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{{Short description|Political pamphlet from the U.K. Conservative Party on the post-war consensus}}

{{See also|Political career of Rab Butler (1941–1951)}}
'''''The Industrial Charter: A Statement of Conservative Industrial Policy''''' was a 1947 pamphlet and [[policy]] statement by the [[United Kingdom]] [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]]. The ''Charter'' is widely regarded as representing a seminal moment in the history of post war Conservatism as the party reconciled itself with many of the economic and social policies introduced by [[Clement Attlee]]'s [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government following the [[1945 United Kingdom general election]].

== History ==
The ''Charter'' was first published in May 1947. It was the outcome of a process of rethinking brought about by the Conservative's landslide defeat in the [[1945 United Kingdom general election]]. This process had begun a year earlier when the party's newly extended [[Conservative Research Department|Research Department]] began work on defining a policy that was both Conservative and progressive.<ref>R.A. Butler, ''The Art of the Possible: the Memoirs of Lord Butler, K.G., C.H.'' (London, 1971), p. 145.</ref> The policy statement was accepted on 2 October 1947 at the Conservative's Annual Conference being held in Brighton.<ref>''The Times'', 'Conservative Policy for Industry', 3 October 1947.</ref>

== Content ==
The ''Industrial Charter'' was a collection of distinct economic policies and included a separate "Pledge to the Consumer", a "Woman's Charter" and a "Workers' Charter". It accepted the idea of a [[mixed economy]], gave a commitment that the party would protect [[labour rights]], stressed the need for fairness and opposed [[protectionism]].

Its emphasis was, though, placed squarely upon the individual and the document was highly-critical of its opponents. The Labour Party's attempts at [[economic planning]] were criticised for having created an incompetent and swollen civil service focused on administering a multitude of overlapping and unnecessary restrictions.<ref>Conservative Central Office, ''The Industrial Charter'' (1947), pp. 11 and 13.</ref> It argued that the party had removed economic incentives and enforced a 'rigid straight jacket (sic) of doctrinaire political theory…[and] unnecessary controls'.<ref>CCO, ''The Industrial Charter'', p. 1.</ref> Instead it called for a rolling back of the state and urged that a 'sense of realism, free opportunity, incentives and justice' should 'inspire all industrial policy'.<ref>CCO, ''The Industrial Charter'', p. 4.</ref>

== Reception ==
The Charter and a shortened 'popular' version were generally well received, sold an estimated 2.5 million copies and have often been thought to have helped "rehabilitate" the Conservative Party after 1945.<ref>Peter Dorey, ''British Conservatism and Trade Unionism'', 1945–1964 (Farnham, 2009), p. 48.</ref>

Churchill, Leader of the Opposition, held a dinner at [[Savoy Hotel|the Savoy]] and complimented the Charter to [[Rab Butler]], who was in charge of the party's policy-making apparatus, but never formally adopted it as party policy. It was published on 12 May 1947. It was praised loudly by every paper apart from the Labour ''[[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|Herald]]''.<ref>Butler 1971, p145, p148</ref> Churchill, who is said to have commented “but I do not agree with a word of this” to [[Reginald Maudling]]’s five-line summary, did not endorse the Charter until after publication.<ref>Jago, pp192-5"</ref> It was said by the Tory Right that the Industrial Charter would “amalgamate the Tory party with the YMCA”.<ref>"The YMCA" had been a derogatory nickname for a group of younger progressive Conservatives in the 1920s.</ref><ref>Butler 1971, pp133-4</ref> The document caused a notable degree of debate at the October 1947 Conservative Party Conference.<ref>Anthony Howard, ''Rab: the life of R.A. Butler'' (London, 1987), p. 156.</ref>

