Bob Edwards

Big Business in England

From The New International, Vol. VII No. 10, November 1941, pp. 278–80.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

(NOTE: The following article is taken from the British New Leader, and is a selection from a forthcoming book by the author. – Ed.)

AT THE COMMENCEMENT of the present war the Trade Union Congress and its affiliated unions repeated the same mistakes as in 1914–18. The right to strike has again been surrendered in favor of compulsory arbitration. The Emergency Powers Act has been put into operation with the sanction and support of the trade union movement, and, if the active trade unionists in the workshops allow the policy of subordination to the capitalist state to be persisted in, the trade unions will cease to exist as organs of struggle and become auxiliaries of the capitalist state.

The general political dangers arising from this policy of class collaboration can be seen by the proposed policies of so-called economic reconstruction – the structure of which has already been established on the plea of war emergency. Innumerable committees, boards and controls have been established, manned and dominated by leading captains of industry. Shareholders have been guaranteed their dividends, but the workers, whose labor power and industrial intelligence produce all wealth, remain a subject class without voice or vote in the control of industry.

How Big Business Rules

The following list shows the former business connection; of some of the present and past members of the government. It will be seen that capitalist representatives still hold all the key positions controlling the economic and financial policy of the nation.

Lord President of the Council: Sir John Anderson (Vickers, Ltd., Imperial Chemical Industries, Midland Bank).

Board of Trade: Sir Andrew Duncan (British Iron and Steel Federation, Bank of England).

Ministry of Supply: Lord Beaverbrook (London Express and allied newspapers, family link with Canadian aircraft industry).

Ministry of Agriculture: Mr. R. S. Hudson (family link with Unilever Combine).

Special Mission Abroad: Capt. C. Lyttelton (British Metal Corp., London Tin Corp.).

Secretary for India: Hon. L.S. Amery (Cammel Lairds, S.W. Africa Co., Southern Hallways, Marks & Spencers).

Colonial Ministry: Lord Lloyd (British South Africa Co., Rhodesian Railways).

Ministry of Transport: Baron Leather (Shipping, Inchcape Lines; coal; power, Duffryn; cement, Tnnnell Portland).

Ministry of Food: Lord Woolton (Lewis’, Ltd.).

At the foot of this page (see box) are particulars of the owning class representatives whom the government has placed in charge of industry. They are placed in charge of the economic life of the nation. Not a single workers’ representative is to be found among them.

INDUSTRY	CONTROLLER	WHO HE IS
Chrome Ore, Magnesite and Wolfram	W.T.V. Harmer	Technical Assistant to the Managing Director of United Steel Companies, Ltd.
Cotton	Sir Percy Ashley	Member of the Import Duties Advisory Committee
Fertilizers	H.V. Cunningham	Managing Director, Scottish Agricultural Industries, Ltd.
Flax	Earl de la Warr	Director, W.F. Malcolm & Co., Ltd.
Hemp	A.M. Landauer	Senior Partner in Landauer & Co.
Industrial Ammonia	F.C.O. Speyer	Delegate Director at I.C.I. (Fertilizer and Synthetic Products, Ltd.) and Gen. Mgr. British Sulphate of Ammonia Federation
Iron and Steel	Col. Sir W.C. Wright	Chairman, Baldwins, Ltd., and Guest, Keen & Baldwins Iron and Steel Co., Director of Public Companies
Jute	G. Malcolm	Director, Ralli Bros., Ltd.
Leather	Dr. E.C. Snow	Manager United Tanners’ Federation
Molasses, Industrial Alcohol and Plastics	A.V. Broad	Director-Chairman, The Distillers Co., Ltd., British Indusrial Solvents and Commercial Solvents, Ltd.
Non-Ferrous Metals, Brass and Diamond Dyes	J.C. Budd and W. Mure	Managing Directors British Metal Corporation, Ltd.
Paper	A. Ralph Reed	Chairman, A.E. Reed & Co., Ltd.
Silk and Rayon	H.O. Hambleton	One-time Director of T.H. Hambleton, Ltd.
Sulphuric Acid	H. Garrold Thomas	Gen. Mgr. and Secretary, National Sulphuric Acid Assn.
Timber	Major A.I. Harris	Partner in I. Bamberger & Sons
Wool	Sir Harry Shackleton	Chairman, Wool Textile Delegation; President, Woollen & Worsted Trades Fed.; Director, Taylor Shackleton & Co.

Measures Against the Proletariat

Even more dangerous to the workers’ movement is the recent war legislation which delegates parliamentary authority to “Orders in Council” and transforms the British Houses of Parliament into a Reichstag, giving special powers to the ruling class and taking away from the workers rights, liberties and privileges as if they never existed.

Consider well, for example, the powers assumed by the War Cabinet under the Emergency Powers Act, which powers it can pass on to the police or to any regional commissioner.

