Mously taken up in the labour movement. tracts from these documents together with our comments.
The two documents - entitled Scottish Economic Development after Self-Government', and Financial Management after SelfGovernment' - were produced by a committee of leading financiers and financial advisers. Its members included John Donachy (PolEcon Ltd), Alistair McKenzie (PolEcon Ltd), Grant Baird (Royal Bank of Scotland), David Stobie (investment adviser to merchant bankers Grossart Ltd), Ronald McNeil (DalScot, merchant bankers), Prof. David Simpson (Director, Fraser of Alexander Institute of Research into the Scottish Economy - funded by Sir Hugh Fraser), Chris Bauer (Scottish Correspondent, the Financial Times), and Alexander Scott (PolEcon Ltd).
The committee at no time consulted trade sinion or working class opinion during its Case the reason becones 00vious when we look at the documents. The first starts off.
'Scotland will inherit a mixed economy. It is not for us to speculate here upon the respecof public/private sectors of entrepreneurial ownership and organisation in a self governing Scotland. What is certain is that a Scottish Government, inheriting a mixed economy and accepting the broad goal of economic policy stated above, must accept a continuing responsibility towards the private sector to strive for the maintenance of conditions in which that sector can play a full part.
Problems
This, of course, leaves certain problems. Because if you accept a continuing responsibility to the private sector' - i.e. for capitalism - you accept declining basic industry, mass housing and unemployment problems, inflation, and the power of a capitalist class which is totally incapable of changing this You accept that you cannot emSLEUCLUIC. bark on the large scale planning needed to deal with these problems. Nor can you release the necessary resources, since that would involve massive attacks on the Scottish banks (which control £1,218 million in deposits and £71 million in reserves), the insurance companies (whose funds total £1,825 million), and the Scottish investment trusts (whose funds total £1,105 million - one third of total British holdings).
Therefore an alternative has to be put forward - the workers must pay. find that the diplomatic double-talk so characteristic of the SNP begins to wear a bit transparent:
*A Scottish Government is likely also to innerit ione-es abusned serious prooems! respect of the maintenance of output and employment in parts of Scotland, particularly in West Central Scotland. Its success in cor ing with these legacies... will particularly hinge National Committee of the Scottish National Party this weekend. It is contained in two special documents commissioned by a secret committee headed by Douglas The documents would probably never have come to light in their present form if they had not been leaked by incensed SNP members to a London These documents confirm in striking form the analysis previously made of the evolution of the SIP by the IMG and Red Weekly. We think it is of the utmost importance that the machinations of the clique who put these documents together are exposed, aud that the campaign against the SN's diversionary tactics is vigorAs a first step, we print below key exupon mobility of manpower occupationally, and to some extent geographicary. some of the requirements for achieving this are likely to be highly controversial. widespread and strong tendency in Scotland ¡mous its ov no means exclusive to sco! lana, to beneve nar because a particular ac avily nas providea a paracular number or jobs in a particular area for many years it must be expected and if necessary subsidised to go on doing so forever.
What does this mean? It means a continuation of the trends which, as we pointed out in the IMG pamphlet Scotland, Labour, and Workers Power, are already taking place: [Heath was called a butcher when he tried to close where workers are being forced out of the West of Scotland in droves to work in virtual labour camps building the oil rigs; where the number of shipyards on the Clyde has declined from17 to three; where the British Steel Corporation is busy trying to write off steel production in Scotland outside the Ravenscraig plant - and where the total absence of alterhative employment is forcing massive migration on the working class, together with the break-up of communities and union organisaTION The next paragraph spells it out: will be concentrated:
ment encouragement are: tourism process plant financial services defence equipment' land's textile industry.
on the working class. recession and massive inflation.
for some years, in certain industries, but should operate like a "company doctor", seek- simple. ing either eventual re-invigoration or the least painful form of euthanasia for its patients. A Scottish Government should not be expected or prepared to surer tame ducks machmery.
When Heath did this to Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, he wasn't called a 'doctor' but a butcher. But in case of any doubt, the document lays down where development effort 'Nevertheless, among the existing Scottish industries on which a Scottish Government - oil related (engineering and downstream) engineering (particularly specialist) and certain capital equipment goods luxury consumer goods, especially textiles.
specialised shipbuilding and marine enginaerospace, including electronics Unfortunately this omits such industries as steel (on which the SNP has run a major campaign under the banner 'Save Scottish Steel'!), them.
The basis on which this is proposed is very The tendency after separation would be (and is now) for Scotland to become a 'clearing house' for world finance and a place where, because of oil expertise and capital, a great deal of financial capital would be located. does not at all mean investment capital: the money would be used for imperialist investment abroad - for instance, in Venezuela, Central Africa, and the South Asia Seas, all places where oil investment is booming. Already Scottish banks and merchant banks (banks which organise large-scale loans to cap italists for investment) are mushrooming.
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more like Switzerland's than Detroit's? journalist and circulated to the socialist press.
'Our first inclination is to visualise a future economic structure for Scotland as Tnis is the conception of an independent Scotland to be discussed by the