Book Reviews : British Labor and Public Ownership. By HERBERT E. WEINER. (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press. 1960. Pp. xii, 111. $3.25.)

• Date: 01 September 1961
• Author: Robert W. McCulloch
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400343
• Published date: 01 September 1961
• Subject Matter: Articles

805

hope

to

please

all

students

of

the

subject;

and

this

volume

is

particularly

dis-

tinguished

by

its

provocative

and

challenging

hypotheses

making

it

required

reading.

University

of

California,

Los

Angeles

DAVID

T.

CATTELL

British

Labor

and

Public

Ownership.

By

HERBERT

E.

WEINER.

(Washington,

D.C.:

Public

Affairs

Press.

1960.

Pp.

xii,

111.

$3.25.)

This

is

a

brief

monograph

documented

chiefly

from

the

records

of

TUC

(Trades

Union

Congress),

the

Labour

party,

and

official

records

of

the

Labour

Government,

1945-51.

Dr.

Weiner

tries

to

demonstrate

the

maturity

and

re-

sponsibility

of

the

English

labor

movement

in

both

its

trade-union

and

political

branches

and

is

not

concerned

with

the

issue

of

public

ownership

itself.

He

shows

that

in

labor

conferences

and

reports

the

British

labor

movement

is

flex-

ible

and

moderate

rather

than

doctrinaire

and

revolutionary.

He

thinks

Labour

can

win

elections

only

by

not

advocating

any

major

nationalization

projects.

If

this

thesis

is

correct,

it

would

seem

to

me

that

a

second

election

at

which

na-

tionalization

was

an

issue

would

be

required

by

British

constitutional

tradition

before

any

major

additional

nationalization

could

be

accomplished.

Only

the

nationalization

of

steel,

some

segments

of

road

transport,

and

machine

tools

are

now

advocated

by

British

Labour

according

to

Dr.

Weiner.

He

gives

brief

treatment

to

the

attitude

of

British

Labour

toward

national-

ization

during

the

period

before

World

War

I,

and

during

the

period

between

the

two

wars

(1919-39).

He

gives

a

fuller

treatment

of

the

progress

of

nation-

alization

from

1926

to

1945.

He

describes

the

&dquo;Peaceful

Revolution&dquo;

which

brought

extensive

nationalization

under

the

Attlee

Labour

Government

from

1945

to

1951.

He

describes

the

change

in

the

attitude

of

British

Labour

toward

nationalization

which

he

sees

as

a

result of

the

greater

maturity

of

English

labor,

the

dynamic

changes

in

British

economy,

and

the

electoral

defeats

of

the

Labour

party

in

1951,

1955,

and

1959.

He

points

to

the

abandonment

of

advocacy

of

nationalization

of

land

as

a

major

example

of

this

change

in

attitude.

Western

State

College

of

Colorado

ROBERT

W.

McCULLOCH

Politics

and

Trade

Policy.

By

JOE

R.

WILKINSON.

(Washington,

D.C.:

Public

Affairs

Press,

1960.

Pp.

vi,

151.

$3.75.)

In

this

modest

book,

which

might

be

descriptively

subtitled,

&dquo;The

Politi-

cal

History

of

the

Trade

Agreements

Act,&dquo;

Professor

Wilkinson

has

examined

the

political

processes

in

Washington

as

they

affected

the

Reciprocal

Trade

Agreements

Program

from

its

inception

in

1934

until

1958.

In

confining

him-

self

to

a

practical

political

problem,

Dr.

Wilkinson

has

deliberately

sought

to

avoid

theory,

either

political

or

economic.

In

choosing

to

tread

so

narrow

a

pa.th

the

author

has

saved

himself

from

pitfalls

of

speculation

and

subjectivity,

and

this

perhaps

explains

the

uncluttered

and

admirably

objective

flow

of

the

narrative,

which

is

not

the

least

of

the

attributes

of

the

study.