But if we refuse at present to enlarge the sphere of State management,
we are still faced with the problem of dealing with trusts and
monopolies. In this matter, as in so many other instances, the right
policy has already been worked out. Under the stimulating conditions
which obtained during the war, when old-established methods of thought
had been rudely shaken, progressive ideas had unusually free play; and
you will find in the general economic policy adumbrated during and
immediately after the war much that Liberals are looking for. On this
question of monopolies, we should put into force the recommendation of
the Committee on Trusts of 1919, with one qualification. The policy I
suggest is the policy of the majority, namely, that we should give very
much enlarged powers of inquiry to the Board of Trade, and that a
Tribunal should be set up by which investigations could be made. But I
would go further, and, taking one item from the Minority Report, I would
add that either to this Tribunal or to the Board of Trade department
concerned there should be given in reserve the power in special cases to
regulate prices. I do not think it would be necessary often to use that
power, indeed the mere inquiry and publicity of results would be
sufficient to modify the action of monopolies. But such a power in
reserve, even though price-fixing in ordinary circumstances is usually
mischievous and to be deprecated, would have a very salutary effect.
In the case of public utilities of a standard kind, into which the
element of buying and selling profits does not greatly enter, we should
endeavour to start the experiment of putting representatives of the
workpeople on the boards of directors, but in carefully selected cases,
and not as a general rule. My own view is that if we are ready with the
machinery of investigation, and are prepared to deal in these ways with
public utilities at home where foreign competition is absent, we have
little to fear from trusts.