LONDON LETTER
in the country with equally inadequate transport facilities. All of them
are, at least for the winter season when it gets dark early, practically
cut off from social and cultural life; in fact, under a kind of curfew or
house arrest. But on Sunday, they can drive to the church parade. That
a socialist government should regard_church-going as more essential
than lectures, theaters, meetings, etc., is a phenomenon on a par with
their sabotaging of book production-for there is no other word to
qualify a policy of cutting publishers' paper and printers' power allo–
cations to an extent which deprives young authors of practically any
chance of having their books accepted, and which makes classics, school–
books, and scientific works almost impossible to come by.
This, however, is a side issue. The social aspect of the abolition
of private motoring is much more interesting, for it is symbolic of the
general attitude and policy of the Labour regime. Let me try to analyze
one or two of its various implications. First, the economic side. The
Government pretends that it will save around forty million dollars worth
of imported petrol. Its critics, including those within the Labour Party,
say it will save less than twenty million. So far, in economic matters,
the critics have usually been right and the Government spokesmen
wrong. At any rate, even according to the Government's own estimate,
the paralyzing of the country's transportation will contribute just about
1% (one per cent) towards bridging the export gap. The Government
further admits that the loss of internal revenue (car-tax) will far exceed
the amount saved; but, they say, as taxes are paid in sterling and not
in dollars, that does not matter. At the same time the autumn budget
further increases purchase-tax and doubles profits-tax to combat infla–
tionary tendencies. But the contradiction between the Government's
economic and its financial policy is nothing new, so this again is a
side issue. It is further officially admitted that a mass of garage mechan–
ics, petrol-pump men, etc., will become unemployed. That again does
not matter; they will be "absorbed" in more productive industries. "Ab–
sorbed" is a nice, functional word; the problem of how to make families
migrate from areas of local unemployment to those of acute manpower
shortage, further complicated by the dreadful housing problem, is not
apparent in it. Nor the slight inconvenience that, once motoring is re–
established, all these people will have to be de-absorbed and re-migrated.
In short, for the sake of saving 5 to 10 pro mille of its dollar deficit,
the Government paralyzes private transport, puts an additional burden
on already overcrowded public transport, forsakes an important item of
its revenue, dislocates a nation-wide essential industry, deprives a whole
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