What policy in the political field can be adopted to further these objects?  Reverting once more to the fourfold division which I made at the outset, but taking the points in a different order, there is first the question whether there should be a great extension of State ownership, management, or control of monopolies and big business.  In spite of the experience of the war, I suggest tentatively that no case has been made out for any wide or general extension of the field of State management in industry.  This, however, is not a matter of principle, but of expediency, where each case must be considered on its merits.  Liberals should, indeed, keep an open mind in this connection and not be afraid to face an enlargement of the field of State management from time to time.  There are, however, two special cases to be considered:  the mines and the railways.  As to the mines, the solution Mr. McNair puts forward is on characteristically Liberal lines, because it will endeavour to harmonise the safeguarding of the interests of the State with the maximum freedom to private enterprise and the maximum scope for variety in methods of management.  As to transport, we have recently passed an Act altering the form of control of British railways.

Personally I think the question whether railways should or should not be nationalised is very much on the balance.  It is obviously one of the questions where objections to State management are less serious than in most other cases.  On the other hand, we may be able to find methods of control which may be even better than State management.  I do not think the Act of last year fulfils the conditions which Liberals would have imposed on the railways, for the principle of guaranteeing to a monopoly a fixed income practically without any means of securing its efficiency, is the wrong way to control a public utility service.  If we are going to leave public utilities in the hands of private enterprise, the principle must be applied that profit should vary in proportion to the services rendered to the community.  In this connection the old gas company principle developed before the war is an admirable one.  Under it the gas companies were allowed to increase their dividends in proportion as they lowered their prices to the community.  That is a key principle, and some adaptation of it is required wherever such services are left in private hands.  My own view is that an amended form of railway control should first be tried, and if that fails we should be prepared for some form of nationalisation.

TRUSTS AND MONOPOLIES