Mr. Powell Tells Royal School of 'Prosperity Tap' Talk

The Minister of Health and M.P. for Wolverhampton South-West, Mr J. Enoch Powell spoke yesterday in Wolverhampton of the ‘prosperity tap’ somewhere in Whitehall that some people believed could be turned on and off.

Almost every day, Mr. Powell told parents and pupils at the Royal Wolverhampton School prize-giving, they read and heard statements which, if they meant anything, meant that a person’s proper expectation did not depend on his own efforts, but upon the decision of somebody else – that he was entitled to expect a year-by-year rise in his pay, but that it did not depend on him, but on the success or skill of his union, or it being given by this or that employer or by the Government.

“Scientific achievement, discovery, adventure … you would imagine it was governments that decided men would get into space and get to the moon.

I even heard it in medicine, as Minister of Health, as though it was the amount of money put into research that determined whether we were going to find a cure for this disease or not,” said Mr. Powell.

This doctrine which would be “dinner into your ears”, he told the children, was not in the lesson they were taught at school.

FALSE LESSON

It was a false lesson, for the truth was that achievement came back in the end to one thing – the determination and success of a man or woman. A prize day was a symbol of this truth.

“Let people never persuade you it doesn’t matter whether you try or don’t try, that it doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail. There is nothing else that matters.”

Earlier Mr. Powell said that there was a kind of conspiracy in modern times to persuade people the opposite.

All the devices of publicity, all they heard and read was trying to say to them that what the individual did and achieved did not matter, that it did not depend on the single man or woman.

“We are told, every day, that the success of a nation, its prosperity, its investment, its exports and its place in the world can be engineered for it by its government, that the growth, the output of an economy depends on whether the Government pulls this leaver or pushes that leaver, that there is some sort of prosperity tap that can be turned on or off in Whitehall.”

Mr. C.C. Lathe chairman of the governors of the school, said they were very concerned about the falling off in the numbers of pupils boarding there.

With 300 children in residence during the year it seemed the welfare state was taking over some of the responsibilities the school had shouldered for nearly 100 years. Many new schools being built also contributed to the decline in the number of applications for places, added the chairman.

On finance, Mr. Lathe said the governors were very concerned about the increasing costs of running the school.

In 1939, it cost less than £60 to educate, maintain and clothe a child. In 1961 it was nearly £300.

SEEKING GUIDANCE

Because of the anxieties over this, the governors were seeking guidance and help from the Minister of Education.

In a year’s time said Mr. Lathe it might be that the governors would be able to give a clearer view of their hopes and plans. “What I want to stress is that the governors will do their utmost to ensure the continuance of the school as a flourishing community,” said Mr. Lathe.

Mrs. Powell presented the prizes.