”
J)

THE NEW TOWNS

concerns to suit their own needs, on land let at long lease. In all cases,
they represent a substantial addition to the economy of the New Town areas,
and in the long run their arrival may help to raise wages and working conditions
 in older establishments in the same districts.

Implications of the Labour Shortage
There are two tendencies at work here, however, that must be noted.
ogres gl the New Towns there is_a shortage of labour. To prevent firms
“poaching skilled workers from each other, there have been restrictive
agreements among the employers, whereby they will not engage a man who
voluntarily leaves another New Town factory. The motive is understandable,
but it seems an unnecessary precaution that could have undesirable consequences.
 Could it be used to exclude shop stewards or other militants
from the area? And is it sensible to force skilled workers to travel away
from a New Town to another area at a time when the Industrial Selection
Scheme is being used to bring men with similar skills into a New Town?
And is it not a limitation on a man’s freedom to choose his job, to prefer
one employer to another?
This tendency is all the more disturbing, though it has so far affected
only a small number of workers, because of an attempt that is being made
by the employers—Hemel Hempstead is not th: ly Seample—to ‘tie’ New
Town houses. They argue that houses are Bice ed to the workers they
bring with the new factory; that, as there is a shortage of labour and a strong
demand for houses, if one of their employees leaves and goes elsewhere to
work, he should surrender his house to another worker, brought in perhaps
under the Industrial Selection Scheme. This proposal has properly been
resisted by the Corporations. But it has caused some concern to active trade
unionists, especially since the passage of the Rents and Repairs Act, 1954,
removed New Town houses from rent restriction and gave the Corporations
the power of eviction. These two tendencies may belong to a passing phase;
they should, however, be resisted, for nothing could be worse than for a
kind of company-town tradition to grow up. There are already some signs
of paternalism on the part of senior Corporation officials and Corporation
members, and of ‘understandings’ between them and the incoming
industrialists. If there were a prolonged period of Conservative government,
such an alliance could wield very considerable power.

Voluntary Organisations
The most effective answer to official paternalism or undue influence on
the part of organised employers lies in healthy and vigorous voluntary
organisation in the New Towns. This does not merely mean active political
parties and flourishing trade unionism; it also means a very wide range of
voluntary bodies, catering for all interests and tastes, and co-ordinated so
far as possible through neighbourhood associations.
The conditions of life in New Towns are such as to promote a social
network of this kind. The newer the town, the smaller the original nucleus,
i the more dependent the residents are upon their own voluntary organisa-