GREAT BRITAIN: Inevitability of Gradualness

Nothing that the war had done to England was so important. Last week, with no more warning than a gliding buzz-bomb, the Conservative Government launched its “prosperity and happiness program,” Lord Woolton’s plan for cradle-to-grave social security. Famed Sir William Beveridge, stepfather of the plan, gave it his blessing, even thought it an improvement on his own. To most people it looked like “socialism in our time.”

The plan had come with that inevitability of gradualness which is woven into British history. It had taken five years of war to speed up an unhurried trend toward socialism. (Characteristically, it was the Tories who achieved it.) Once more Britain had quietly evolved a major change in its national life because enough Britons wanted it.

This time there was an added incentive: the Empire wanted it too. Already two Dominions—New Zealand and South Africa—were tackling social-security problems. In London a conference of Dominion Labor Parties resolved: “The conference looks forward to a revival . . . of a Socialist [Second] International.”

War on Poverty. Amiable, efficient Lord Woolton, Britain’s Conservative Reconstruction Minister, called the plan “a declaration of war against poverty.” Based on the Beveridge Plan, but costing slightly less (approximately $2,600,000,000 for the first year against the Beveridge Plan’s $2,788,000,000, it is the product of several ministries, many minds. It is all-embracing (it provides for every man, woman & child), and cooperative (it is financed by compulsory contributions from all who are able to pay). Its benefits begin at birth with a maternity allowance, end at death with a grant. General benefits cover sickness, invalidism, unemployment, retirement, widows’ pensions, orphans’ allowances, industrial injuries, family allowances, maternity and death grants.

Sample benefits: maternity grants, £4 ($16) plus benefits of £1 16s ($7.20) weekly; unemployment and sickness pay, £2 ($8) weekly for a married couple, £1 45 ($4.80) for a single person; family allowances, 55 ($1) plus “things in kind” —school meals, milk—for each child after the first; widows’ pensions, £1 16s ($7.20) weekly for the first 13 weeks; orphans’ allowances, 125 ($2.40) weekly.

To pay for all this, the average worker will have to contribute about 43 (80¢) a week, his employer slightly less. Taxation will make up the balance. Not until 1975 will the plan become selfsupporting.

The plan will mean much more government in Britain. Before it becomes law—probably not before next summer, perhaps not before a general election—a Ministry of Social Insurance will have to be created.

Wonderful, Epoch-Making. Britons were delighted. The press greeted the plan with a roar of approval, pushed the war off the front pages to make room for it. The Times hailed it as “an epoch-making document,” the Daily Express as “a wonderful scheme.” Only sour note came from the 5,700 approved benefit societies and from the industrial-insurance companies whose activities will be curtailed, if not abolished, by the plan. Said a spokesman: “We shall fight it to the end.”

Britain, the Cradle of Capitalism, was peacefully, but irreversibly, trending toward state socialism.