Accordingly the Labour Party would immediately establish the common ownership of land, the common ownership and administration of railways and canals, and their consolidation with harbours, roads, posts, telegraphs, and the ocean-going steamer lines into a national service of Communication and Transport, to be worked “unhampered by capitalist, private or purely local interests, and with a steadily increasing participation of the organized workers in the management, both central and local, exclusively for the common good.” So also it would erect a score of national central electrical generating stations, with which all municipal electrical plants would be connected for distribution purposes. For similar reasons, the Party demands the immediate nationalization of coal-mines, with steadily increasing participation in the management, both central and local, of the various grades of persons employed; and insists that the retail distribution of household coal should be undertaken by the municipal authorities or county councils, the purpose to be achieved being the distribution in every local district of household coal of standard quality at a fixed and uniform price “as unalterable as the penny postage stamp.” The State expropriation of profit-making industrial insurance companies is urged, also the assumption by Government of the whole business of life insurance. Much stress is laid upon the alleged necessity that Government should take the manufacture and retailing of intoxicants out of the hands of persons who find profit in promoting the utmost possible consumption of them, and that each local authority should deal with “the trade” within its district on the basis of local veto or limitation of licences or other system of regulation. Admittedly alive to the evils of centralization and the restrictions of bureaucracy, the Party claims a free hand for local authorities, assisted by grants-in-aid from Government sources, to extend widely the scope of municipal enterprise. Local authorities should, it is asserted, not only retail coal, but supply milk, and engage in other similar spheres of trade. All members of local bodies ought, it is said, to receive their necessary travelling expenses, and also be paid for time spent by them on the public service.