University College, Oxford.—Hopes that Pethick-Lawrence will be able to join the party going to Russia (see 1/164). The aim is to learn more about the problems of introducing a socialist system, with emphasis on public and industrial finance.
—————
Transcript
University College, Oxford
16/1/32
Dear Pethick Lawrence,
I was very pleased to get your note, and I very much hope you will be able to go with the party to Russia. I am afraid that, for reasons of health, I shall not be able to go myself; {1} but there will be Leslie, Dalton, probably Cuttall, {2} C. M. Lloyd, Leonard Woolf, Susan Lawrence, H. L. Beales, possibly Somerville Hastings, and one or two others, in addition to Harben. The aim is to make a thorough study, over two months or more, with particular relation to the light thrown on the problems of introducing a Socialist system, and with emphasis on public and industrial finance. Starting late June or early July, and splitting up for investigations. I am in touch with the Soviet Embassy & Moscow now about facilities.
I am away in Oxford for the next week; but C. M. Lloyd or Leslie could tell you all about it, or I could, when I get back. You have, however, most of the information, except that, as soon as we get the group together, and can see our way with Moscow and with enough money to ensure the visit, we want to take on a Russian-speaking secretary and start seriously on preliminary work. But for that we are still trying to raise funds here and get Moscow’s agreement to the visit.
Yours sincerely
G. D. H. Cole
—————
{1} Cole had recently been found to be suffering from diabetes.
{2} Reading uncertain.
‘As from’ 7 Parsifal Road, London, N.W.6.—Sends, for the consideration of the Policy Sub-Committee, a paper recommending that a Labour Government should immediately nationalise the joint-stock banks (see 1/161).
—————
Transcript
As from 7 Parsifal Road, | London, N.W.6.
1/6/32.
Dear Pethick Lawrence,
Dalton suggested to me that I should see you in order to put before you, with an eye to the L. P. Policy Committee, my view about the Joint Stock Banks; but, as I shall be out of London till next Wednesday, it seems I had better write. I have tried to put down, on a couple of sheets, my reasons for thinking that the new Labour policy, if it is to be effective, must include provision for the immediate taking over of the joint stock banks as well as the Bank of England. I gather privately from Dalton that the Policy Sub-Committee is at present inclined not to take this view. If that is so, I should very much like a chance of backing my own opinion before it if that is possible. I feel so strongly that this is the key question, and that it cannot be bucked at the present stage. For, if I am right in thinking we shall have to tackle the joint stock banks at the start, I think it follows we ought to make our intentions clear at once. It will take us a long time to get our own people to the point of intelligent propaganda on this issue; and it will also take time to combat the fears which the policy will arouse in the minds of certain large sections of the electorate. We want the longest possible time before an election for intelligent putting of our case before the public.
I shall be back in town next Wednesday. Till Monday, my address is Bradfields, Topperfield, Great Yeldham, Essex. Sorry to bother you; but it’s all in the hope of getting the best possible policy for Leicester.
Yours sincerely
G. D. H. Cole
![Paper entitled ‘Reasons for the immediate Socialisation of the Joint Stock Banks’ [by G. D. H. Cole]](/uploads/r/trinity-college-library/1/3/0/1307851370ceda2293f7f08915966c49b2ba7a08c208d19206163564ba14c46a/PETH_1-161.jpg)
(Typed. The first sheet is a carbon copy.)
Transcript
Reasons for the immediate Socialisation of the Joint Stock Banks.
I am writing on the assumption that the Labour Party has come back to office with a clear majority and that it intends in the first sessions of Parliament to lay the foundations of a general economic plan of reconstruction and development. If this is so, it appears to me that the immediate Socialisation of the Joint Stock Banks as well as of the Bank of England is bound to be required. I know it is often argued that a Government which had assumed the ownership of the Bank of England could by this means and by the use of emergency decrees exert effective control over the Joint Stock Banks and the City Houses, and compel them to do what it wanted. But for several reasons I do not believe this to be the case.
