Steel Shows the Way
There is something which is both purposeful and speculative about the recent actions of the iron and steel industry. The decision of Guest Keen Baldwins, backed by the approval of the Iron and Steel Board, to go ahead with a vast new hot strip mill at Port Talbot is at once a challenge to the Government, with its vague but threatening plans for nationalisation, and to those less venturesome industrialists who make the frustrations and un- certainties of Government policy an excuse for inaction. This is the right spirit—the competitive spirit. The original report of the British Iron and Steel Federation on the needs of the industry was produced quite five months before the Government published it last May. The scheme for the Port Talbot works, 'which will involve a capital expenditure of some L50,000p00 and have a productive capacity of one million 'tons of hot rolled strip for tinplate and sheet steel, was already fully outlined in that report. Since then, despite all the alarums and excursions about nationalisation, the industry has stuck to deeds rather than words. The site is being prepared, the Board has made up its mind about the location of the plant for the later prOcessses of cold reduction and the finishing of tinplate and sheets—an absolutely crucial question—and has got through the work of scrutinising the detailed scheme in less than a m. h. So far the Government his made up its mind about the hot strip mill, but is still considering the location of the reduction and finishing 'plant. The need to reduce costs against the days of keener competition which are to come, dictates that as far as possible these later processes shall be made continuous with the rolling opera- tions. In fact, business motives dictate integration, and since business motives have produced good results so far in this matter, perhaps they had better be giVen a fair chance.
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