It has taken almost seven years to complete the circle
from the first almost casual announcement by a Labour.
Minister of Supply that a measure of public ownership would be introduced into the steel industry to the winding-up speech by a Conservative Minister of Supply to the debate on the Iron and Steel Bill which brings public ownership to an end. For that seven years of talk and turmoil there is almost nothing to show. The ups and downs of the steel industry since the war have been very largely brought about by ups and downs in the supply of scrap and coke, fluctuations in demand and progress with development schemes, and these factors would have been at work whatever the ownership arrangements might have been. The iron and steel industry was already so highly centralised and the degree of public intervention already so large in 1946 that, so far as day-to-day working was concerned, nationalisa- tion could not make much difference. And today the new Board which the Bill creates has powers which may not turn out in practice to be very different from those of the old Board which existed before nationalisation was ever attempted. It is true that Mr. Sandys has specifically enjoined the Board to get into direct touch with the producers, and that this injunction may conceivably have the effect of by-passing the Industry's own central organisation, the British Iron and Steel Federation—but only conceivably. It is true that the Government, the Board and the industry itself.will be all on their toes to prove that the already nationalised undertakings which are now to be sold back to private owners are worth buying and that there are no shortcomings which require nationalisation to put them right. But even if they do prove it there is not the slightest indication that the Socialists will take any notice.
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