Burying the Coffin
By GEOFFREY PARKER
THE great belt of industrial towns which stretches intermittently from the Thames to the Pennine fringes is known to geographers as 'The Coffin,' ostensibly on account of its shape on the map. It has come to be regarded as the natural economic axis of this country, the trunk line, as it were, in comparison with which peripheral industrial areas are merely branches. Its significance has been reflected in the dense net of railways with their impressive triplications thrusting diagonally across England and linking together five of its major cities. Whether or not this area had anything like the pull which is often ascribed to it, its importance or even existence at the present day must be called in question. It is a concept which has become dated and in many ways presents a positive barrier to realistic thinking on Britain's economic problems.
The existence of an industrial axis of this sort in Victorian times and even beyond is hardly to be disputed. It developed as the result of a complex interaction of factors based upon the nineteenth-century migration of industry to the northern coal basins. As the industrial Mohammed moved bag and baggage to the mountains, so the North became the workshop of England when England was workshop to the world. The pre-eminence of the South as main repository of the nation's wealth was thus lost for the first time in British history. As Bristol gave way to Liverpool, East Anglia to Yorkshire, and shipbuilding moved from the Thames to the North-East, so the economic heartland drifted to the edges of formerly uninviting moors. London, however, not only withstood the changes but thrived on them. Although many northern 'capitals' arose, and Manchester thought one day what London thought the next, no northern city attained such an overriding significance as could conceivably have converted it from a regional into a national centre. So London kept the reins of finance and politics, and grew fat on wealth created afar.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century the overriding importance of the North has been gradually eroded away, and industries have slipped back towards the South. Those who conceive of industrial location as being a static thing—and amongst them, one suspects, are a fair proportion of the Government—appear to regard this as somehow an aberration, explic- able only in terms of wars and slumps which have succeeded in throwing the nation's economic life out of gear. Yet it is difficult to see how the decline of coal and shipbuilding could possibly be considered solely in these terms, when there are so many other long-term factors involved. All the signs of the past thirty years have pointed to a decline of the northern industries, and an expansion of those in the South, and it is surpris- ing that the logic of this has not been accepted. On the contrary, the Government seems to wish to convince the North, doubtless to mollify the legitimate passions of its people, that it is already in process of returning to some sort of industrial status quo ante. All real evidence, however, points to the southward trend being a natural one, being carried out in order to bring the nation's economic geography into line with the requirements of maximum efficiency. Perhaps 'carried out' is too purposeful a term in the circumstances, since this movement is the result of thousands of individual necessities and judg- ments, the aggregate of which has produced that theme song of the Sixties, the 'Drift to the South.'
The swing in favour of the South began about the beginning of the present century, and was associated with changes which were then begin- ning to affect the nation's economic and social structure. The heavy industries which were of necessity located near to the sources of fuel and raw materials were ceasing to dominate, and a newer branch of industry concerned with multi- component 'consumer' articles was beginning to grow up. The lightness and complexity of these readily-marketable products was to exert an important influence on the pattern of industry, since they were freed from the older sites, and indeed found others more advantageous. Socially, the changes entailed a more equitable distribu- tion of the national product, allowing more money to be spent on the newly available goods, and so giving a fillip to expansion. It was the interaction of these economic and social changes on an ever increasing scale which set the now familiar developments in motion.
Initially the movement was considerably aided by the mobility of the new sources of power, thus diminishing and in certain spheres eliminating the attraction exerted by the coalfields. It was also encouraged by the already existent industries in these areas, with their leaning towards small and metal goods. A third element in the evolving situation was the existence in the South of a greater marginal purchasing power and so a market for the initially expensive manufactured goods. As a result of these occurrences the South gained what has since become perhaps its most obvious asset and this was its early start in this second Industrial Revolution. Other areas which for one reason and another attempt to follow suit have to set about purposefully creating their own favourable conditions, sometimes in the most unpromising environment. In addition to this, one of the greatest obstructions to such attempts is .the resounding success of the Mid- lands and the South-East.