In the first place I very much doubt the effectiveness of ‘open market operations’ in causing an expansion in industry or in the actual use of credit in face of any hostility to this policy on the part of the Joint Stock Banks. It is true that the Bank of England can by buying securities increase the cash resources of the Joint Stock Banks and so enable them to lend more if they are willing to do so. But it cannot compel them to lend more; and it would be well within the power of the Joint Stock Banks to immobilise the funds so created for a long enough time to defeat the Socialist plan for the stimulation of industry. This would of course involve the Joint Stock Banks in some forgoing of profits through their failure to use the cash resources at their disposal; but this loss would not be too large for them to incur without danger if they saw the prospect by means of it of bringing the Government down. Nor do I think that emergency measures of control could compel the Joint Stock Banks to expand their loans against their will. Control without ownership can be used to prevent people from doing things; but it is very difficult to use it positively to make them do things which they do not want to do.
I know it is suggested that, as far as the financing of the Government’s own schemes is concerned, a refusal by the Joint Stock Banks to advance the necessary funds might be met by a resort to other forms of borrowing, e.g. in the bill market. But this argument seems to be based on a misapprehension. For the funds which are available in the bill market, with the exception of balances belonging to foreign banks in London, come for the most part from the Joint Stock Banks, which lend them to the bill market for relending. It can hardly be supposed that, if the Joint Stock Banks were endeavouring to bring the Government down by a refusal to provide credits directly, they would be prepared to place the necessary sums at the disposal of the bill market for relending, and so to provide indirectly the very resources which they were withholding in a direct sense.
Moreover, if the Government is pursuing a definite economic plan, involving a controlled and equilibrised development of different industries, it is indispensable that it should be in a position to control, not only the total volume of credit available for lending, but also its distribution among the various industries and business firms demanding it. It is, however, quite impossible for a centralised and branchless institution such as the Bank of England to exert this control, or for an organisation to be improved side by side with the Joint Stock Banks for undertaking it. The Joint Stock Banks are the natural agencies for this rationing of credit, and I can see no chance of any National Economic Plan working out successfully unless they are acting in full harmony with it.
Finally, in my view there has been a tendency greatly to exaggerate the stimulative, as distinct from the restrictive, powers which can be exerted by the Central Bank in face of any hostility on the part of the Joint Stock Banks. It is of course essential to take over the Central Bank; but this measure will be ineffective unless it is accompanied by complete socialisation of the Joint Stock Banks as well. Given these two things, I agree that the remaining institutions of the City of London—acceptance, discount and issue houses—can be either controlled or superseded by new State-created institutions without immediate socialisation. But this is only on the assumption that the Joint Stock Banks, as well as the Bank of England, have first been completely acquired.
One last word. Whatever may be the ultimately desirable constitution for a socialised Bank of England, I hope it is clear that during the earlier stages of transition the Bank must be brought directly under the control of the Government and its organs for economic planning, and not entrusted to any representative body of a non-political character, which would not be directly amenable to Government control. In the early stages at any rate the control will have to be political if the Plan is to be worked as a coordinated Government measure.
7 Parsifal Road, Hampstead, N.W.6.—Defends his plan of nationalising the joint-stock banks, but acknowledges that, as the Policy Sub-Committee has now reported, the controversy must be turned elsewhere.
—————
Transcript
7 Parsifal Road, Hampstead, N.W.6
10/6/32
Dear Pethick Lawrence,
I don’t expect you expected to convince me: at any rate you have not. I should propose to take over the ownership of the J.S.B’s, without for the time disturbing their separate existence, or necessarily changing their managerial personnel, except at the very top. I don’t see any insuperable difficulty in controlling their operations, provided the banks pass as going concerns under public ownership; but I do see quite appalling difficulties in running a Socialist plan for industry in face of the independence and possible hostility of the Joint Stock Banks. However, I understand that your Sub-Committee has now done its report: so that the controversy has now to be transferred elsewhere. I shall hope yet to have a chance of convincing you that I am right—if we mean real Socialism now. Of course, if the Party does not mean that, but only another Government pretty much like the last, that alters the whole thing. In that event, I am afraid I shall not be the only person who will lose interest.
Yours sincerely
G. D. H. Cole
Freeland, Holders Hill Road, Hendon, N.W.4.—Has arranged for Pethick-Lawrence to receive a copy of his new book, The People’s Front, which he hopes will explain the motives of most of those who advocate progressive unity over a wide front.
