LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE ANILINE DYE DILEMMA.—DUTIES 011 SUBSIDIES P [To ram Eamon or rim " Srsorsres.'] 8174—Although at the time of writing it is not known how far successful the Government has been in obtaining capital for its new Aniline Dye Company, it must be admitted that the Government's scheme has many objections. There were excellent reasons why the Government should adopt exceptional measures in regard to the aniline dye trade. In the first place, aniline dyes are essential to the welfare of a great number of staple British industries. Not only the textile trades, but the paint sad colour trades, carpet-making, straw-hat manufac- ture, linolenm-making, the printers' ink trade, artificial-flower making, and innumerable other industries to a lees degree depend for their prosperity on supplies of the fastest, brightest, and best dyes that modern scientific industry can produce. Nothing short of the best will suffice. Inferior dyes would hopelessly handicap geode that in all other respects were of the best quality. Lord Moulton has estimated that the total output of British industry to which aniline dyes are essential is £200,000,000 per annum, while the number of wage-earners involved amounts to 1,500,000. The aniline dye industry is by no mental on all fours with the average trade, which is more or leas self-contained, since it is clearly the key industry on which others depend.
It is of no practical utility at this stage to examine the causes of British dependence on Germany for dyes. One might blame British manufacturers for want of enterprise, and draw profitable lessons from the results attending closer application, greater encouragement to scientific research, better organization, and co-ordinated effort. A time of crisis is not the moment for apportioning blame. It is rather the occasion for active effort, and so it has rightly been regarded by the Government. Acting under the advice of Lord Moulton and a Committee of expert advisers representing the most important interests affected, the Government ultimately propounded a scheme for establishing, on a national basis, a company to produce the necessary dyes. Lord Moulton was not responsible for the financial details of the proposed com- pany; his part was rather to find a way to overcome the great practical and technical difficulties in the way; and, as events have proved, Lord Moulton's work has received the grateful and sympathetic support of the traders, while the Govern- ment's financial proposals have been subjected to violent criticism.
The essential points of the Government scheme were the creation of a new company with a capital of 23,000,000 for the purpose of acquiring established works—an option was secured on the business of Messrs. Read Holliday and Co. of Huddersfield—extending their plant and erecting new factories. The Government undertook to lend the new company £1,500,000 on debentures at 4 per cent., repayable in twenty. five years. Lord Moulton, in putting the scheme forward on behalf of the Government, urged that the new enterprise must be (1) Large, to put it beyond German attack;
(2) National, to remove it from the temptation of absorption;
(3) Co-operative, to ensure the sale of the output. Lord Moulton suggested that each consumer should aubecribe in shares a sum equivalent to his average yearly purchase of dyes. In this way it was hoped to give consumers direct interest in and control of the enterprise.
The objections were voiced last week at the Leeds and
Bradford Chambers of Commerce, and by the Worsted Com- mittee of the counties of York, Lancaster, and Cheshire. Briefly, they may be summarized as follows (1) The best and most modern dyes cannot be made in this country owing to lack of knowledge and skill. The war will probably be over before the German methods are rediscovered, and certainly before sufficient skill has teen attained to enable dyes of equal quality and at as low price to be produced. Therefore (2) continuous assistance from the Government must be given to protect the new industry against German underselling, and so provide security for the money invested. (3) The new company will create a monopoly, kill individual enterprise, and consequently check progress and prevent healthy competition.
The supporters of the Government scheme, replying to the criticism seriatim, urge: (1) That already great progress has been made in the production of British dyes; that German chemists have no monopoly of skill or knowledge; that the formulae are known; that the services of Swiss chemists can be utilized, and that already in such notable instances as indanthrene and red lead the British chemists have achieved what was recently declared impossible by the experts. (2) That it is improbable that the German chemical industry will he so situated as to be able to undersell in Britain after the war, and in any case that if it does the proper defence is retaliation in the markets of the East. It is urged that there is a limit to underselling. (3) That the fact that the new company will be under the control of the users of dyes will stimulate progress in the direction desired by the trades concerned.
Since the Government has recognized that the aniline dye industry is so vital to national welfare that it is the concern of the nation to see it established here, is there not a clear case for compromise P Although protective import duties, imposed on foreign dyes have been frankly demanded by some critics, should it not be recognized that if, at the close of the war, British dyes are not equal in quality to the German, other trades must in self-defence obtain the beet from whatever source P Since it is a question of quality rather than price, is it not clear that simple protective duties do not meet the case, and, if protection is needed, that some other form is indicated P Ought not the Government to seek the via media by some form of subsidy P This, while meeting the objections of the traders, would, it seems to me, be infinitely less objectionable than creating a State-controlled industry which, if successful, would be a powerful argument for the Syndicaliste.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
