What policy in the political field can be adopted to further these
objects? Reverting once more to the fourfold division which I made at
the outset, but taking the points in a different order, there is first
the question whether there should be a great extension of State
ownership, management, or control of monopolies and big business. In
spite of the experience of the war, I suggest tentatively that no case
has been made out for any wide or general extension of the field of
State management in industry. This, however, is not a matter of
principle, but of expediency, where each case must be considered on its
merits. Liberals should, indeed, keep an open mind in this connection
and not be afraid to face an enlargement of the field of State
management from time to time. There are, however, two special cases to
be considered: the mines and the railways. As to the mines, the solution
Mr. McNair puts forward is on characteristically Liberal lines, because
it will endeavour to harmonise the safeguarding of the interests of the
State with the maximum freedom to private enterprise and the maximum
scope for variety in methods of management. As to transport, we have
recently passed an Act altering the form of control of British railways.
Personally I think the question whether railways should or should not
be nationalised is very much on the balance. It is obviously one of the
questions where objections to State management are less serious than in
most other cases. On the other hand, we may be able to find methods of
control which may be even better than State management. I do not think
the Act of last year fulfils the conditions which Liberals would have
imposed on the railways, for the principle of guaranteeing to a monopoly
a fixed income practically without any means of securing its efficiency,
is the wrong way to control a public utility service. If we are going to
leave public utilities in the hands of private enterprise, the principle
must be applied that profit should vary in proportion to the services
rendered to the community. In this connection the old gas company
principle developed before the war is an admirable one. Under it the gas
companies were allowed to increase their dividends in proportion as they
lowered their prices to the community. That is a key principle, and some
adaptation of it is required wherever such services are left in private
hands. My own view is that an amended form of railway control should
first be tried, and if that fails we should be prepared for some form of
nationalisation.