Harben has sent him Cole’s prospectus of the proposed mission to Russia. Asks for further details.
Is going away for two or three weeks. Will discuss the matter (the proposed mission to Russia) further on his return.
Explains his objections to Cole’s plan of nationalising the joint-stock banks (see 1/160–1 and cf. 5/43–4 and 5/47–8).
—————
Transcript
7th. June, 1932.
Dear Cole,
Many thanks for your letter and enclosure. Dalton had already told me that you were going to get into touch with me and I have been looking forward to hearing from you.
Let me begin with the last paragraph in your enclosure. I am in entire agreement with this. I do not think we shall get anywhere at all if we pot† out the Bank of England to some committee or other, and do not leave it under the direct immediate control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or whatever Cabinet Finance Minister is in control of the banking and credit policy of the country.
Now let us see what this involves. The Bank of England is a gigantic institution whose policy is interwoven with the whole finance of the world, and by long experience there has been built up a tradition of which the Governor of the Bank is the servant and the exponent. His court to a lesser extent has together traditional knowledge which enables them to modify his judgment in carrying out this policy.
According to the ideas which you and I share the Government Finance Minister will have to get on top of all this. He will have no existing civil servants to help him for at the Treasury at the present time there is practically no direct knowledge of banking, either of central banking or joint stock banking; and unless therefore the Minister can himself understand the larger details of central banking he will be merely a tool in the hands of the bankers whom he takes over to do the day to day work. It seems to me to be unquestionable that this is therefore a whole time job and that the bank officials will (however they may be called) have to become in effect civil servants.
Now you want to nationalise simultaneously all the Joint Stock Banks in the country. How is the actual work of governing them going to be done? There are at present as I have already said no civil servants who know practically anything about it. To-day, in the Head Offices alone there are a great number of highly trained bankers who have done this business for years and who handle all the larger detail. Apart from them, there are an immense number of smaller fry who have quite important functions to perform in the different branches up and down the country. If the Government is going to nationalise all the Joint Stock Banks all these officials are going, in effect, to become civil servants; and all the work that they do is going to become government work; and all the major directions of policy in all these things will have to be government business.
I cannot envisage the minister who is controlling the Bank of England having any time or brain left to perform this colossal task for the Joint Stock Banks. You may say perhaps that an additional Minister could be appointed to do this. But this will not really meet the case because however many Ministers be appointed, many of the intricate details will really have to be Cabinet business. You may perhaps alternatively say that only a few really large issues will have to be decided by the Minister, and of course it is true that under no circumstances will every detailed transaction of every individual branch bank have to come before the Minister. Nevertheless I am quite sure that the number of decisions which would have to be taken at the top would be far too numerous to be made a part time job for an already occupied Minister.
My main objection therefore to attempting to nationalise both the Bank of England and the Joint Stock Banks in the first year or two of a Socialist Administration is that it is essential that the work of directing shall be well done. I cannot conceive of a Socialist Government performing effectively the double untried task of managing both the Bank of England and the Joint Stock Banks.
Compared with this major objection other objections are of minor importance: and yet I think they should be stated. However much we short-circuit the procedure, the Bill to nationalise the Bank of England will take a considerable amount of parliamentary time; and there is bound to be a demand for parliamentary time to be available for other measures which the Socialist Government will want to carry. I believe that the inclusion of the Joint Stock Banks will need a further very large part of parliamentary time which the Government would have a difficulty in providing.
There is an argument for taking a bold comprehensive course (this has been metaphorically referred to as not taking two bites at a cherry or not blunting our spearhead). On the other hand there is political wisdom in dividing our enemies. We should get much support to-day for nationalising the Bank of England which would be lost to us if we proposed also to nationalise the Joint Stock Banks. We can afford to take a lesson out of the notebook of our opponents, recollecting the Derby Scheme for Conscription during the War. (Metaphorically, not taking two bites at a cherry does not necessitate eating the whole bag of cherries at once.) We are also entitled to take into account the opposition of the Co-operative Party to nationalising the Co-operative Wholesale Bank, which would of course share the fate of the Joint Stock Banks.