[[Harold Macmillan]] managed to persuade the press that the ''Charter'' was derived from his 1930s book “The Middle Way”, a claim echoed by [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Quintin Hogg]]. This was largely untrue, although Macmillan had sometimes bored drafting meetings by reading extracts from his book. In the view of historian Stuart Ball, the Charter probably owed more to [[Harry Crookshank]]’s tenure as [[Secretary for Mines]] in the late 1930s, when he followed a policy of cartelisation and market-sharing.<ref>Ball 2004, pp.292–3</ref>

Despite its favourable press, the historian Andrew Taylor also contends that the ''Charter'' should be seen as a propaganda failure as it failed to reach its intended audience.<ref>Andrew Taylor, 'Speaking to Democracy: the Conservative Party and Mass Opinion from the 1920s to the 1950s', in ''Mass Conservatism: The Conservatives and the Public since the 1880s'', eds. S. Ball and I. Holliday (London, 2002), pp. 78–99.</ref> This is backed up by a report conducted by [[Mass Observation]] which found that eighty per cent of a sample had no knowledge at all of the ''Charter'' in the month after its publication.<ref>Mass Observation, ''File Report 2516'', 'The Industrial Charter' (1947), p. 8.</ref>

== Historical significance ==
Although perhaps not as pivotal a moment of the Conservative Party's history as often claimed, the ''Charter'' remains historically symbolic as marking the acceptance of the [[post-war consensus]] that would later be [[satire|satirised]] as [[Butskellism]].<ref>''The Economist'', 'Mr Butskell's Dilemma', 13 February 1954.</ref> This owes much to the significance later imbued into the document by those responsible for its publication.<ref>E.H.H. Green, 'The Conservative Party, the State and the Electorate, 1945–1964', in ''Party, State and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820'' (Aldershot, 1997), 176–200 (pp. 179–80); John Ramsden, ''The Age of Churchill and Eden, 1940–1957'' (London, 1995), p. 94; and R.A. Butler, ''The Art of the Possible'', p. 126.</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Additional Bibliography==
* {{cite book|last = Ball|first = Simon| year = 2004| title = The Guardsmen| location = London| publisher = HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-00-257110-4}} ''(a joint biography of [[Harold Macmillan]], [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Salisbury]], [[Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos|Oliver Lyttelton]] and Harry Crookshank)''
* {{cite book|last = Butler|first = Rab| year = 1971| title = The Art of the Possible| location = London| publisher = Hamish Hamilton| isbn = 978-0241020074}}, his autobiography
*{{ cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j0WoYMr-5ycC&dq=industrial+charter+conservative+1947&pg=PA25 | pages=25 | author=Dorey, P. | year=1995 | title=British Politics Since 1945 | publisher=Blackwells | location=London | isbn=0631190759 }} ([[Google Books]])
* [[Anthony Howard (journalist)|Howard, Anthony]] ''RAB: The Life of R. A. Butler'', Jonathan Cape 1987 {{ISBN|978-0-224-01862-3}} [https://www.amazon.com/RAB-Life-R-Butler-ebook/dp/B00B0CXFM2/ excerpt]
* Jago, Michael ''Rab Butler: The Best Prime Minister We Never Had?'', Biteback Publishing 2015 {{ISBN|978-1849549202}}
*{{ cite book | last=Kynaston |first = David | authorlink = David Kynaston | year=2007 | title=Austerity Britain: 1945–1951 | location=London | publisher=Bloomsbury | isbn=978-0-7475-7985-4 | pages=238–241 }}
*{{ cite book | title=British Trade Unions, 1945-1995 | author=Wrigley, C. | isbn=0719041473 | publisher=Manchester University Press | location=Manchester | year=1997 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SAV5K4MkWZoC&dq=industrial+charter+conservative+1947&pg=PA5 | pages=5 }} (Google Books)
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[[Category:Conservative Party (UK) publications]]
[[Category:History of the Conservative Party (UK)]]
[[Category:One-nation conservatism]]
[[Category:1947 in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Political manifestos]]
[[Category:1947 in British politics]]
[[Category:1947 documents]]
[[Category:Pamphlets]]
[[Category:Progressive conservatism]]

Industrial Charter - Revision history

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