Skinflint's City Diary
Age comes upon all of us, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly; and even those who have seemed irrepressibly young eventually succumb. I thought the hitherto vigorously bouncy, rudely healthy, athletic Chris Chataway looked dreadfully haggard on television the other day. Mind you, he had a tricky task — for he was endeavouring to explain the reasoning behind his decision (or the Government's, or Peter Walker's: it's not all that clear) to put up £4.8 millions to help a successful firm, Manganese Bronze Holdings, which makes Norton and Triumph motor cycles, acquire an unsuccessful firm, BSA. The effect of this latest piece of lame-duckery is to create a virtual monopoly in this country in the manufacture of motor-cycles. Will the Government's right hand (if it has not entirely withered away) now refer the latest doings af its vastly over-developed left hand to the Monopolies Commission?
C. Gordon Tether
The Yorkshire group of the ' British Business for World Markets' organisation held a meeting at Leeds this Wednesday, so Mr James Towler, of Ultrasonics Ltd tells me. ' Lombard' of the Financial Times, the excellent Mr C. Gordon Tether, talked of "the real McCoy" over the Common Market, which was yet to come.
This was economic and monetary union. He made the point that The Spectator has also made, that surrender of power to Brussels over this would deprive the British people of almost all the independence that really matters to them, and that Mr Heath and Mr Barber had seen not the slightest objection in principle to turning the present currency crisis to account in such a way. Said Mr Tether, in words I gladly repeat and endorse, of economic and monetary union: "It is important to remember that such involvement could not only erode the country's sovereignty in a far more meaningful way than anything that has happened up till now; it would also, materially increase the diff:culties, and disadvantages that any unscrambling operation would have to reckon with and thereby make it that less likely to be attempted.
"Neither the country, the Press, nor Parliament itself appears to have awakened to the fact that international monetary turmoil has provided the Government with an easy means of achieving instant integration of Britain in the Community." And a hearty ' Hear, hear,' too, to Richard Body, one of that select band of Tory MPs who are not afraid to speak their minds, who Said at the same meeting: "Entry into the Common Market will enable us to try and sell rather more across the Channel where 20 per cent of our trade has been. But any increase will be at the expense of the 80 per cent of which we sell across the seas.
"We have to impose taxes — enthusiastically called variable levies — against food grown cheaply in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere. In self-defence they are now putting up levies against our exports.
"Instead of joining the Common Market, an inwardlooking trading block if ever there was one, we should have responded to the call of those countries, notably the United States, that have urged an open world economy. Open trade among all nations — an open seas policy — will secure the rights of the consumer to buy from the cheapest producer. It is a right that is explicitly denied in the Treaty of Rome. Once the British people realise what has been done in their name, their anger and resentment will demand that we tear off these chains of protectionism and give ourselves the freedom to join our real friends in pursuing an open world economy."
It figures
Who uses these pocket calculators that I see advertised everywhere? How did people manage before they came flooding on to the market? If you want to make the following equation, they are useful, so one advertisement: suggested 5 X6 —3 ÷ 4 + 5.123456 11.873456. Very useful.
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