You fear that ownership of the Bank of England alone will not give us the necessary power to cause an expansion in industry because you say that open market transactions alone are not sufficient for this purpose. The real question is however whether all the instruments in the hands of the Bank of England plus all the instruments in the hand of the Government would be sufficient. You do not forget I am sure, that the Government has power to engage in Capital Enterprises on borrowed money. What has prevented the effect of this policy in the past has been that while the Government was pulling this way the Bank of England was pulling the opposite way and deflating, or at any rate, was neutralising the Government’s action owing to its desire either to return to the Gold Standard or to stay on it when it was there. Quite clearly a Government freed from the Gold Standard and with the Bank of England in its control could inflate if it wished to. (Because if it were not so, the Government could win universal popularity by remitting all taxation and borrowing and spend lavishly.) Of course I do not want inflation but stability of the price level.
Finally, you are afraid of an attempt by the Joint Stock Banks to sabotage the credit policy of a Labour Government by not expanding credit when they have the chance. I do not regard this as very likely because all these years some of them have been complaining against the Bank of England and calling upon it to enlarge its basis of credit. But it might happen. I am more afraid that the Joint Stock Banks might misuse the credit provided for them. You suggest that the vague power of control which the Bank of England possesses over the Joint Stock Banks will not be adequate. That is probably true, but this will be augmented by 1—the general power of a Government to get its view enforced and 2) as I envisage it, the special powers of control over the whole finance of the country which I think the Government ought to obtain at the outset. You will perhaps ask what form this general power of control is going to take? My view is that we ought to enact a kind of financial D.O.R.A. But I do not think this is a thing which we should talk about openly. Of course if the worst came to the very worst and we were resisted on all sides, we might be compelled to put D.O.R.A. into operation in the shape of nationalising the Joint Stock Banks. But I think this is very unlikely as the financial magnates of the country really do come to heel to a Government which is determined and which has public opinion behind it: and quite clearly we could not nationalise the Banks unless we had these prerequisites.
Yours sincerely,
[blank]
G. D. H. Cole Esq.,
7, Parsifal Road,
London, N.W.6.
—————
† Sic.
It is precisely because he wants the next Labour Government to begin socialism in earnest that he opposes a scheme of nationalisation (see 1/162) ‘which looks well on paper but … will not amount to very much in practice’.
West Leaze, Aldbourne, Wiltshire.—Is opposed to making a declaration at Leicester (i.e. at the Labour Party conference) in favour of nationalising the joint-stock banks.
Pethick-Lawrence has gone abroad on holiday, but will discuss the visit to Russia with Cole on his return (see 1/180).
Has joined the Socialist League. Explains why he opposes the view that a Labour Government should nationalise the joint stock banks when it nationalises the Bank of England (cf. 1/160-2 and 1/166-7).
—————
Transcript
Confidential.
28th. September, 1932.
Dear Stafford,
I have just joined the new Socialist League on the strength of your signature. I waited to do so as I was not sure whether it was going to be merely a “Wise” society or a body of people who are really keen upon implementing effective socialism. I shall turn up at the meeting on Sunday and I expect we shall have a rare old debate on all sorts of subjects.
The question which above all others interests me is of course currency and banking. I do not anticipate any substantial divergence of views on the former, but on the latter I know that Wise will make tremendous efforts to defeat the proposal of the Labour Executive to postpone consideration of the position of the Joint Stock Banks till next year, and will endeavour to insert instead a proposal to include their nationalisation simultaneously with that of the Bank of England.
This is a matter to which I have devoted a very great deal of thought and attention and I should like if possible to have a chance of meeting you before Sunday to discuss it. I shall be travelling to Leicester as early as Friday next and my address there will be c/o Miss Fortey, 31, Meadhurst Road, Leicester. I am at present free both on Friday evening and on Saturday late afternoon and evening. But in case we do not have an opportunity of meeting I want to set out here my principal reasons for wishing to confine ourselves in our public policy for the next general meeting to that in the Labour Resolutions. These are you will remember: first, a general power of control such as you yourself have suggested—a sort of financial D.O.R.A., and secondly, the definite nationalisation of the Bank of England.
