First Steps With Steel
The Labour Opposition has not made a good start. The affectation of indignation at the Government's intentions about steel, when it has been well known to everyone from the moment the Labour Government brought in its Steel Nationalisation Bill that the Conservatives would repeal it on the earliest oppor- tunity, rings as false as a cracked bell. And to protest against the disorganisation of the industry when Labour first disorganised it itself, and now proposes to complete the disorganisation by re-nationalising when it has the power, is to abandon even an appearance of reason. The threat which the late Minister of Supply coupled with his denunciations, that Labour—when it gets the chance—will penalise financially any private ownerg who may have re-acquired steel undertakings, is, of course, meant to check such re-acquisition. It is not likely to do so, but it is an unpleasant piece of tactics. Mr. Duncan Sandys was quite right in demanding time for the production of a finished denationalisa- tion plan—which seems likely to be based, as it should be, on the pre-nationalisation Iron and Steel Board, of Government, employers, trade unionists and consumers—and meanwhile in preventing the existing Iron and Steel Corporation from altering the structure of the industry further. There is nothing whatever here to justify an unaccustomed display of passion by Mr. James Griffiths. It is all perfectly sound sense and sound policy.
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