Controlled Industry After the War
There is a clearness of vision in Mr. Samuel Courtauld's c bution to the latest number of the Economic Purnal which should like to think was shared by all leaders of industry in country. Mr. Courtauld franidy faces the fact that industrial duction cannot go back to, the position it was in before the w "Government control has come to stay." Nothing less than Government is capable of planning industry on a nation-wide s he recognises that even if private business were capable of s planning, no Government could tolerate the existence of a compl independent power with a radius of action as wide as its o In his opinion, some middle way has to be found between p individualism and pure Socialism. If the men in possession not adapt themselves the alternative is a complete Socialist re% Con. Though he is no believer in bureaucracy and Trea obstruction in business finance, he insists that, since production the most vital activity of the nation, the Government in peace in war will have to control industry, and sometimes even is direct orders to enable national production to conform to a nal wide plan. He is surely right in insisting that special attention have to be given to the reduction of distribution costs. The difference between costs of production and costs to the consu and the undue profits made by middlemen, have been a [nil cause of discontent in the past. It cannot be too strongly emphasi that at the end of the war it would be a disaster if controls N% suddenly lifted, and the whole economic system were allowed slip back into indiscriminate competition before planned reorgam tion had time to come into effect.
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