The Steel Rush
The Lords having refused to withdraw their remaining 32 amend- ments to the Steel Bill, they are deemed by the Government to have rejected it, and the Government itself now faces the next step with a determination which, if it had any cerebral basis at all, would be verging on the desperate. But *responsible weighing of arguments has never had anything to do with the Government's policy on steel nationalisation, and so it prepares for the next stage, the application of the Parliament Bill to sweep aside the objections of the Lords, with the calm prescience of a runaway tram. The genuinely tragic aspect of this miserable affair is that it was all completely un- necessary. It would have been the easiest thing in the world—and a great relief to many of its supporters—if the Government had decided to drop, or even postpone, its original absent-minded under- taking to nationalise the steel industry. But it has gone ahead, learn- ing painfully, one by one, the awful consequences of a rash promise that need never have been made. It has been given chance after chance to withdraw. The steel industry itself has offered voluntarily to accept a degree of control which is far more than any enthusiast for free enterprise would consider safe. The pressure of Parlia- mentary business of a genuinely urgent nature would have been a more than sufficient reason for moving this Bill down the list of subjects for discussion. The new economic crisis provides the latest of these reasons, and the fact that it is being ignored while Parliament fiddles in the burning heat of late sittings is little short of a crime Even now the Lords have left open the door to honour- able retreat. They have not rejected the Bill. They have offered a series of amendments. To accept those amendments would be an act of sanity on the part of the Government, would improve its chances of retaining some shred of public respect, and would allow the electors to express their will in this matter—which they have never done yet. The Government should accept the last opportunity for reflection offered them by the Lords. But instead they charge straight ahead to disaster.
Previous page
