Printed for the Cabinet. November age 99 of 321
SECRET
C.P. (55) 173
15th November, 1955
CABINET
Copy No. 70
CATIONS
DRAFT WHITE PAPER ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF
FULL EMPLOYMENT
MEMORANDUM BY THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
On 3rd November the Cabinet invited me to bring forward a revised version of the White Paper on the Implications of Full Employment (C.M. (55) 39th Conclusions, Minute 6).
2. I attach a new version of the White Paper, which has been considered by officials, and has been submitted by them to Ministers with a recommendation that, it Ministers agree, it should be published in a few weeks' time, after the Finance Bill has passed.
3. The White Paper will attract attention both in academic circles and in industry-on both sides. It may also provoke a debate in Parliament. It has, therefore, been drafted as objectively as possible. But it inevitably raises certain issues, both of substance and of presentation. Those which I would bring to the particular notice of my colleagues are as follows:-
(a) The text adopts, deliberately, a long-term approach to the questions which it discusses, and avoids any topical reference to recent or current events, e.g., the latest economic measures announced by the Government. Questions of this kind are subsumed in the reference (in paragraph 25) to the adjustments of Government policy which are required from time to time in the maintenance of full employment; and the White Paper concentrates its attention on the conditions which must be continuously fulfilled if we are to achieve our long-term objective of maintaining relative stability of prices as one essential factor in the maximum expansion of a balanced economy. I believe that this approach to the subject is right, and that the potential value of the White Paper would be diminished if it were made too topical in tone.
(b) The text avoids--again deliberately-any explicit appeal for restraint in the matter of wages and dividend distribution. It takes the line that it is the Government's duty to make the facts available for public discussion and education, and that it is up to the community as a whole to draw the necessary inferences. This, too, I believe to be right. If this White Paper is published, it will, of course, need to be followed up by a good deal of publicity of various kinds. If this publicity is effective, the basic argument of the White Paper should gradually percolate into the wider public consciousness all the more thoroughly for presenting its case in a relatively detached way and not preaching at its readers.
(c) In its treatment of facts, the text attempts to be as impartial as possible. The three points at which it is most liable to Party political criticism
are:
(i) Its reference, in paragraph 9 (iii), to the effect on prices of the Page 99ation of sterling in September 199age 99 of 321
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