Steel Skirmishes
When the Government announces its detailed plans for national- ising the iron and steel industry, as it must soon, the battle will be joined. And as each day passes the preliminary skirmishing grows sharper. Quite the most interesting development is the outbreak of internecine quarrelling among the eager ranks of the Left. The agenda for the 80th Congress of the T.U.C. reveals a head-on collision between the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers, who advocate immediate nationalisation by special Government decree, and the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, who reject with vigour any such violation of the principles of arliamentary democracy. In the mean time the equivalent of long- range artillery exchanges has been provided by Mr. Herbert Morrison on the one hand and the chairman of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds on the other. These have been far from conclusive, though it is significant that the head of one of the biggest steel groups should at last have referred to the attempt at nationalisation as a national disaster. No doubt the opinions of the industry have long been known, but this is a particularly important expression of them. The effect of the Lord President's salvoes, released in an imposing new publication called The British Labour Party, is somewhat marred by the fact that all the main questions are begged. His argument that the industry's plant is out of date and inefficient requires new qualifications every day, and in any case it is not clear what difference nationalisation would make. His strictures on price-fixing by a cartel calmly ignore the fact that steel prices are already controlled by the Government. The thesis that every basic industry should be nationalised is unproved and ignores the criterion of efficiency. But one phrase in Mr. Morrison's article is vital. He gives as one of the alternative arrangements "a series of publicly-owned companies co-ordinated by a develop- ment board responsible to the Minister of Supply." That is a surprisingly precise wording for a theoretical alternative. Perhaps it enjoys a more than theoretical status in the counsels of the Government.
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