W. Keith Hancock and Margaret M. Gowing

“ The task would soon be defining itself in new ways as unemployed resources were absorbed and scarcity became the chronic condition in all sectors of the national economy. When that happened, the need would be much more urgent than it had been in the first period of the war to establish at the centre of government an efficient mechanism of economic control.
But in the summer of 1940 it was the new motive power, not the new mechanism, that mattered most. Unity of spirit between Government, Parliament and people proclaimed a new day of realism and relentless will to victory. ”

“ With all these hindrances to contend against, Allied economic warfare during the first six months of the war could not make much of a dent in the enemy’s strength. Paradoxically, the British Government seemed now to be forgetting its earlier and more sober estimates of possible achievement. At the meeting of the Supreme War Council at the end of March, the British Prime Minister acclaimed economic warfare as ‘the main weapon’. ”

“ Judging from the evidence of the Statute Book, of the volumes of Defence Regulations and of Statutory Rules and Orders, it would at first sight appear that the powers which Parliament surrendered the to Government for the purpose of defending national freedom left in being very few of those concrete individual freedoms for which Parliaments of earlier centuries had struggled so steadfastly. ”

“ By this time, however, the British and French Governments were ready to think out ways and means of sharpening their ‘main weapon’ and using it more resolutely. They felt that they must take a firmer line with some of the neutrals that were supplying Germany. Their military advisers were becoming increasingly uneasy about the undiluted passivity of Allied strategy. Spring was approaching, but the gap between Allied and German resources seemed just as great as it had been in the previous autumn. ”

“ At Westminster, the Government immediately sought from Parliament new additions to the exceptional powers with which it had been vested during the past fortnight. Even in time of war, no British Government can act outside the law. It has to find legal authority for its actions, either under the Common Law, or the Royal Prerogative, or Statute Law. Since the use of the Common Law and the Royal Prerogative is subject to strict limitations, it must secure most of its emergency powers from Acts of Parliament and from the Regulations and Orders made under those Acts. ”

“ In the present volume, the problems of government organisation can be considered only from a central point of view, and even then only briefly.
The more widely functions were diffused among departments, the more necessary it became to institute efficient machinery for knitting them together into one coherent policy for winning the war. The Ministries of Supply and Economic Warfare had to serve the needs of strategy. The Ministry of Labour had to produce men for the Ministry of Supply’s contracts and for the Forces themselves. ”

“ Its criticism was not in vain; for sometimes it moved the Government to modify Regulations, and always it inculcated a salutary moderation in the administration of the more distasteful ones, such as those that gave the Government power to detain persons on suspicion and to suppress newspapers. Moreover, the House of Commons showed an increasing anxiety to extend its effective control over Regulations to cover those multitudinous rules and orders which departments were by Regulation empowered to make. ”

“ The Chancellor, alone among the ministers concerned with economic affairs, had a seat in the War Cabinet; he was also chairman of the Ministerial Economic Policy Committee and the political supervisor of Lord Stamp’s work. The Permanent Secretary to the Treasury was chairman at the official level of both the Economic Policy and the Food Policy sub-committees.
This balance in the composition and leadership of the civil committees was reflected in their deliberations: the economic effort of war was commonly assessed in terms of finance rather than of physical resources. ”

“ Shortage of foreign exchange circumscribed its plans to forestall the Germans in purchases from neutral countries. Its desire to observe existing rules of international law, except in so far as German action justified reprisals, hampered its attempts to ration forcibly the imports of neutrals, or to block enemy exports. Moreover, the international law concerning blockade was subject to rival interpretations: the United States were by tradition the opponents of the British doctrine of blockade and the champions of neutral rights. ”

“ On the civil side the need for an efficient mechanism was if anything greater; for whereas the Service Ministers were all members of the War Cabinet, the majority of civil departments were unrepresented in it. If therefore the separate activities of these departments were to be effectively and continuously focused upon the main objectives of war policy, the War Cabinet must establish bodies vested by devolution with substantial authority. But there did not exist on the civil side the same firm foundation of peace-time organisation ”

“ In a study of ‘British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality’ they ruled out submission but saw no chance of final victory unless full economic support were forthcoming from the United States. Looking to the immediate future they saw no prospect save a desperate defence. At home, the most urgent of many needs was for fighter aircraft and crews for the approaching battle against the German air fleets and possibly the invading German Army. Abroad, the western basin of the Mediterranean would be dominated by the enemy ”

“ All the new ministries with economic functions to perform found themselves faced with common problems of organisation. If they were to exercise detailed control over the trades and industries entrusted to their oversight they had to expand their staffs with great rapidity ”

“ Not that it ignored the advantages of decentralisation: on the contrary, it authorised some sixty War Cabinet committees, of which about two-thirds were inter-departmental, non-ministerial bodies. The number seems impressive, but mere number is no guide. Fewer committees might possibly have done more competent work.
The military committees had their shortcomings, but, unlike the civil committees, they could at least build upon a firm basis of proved experience; the Chiefs of Staff Committee and its sub-committees for Joint Planning and Joint Intelligence [22] were already in existence. ”

“ They therefore reinforced their administrative strength with academic persons whose names were on the National Register and built up their industrial controls chiefly with business men who had experience in the industries now subjected to control This partnership of civil servant, don and business man turned out to be one of the most interesting and fruitful administrative experiments of the war: its history, in each significant sphere of economic management, will be told in the appropriate volumes of this series. ”