The rise of these areas has set in motion a sort of economic chain reaction. The concentration of ever larger numbers of people into huge conur- bations such as London entails the multiplication of services like transport and power, which are necessary to keep them ticking. The gigantic undertakings necessary can only be justified if the wealth being produced is great enough, and the attractive capacity in terms of man-power is sufficient. To condemn the whole thing a priori is to ignore the essential point that it would not be occurring if it was not by general consensus more effective than any other possible form of industrial grouping. If this is judged bad, then it is a reflection on the distribution rather than on the creation of wealth. Indeed, an enforced proliferation of the nation's industrial centres such as is often glibly envisaged will in the long run operate to the disadvantage of them all since the more efficient would be subsidising the less so. This is far from saying that the industries of one place are inherently better Than those of another. It is rather that they are made so by environmental factors which are out of the direct control of the industrialist, except in so far as he chooses to use them. Thus goods will be made most effectively in those•areas which, as a conse- quence of a variety of factors from raw materials to consumers, are most naturally favoured for their production, and a general movement to- wards such localities is not only to be expected but to be encouraged. The resulting coincidence of industrial advantages in a particular locality will be given greater impetus by more intensive use of human resources in the form of roads and railways, so emphasising the primacy of the area A further advantage of the South is its proximity to the European continent, an area with which our external trade is continually in- creasing at a rate far more rapid than that with the rest of the world. The South-East especially is very well situated for rapid communications with the highly industrialised areas across the Channel. This is of especial significance of a result of the increasing tendency towards a specialisa- tion in international trade on Sophisticated products, resulting in the greatest increases being amongst the advanced industrial nations them- selves. Another factor of significance here is the complementary tendency towards specialisation in imports, with the resulting dominance of certain vital and irreplaceable commodities. The chosen importing points, for these are both related to the needs of the present-day consuming industries, and also themselves instrumental in aiding the growth and expansion of newer ones. Two such important imports are petroleum and iron ore.
The dominant market for petroleum products has always been the coal-deficit areas of the South. It is a significant fact that all the major British oil refineries except two are located around the extreme southern coasts of the country between Milford Haven and the Thames. As suppliers of fuels the oil refineries have a function at the present day analogous to that of the coalfields fifty years ago, and although petroleum is far Ore mobile, the naliire. of the refining process' has necessitated coastal loca- tions Which in turn have encouraged associated industries using by-products. Over 50 per cent of our iron ore requirements have to be imported, most of the rest coming from the Jurassic escarpment crossing England from the North- East coast to Dorset. For iron and steel produc- tion coastal sites have also proved to be the most efficient, and especially those with ready supplies of coking coal, good importing facilities, and access to markets, the latter being in this case the metallurgical industries. From these standpoints the North-East and South Wales have proved the most suitable, but of late South Wales has had a fillip from its links with the developing industries, while the great producers of Tees and Tyneside have suffered from their connection with the declining ones. Thus South Wales, with good and improving communications linking it with the Midlands and South, has risen on the crest of the current wave of affluence, producing as it does just those things which are most in demand in the expanding industries.
The upshot of all this is that the south of the country enjoys a prosperity which is firmly embedded in a number of physical and other factors which have combined to give it a lead and the wherewithal to maintain this lead. In these circumstances to attempt to resuscitate the former industrial centres would be like attempting to blow fresh life into a fossil. There is far too much against it, and it is more honest to face the problem realistically than to keep plugging away at the old line. The most the North can really expect now is a subsidiary role in the nation's economy with a considerable reduction in its population and a rationalisation of its industrial structure. As a result of this 'The Coffin' as a geographical expression of the link between London and the great manufacturing centres must be well and truly buried. The least one can say is that its northern segment has withered, leaving a stump somewhere in the region of the Black Country. Further to this it may be predicted that a new axis is beginniog to emerge, stretching from the Thames to the Severn. The eastern part of this belt is concentrating strongly on consumer goods, while the West, that is to say the south coast of Wales and the north coast of the West Country, is concentrating more on heavy industry and industrial imports. The West- Midlands with its lack of raw materials and distance from the coasts is in many ways something of an anachronism by modern standards, and it may well lose some of its importance within the next few decades and tend more to a specialised outpost of the South-East.
These significant developments are occurring despite almost a generation of dutiful lip-service to the idea of pushing industry back to the North. Yet never has it been seriously considered that we should plan on the assumption that this is going to occur whether we like it or not, so the best we can do is to 'civilise' it by making sure that the journey to the South is not accompanied by the immense human suffering which characterised the move to the North a century and a half ago. The time is well overdue to drop the veil of hypocrisy which obscures political thinking on the British economy, rather than pretend—and hope—that such reality as we are afraid to recognise does not in fact exist.
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