namely the
importance of manpower planning and the need for an adequate statistical
service
;
the use of employment exchanges as an instrument
of
manpower
policy rather than
as
welfare agencies for the payment of the dole; the
recognition and the need for flexibility in deployment of
skill;
the need to
provide
a
system
ofjob
training that would overcome the restrictions of the
traditional apprenticeship system
-
have been recognized. Bevin was con-
cerned about these things, but his conception of the role of Government,
and in particular
of
the Ministry of Labour, was firmly cast in the tradi-
tional mould. It is interesting to note that nowhere in Mr-Bullock’s study
of Bevin as Minister of Labour is there any reference to the past
or
future
role of the Ministry.
Bevin accepted without question that the voluntary system of industrial
relations was best, and he waged
a
bitter and successful war against the
Treasury to prevent any government control over wages during wartime.
The policy
of
‘faith in the moderating influence of the trade unions and
action to control the cost of living’ worked reasonabIy well under wartime
exigences and the war ended with the established system
of
collective
bargaining intact. However,
as
wartime controls on prices and rationing
disappeared the leaders of the unions lost their power to moderate wage
claims, bargaining power shifted
to
the shop stewards and ever since the
end
of
the Second World War Britain has suffered from chronic wage and
price inflation that has only been checked
in
the absence of an effective
incomes policy by creating unemployment
or
by a Government imposed
wage freeze.
Bevin had
all
the virtues and
all
the vices
of
the British ‘Labour Move-
ment. He was solid, honourable, loyal, hard working, deeply conservative
and completely impervious to any suggestion that the British system of
industrial relations might have fundamental flaws. In this Bevin was
at
one
with most other labour leaders and most employers. He truly reflected the
massive consensus
of
all
sides of British industry and gave it expression in
his own massive way, but in
so
doing he consolidated the resistance to
change and made the task of modernizing the British system of industrial
If
To continue reading
Request your trial