LIBERAL PARTY BACKS CO-OWNERSHIP PLAN

From a Special Correspondent At the recent Liberal Assembly at Hastings on March 25 the co-ownership proposals which had been adopted the previous year at Blackpool were enthusiastically endorsed. At the recent Liberal Assembly at Hastings on March 25 the co-ownership proposals which had been adopted the previous year at Blackpool were enthusiastically endorsed. The loud and prolonged cheering which followed the decisive rejection of a resolution urging the abandonment of the policy was the climax of the Assembly and made it clear that the great majority of those present regarded the proposals as the cornerstone of Liberal Policy and the Party's main issue at the forthcoming General Election.
Profit-sharing and co-partnership have, of course, been advocated by the Liberal Party for more titan fifty years; but to-day it wants to go a good deal further than merely welcoming the development of such schemes.
It wants to extend them over a large part of industry by legislative action and give the worker a legal right to share in the control of his working life and in the product of his work.
Some of us may think that it does not matter very much what the Liberals want to do because they are not likely to get a chance. But there was no sign of such pessimism at Hastings and the large number of young people present there and the fact that the membership of the Party has doubled since the coownership proposals are both not without their significance.
If the Conservatives are not prepared to commit themselves to a set policy on the question it may be that many of those who believe that property should be more equitably distributed will turn to the Liberal Party, as well as many of those who without being Socialists voted Labour in 1945.
LEGAL RIGHTS
If the co-ownership pioposals are going to be the main feature of the Liberal campaign Catholics and others will want to know more about them. The Liberals have met this need in a new pamphlet " People in Industry."
It may be asked in the first place why they use the terms "co-ownership " instead of " co-partnership" or " profit-sharing."
The word " profit-sharing" is used
LIBERALS AND CO-OWNERSH1P
to denote schemes initiated by the employer under which workers participate in profits; the word " copartnership" for schemes in which they share in control also; but under the Liberal proposals the workers will have the legal right to share in both profits and control and this is an essential difference.
The extension of such legal rights to the workers it is argued, is more likely to lead to their wholehearted co-operation in the production drive than would he the general introduction of profit sharing on the initiative of the employers.
Voluntary schemes are often regarded by Trade Unionists as a device primarily designed to increase the profits of the stockholders and weaken the bargaining power of the Unions; but the legal right to share in profits and control is a very different thing.
Many Trade Unionists have them selves been pressing recently for I " the control of profits " and " workers' control."
The Liberals do not, of course, want to impose a rigid scheme throughout industry; they would not be Liberals if they did. They sug. gest, however, that all firms over a certain size should be required to share their profits with Labour as soon as capital has received about 3 per cent. and that Labour should be represented on Boards of Directors. They suggest a variety of Ways in which this could be done and deal in some detail with the problems involved.
After capital has received 3 per cent. they suggest that it might very often be desirable for additional surpluses to be distributed at the same rate per cent. on wages as on capital; but they leave the matter quite open.
SHARES
They put forward a variety of suggestions about the election of
workers to Boards of Directors, Though it is the legal right of workers to participate in the direction and in the product of their work that constitutes co-ownership and modifies the whole wage relationship, the Committee also favours the provision of facilities to help the workers to acquire shares if they wish.
They also answer convincingly a number of objections to co-ownership which have been put forward, showing, for instance. why the supply of capital would be maintained and why legislation is necessary to secure the general introduction of profit sharing.
This legislation would, of course, no more involve State intervention in industry than does the present very complicated Companies Act; but they do not give any very good reason why it should not be supplemented by tax concessions which are suggested as an incentive by the group of Conservative M.P.s who are working along similar lines.