I started trying to work out what effect my prospective
part- ownership of most of the British iron and steel industry will have on my position as a tax-payer. As from October 2nd, I understand, I shall start helping to pay the chairman of the new corporation £7,500 a year, his four whole-time colleagues £5,000 a year and his part-time colleagues f500 a year. They will need offices, a staff, some motor-cars, telephones and stationery and (probably) a public rela- tions officer. Then I shall have to contribute to the large though almost certainly inequitable sum set aside to compensate the expropriated owners. In return for this I shall acqbire, eventually, a capital asset whose value anyone who knows anything about steel expects to decline sharply, partly because the whole scheme is unsound anyhow and partly because the men who I am paying to run my industry for me are far from being the right men for the job. I conclude that I shall be down on this asinine transaction.
* * * *
Previous page