A worker can be arrested and imprisoned for speaking or writing that which the authorities consider calculated to influence public opinion against the efficient prosecution of the war.
A person can be arrested on suspicion, without charge, and detained in prison indefinitely, without trial.
The police have power to arrest and search without warrant.
Meetings can be banned on the grounds that they hinder the successful conduct of the war.
Socialist, trade union and workers’ papers and publications can be confiscated, banned or suppressed on the plea that they militate against the success of the war effort.

Consider also the Control of Employment Act and the Essential Works Order which are the new feudalism in industry. These acts empower the Ministry of Labor to prevent a worker from changing his or her occupation. It prevents employers from engaging workers without the permission of the Ministry of Labor, but workers can and are being compulsorily transferred to other localities at the behest of an employer or a Ministry of Labor department. Thousands of workers who had found new and more profitable employment have been forced back to their old jobs by means of these acts.

Profit and Dividends

Examine the facts below. Do they or do they not prove beyond doubt that the owning class is profiteering out of this war at a rate that overshadows a thousand times the few shillings of wage increases that the workers have been able to win?

Fact No. 1. Rent, interest and profit for 1938 amounted to 1,530,000,000 pounds (approximately $6,327,100,000).
Fact No. 2. Rent, interest and profit for 1940 amounted to 1,884,000,000 pounds (approximately 87,667,880,000).
Fact No. 3 Rent, interest and profit thus took 354,000,000 more out of the national income in 1940 than it did in 1938 (approximately $1,340,780,000).

The following examples show how the industrialists have fared. In 1940, Associated Portland Cement made over 1,200,000 pounds of profit and declared a dividend of 10 per cent. (Figure the pound at approximately $4.05 – Ed.) British Portland Cement profits were 734,826 pounds. Alpha Cement made 315,683 pounds, with a dividend of 8¾ per cent. Rugby Portland Cement made 123,675 pounds, with a dividend of 7½ percent.

The Bishop of Birmingham was fined 1,600 pounds damages because Britain’s “class” law held that he had charged the “Cement Ring” with acting against the nation’s interests. So now the workers know that the nation’s interests coincide with the interests of profiteering cement magnates. (Special reference to the cement industry and its great profits arises from the enormous governmental expenditures for municipal repairs and the erection of gigantic fortification projects in anticipation of a Nazi invasion – Ed.)

Imperial Chemical Industries (I.C.I.), Britain’s largest industrial concern, made record profits last year of 6,756,000 pounds. This represents an increase on the previous year of 250,000 pounds.

I.C.I, is the world’s largest munitions trust. It manufactures every kind of known explosive and poison gas. Among its many subsidiary companies were plants in Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, France and Belgium, presumably still producing explosive and poison gases. Its shareholders include Sir Eldon Bankes (chairman of the Government Commission of Inquiry on Arms), Barrow Cadbury, the Bishop of St. Andrews and Sir John Anderson, M.P. (Lord President of the Council).
Reckit & Coleman: profit 8,411,288 pounds; dividend, 20 per cent (increase of 4 per cent over 1939).
Boots’ Pure Drug Co., net profit, 629,111; dividend, 24 per cent.
Fairey Aviation has liquidated its losses on its Belgian subsidiary company, placed 100,000 pounds to general reserve, carried forward a balance of nearly 50,000 pounds, besides which it has been able to return a tax-free dividend of 10 per cent.
British Electric Co. allocated 100,000 pounds to meet heavier taxation, put another 25,000 pounds to meet depreciation and still reports an increase in net profit of 8,000 pounds over the previous year.
Imperial Steel Corporation: Last year’s profits of 268,465 pounds were more than double the profit of the previous year. Today it sells its entire production to the Ministry of Supply at guaranteed profits.
Vickers: Profits, 1,119,000 pounds; dividends, 10% per cent.
Vickers Armstrong: profits, 1,965,000 pounds; dividends, 7 per cent (an increase of 185,000 pounds over 1939). The shareholders in the Vickers concerns include Prince Arthur of Connaught, who also gets a pension from the state of 25,000 pounds a year; the Earl of Dysart; Sir John Gimour, M.P.; and Sir John Anderson, M.P.
English Steel Corp.: Dividend, 20 per cent.
Hadfields: dividend, 22½ per cent.
British Oxygen Co.: profit, 1,897,000 pounds; dividend, 15 per cent (increase of 510,000 pounds on 1939).
Tate & Lyle paid 18 per cent dividend.
Lever Bros, and Unilever returned a 1940 profit of 6,600,000 pounds net after paying taxation.
Cable & Wireless Co. reports record profits for this year, viz., 2,375,771 pounds. Profits for 1939 were 1,610,369 pounds.
Dunlop Rubber Co. reports a profit of 3,002,000 pounds, compared with 2,853,000 for the previous year, with a dividend of 8 per cent and an extra bonus of 2 per cent on all cash shares.

Out of these facts emerges the true situation, namely, that a few people, the owning class, who represent the entire body of the British governing class, are enriching themselves again at a time when the whole machinery of the state is being used to keep wages down to a low level.

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