The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

Xvill FOREWORD

by the mine-owners in the later stages of the 1926 struggle. But even Mr. Baldwin plucked up enough courage in 1930-31 to withstand the attempt of the newspaper magnates, Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook, to take a hand in the management of political affairs by manufacturing a policy for his party; which he denounced nearly in the same terms as those he used against the T.U.C. in 1926-27, as an invasion of the prerogatives of elected persons. Similarly, we can imagine Labour politicians asserting the supremacy of Parliament over the Confederation of Employers’ Associations or the Federation of British Industries, and even the Bank of England and its allies of finance, if matters reached an open breach between them and the Government. Then would follow legislative attempts to divest these bodies of the natural authority and power they have acquired in the evolution of our economic system.

Yet, with so little wisdom and foresight do the politicians manage their own affairs, including the defence of Parliamentary institutions, that they are actively engaged at this moment in legislating away their control over industry. Acts of Parliament are being passed to create new organs of extra-parliamentary government in the economic sphere. We need only instance the creation of the Electricity Commission and the proposed new authority for the passenger transport system of London, as illustrations of this tendency on the part of Parliament to give away its control of