1) I have attempted to visualise the work that will be thrown on the Finance Minister of the Labour Government after the Bank of England has been nationalised. If this is to be of any real account it will have to be a whole time job. So much so, that I do not think it can be done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer but by a separate Finance Minister chosen for the express purpose. Some people imagine that there will only be a few broad general principles which he will have to decide. I do not take this view, for most of the questions which the present Governor of the Bank of England decides are big issues, and an untrained Minister with an untrained staff will be wholly inefficient unless he devotes a great deal of time to making such changes in policy at every point where it may be necessary.
If the Joint Stock Banks are to be taken over in addition, that is a still larger job and will require minute and detailed work, particularly in the earlier stages. If this work is not be be put into the job and we are to trust to appointing as managers a number of banking people who we think are friendly to the Labour point of view, we shall mess the job up altogether. It might perhaps be said that we can have a third Labour Minister for this purpose, but I regard this as unpracticable.
2) The Labour Party has not yet thought out any clearly defined policy which the J.S.B. should pursue, and until this is done I can see no great advantage in prematurely taking them over.
3) Those who support the proposal frequently use such loose phrases as “it is the business of the Joint Stock Banks to finance industry”. In my view they are quite wrong. Financing industry is a long term operation and the work of the J.S.B. is confined in the main to short term lending. That is to say, to tiding industry over short periods in which they want ready money. It is quite true recently that some of these short term credits have become frozen, but that does not alter the essential fact.
4) Wise and Cole and others maintain that it is necessary to nationalise the J.S.B. to prevent Government policy being sabotaged. I take precisely the opposite view. In so far as Labour policy involves socialising industry, that industry ought not to be financed by the J.S.B. but by the Central Banking Institution. In Russia, Gosplan, which corresponds to the Bank of England is the authority for issuing short term credits.
5) In so far as any parts of industry remain in the hands of private enterprise it is much better that they should draw their resources from private enterprise banks instead of from Government owned banks. One of the great difficulties of the late Labour Administration was that we had to buttress up capitalist enterprise w[h]ile advocating socialism. That difficulty is bound to exist in any transitional regime: but it will be enormously increased if the media through which private enterprise is to be helped over temporary difficulties is itself a Government Institution.
6) Put into practical terms, the difficulty presents itself a) that the Finance Minister would have to pick & choose between rival industries, and b) M.Ps would be bombarded by pressure from local employers to secure overdrafts for their works.
7) We must not forget that in the first Parliament there will be great demands on time, and there will be many voices who will claim that finance ought not to take first place. I disagree with this because I think both the general power of control and the particular nationalisation of the Bank of England are essential before any substantial measure of Socialism can be brought about. But I do not see why the further step of nationalising the J.S.B. should precede, and therefore delay, other socialist action when in effect it is not necessary for this purpose.
8) We have to educate the electorate to our point of view. With a hostile press it is particularly difficult to get them to understand that any step in the nationalisation of banking is not confiscation. I believe the public are nearly ready for nationalisation of the Bank of England, but I believe they are a very long way from being ready for nationalisation of the J.S.B. And unless it is really necessary I think it will be a grave mistake to burden our programme with this big project.
I will only add one general word. If we were contemplating revolution such as took place in Russia, or a kind of catastrophic change such as happened in France at Mob[i]lisation, 1914, it might be necessary for us to swallow the whole meal and subsequently spew out what we could not digest, as was done in both those cases. But if we are going to carry out Socialism by stages as our general programme suggests, then it is essential that each stage should be well thought out in advance and should be carried out with the utmost efficiency. This is necessary to secure the continuance of public support.
The gist of my opposition is that it is not necessary in the first instance to nationalise the J.S.B., that we have neither the policy nor the machinery to carry out such a step efficiently, and on the contrary, that it is actually better from a financial point of view so long as some private enterprise remains to leave this being fed by private banks, while feeding our own socialised industry, as is done in Russia, direct from the Central Bank, or if it should prove necessary, from a subsidiary of that Bank.
Yours sincerely,
[blank]
Since dictating the above I have developed a slight temperature which may imply incipient “flu” but I shall hope otherwise & to get to Leicester on Friday
The Hon. Sir Stafford Cripps, K.C., M.P.,
“Goodfellows”
Lechlade,
Gloucester.