The crucial case for the future is that of the
iron and steel industry. At present its claims cannot come before the Committee because it is a group of allied enterprises, not a distinct industry. It will be enabled, we gather, to have access to the Committee by an enlargement of the existing rules. But even if the Committee admitted that the claim of the iron and steel industry was sound and did not violate the indispensable conditions, the Government themselves would still have to sanction the Committee's judgment. It seems to us that the iron and steel industry is so inextricably interlocked with other industries that it could not be safeguarded without " seriously affecting " those other industries in which partly manufactured iron and steel is a raw material. We should be surprised if the Committee did not take this view. There is nothing in all this to cause alarm. But if the Government went in for Protection they would be asking for disaster at the General Election. Meanwhile at the Cheltenham by-election the seat has been kept for the Government by Sir Walter Preston with a handsome majority, though the total of the Liberal and Labour votes slightly exceeded the Unionist vote.
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