British steel
Sir: The recent article on the British Steel Corporation by 'an Economist in the British Steel Industry' is as severe an indictment of the BSC as could have been written.
Apparently to be successful, the BSC has to have: (i) The advantage of cheap scrap, artificially cheap on account of the imposition of scrap export control, which it appears keeps the price of British scrap at some 20 per cent below the European price.
(ii) The BSC "desperately needs tariff protection."
(iii) It needs its own pricing system, which presumably means it can raise prices at will.
(iv) It requires various measures of " assistance and subsidization including the right to have its losses underwritten by the Government."
The writer of the article completely ignores the needs of our great exporting industries, motorcar manufacturing, shipbuilding, engineering, etc., who depend upon steel and who naturally are interested in obtaining it at a competitive price.
It is not surprising that Lord Stokes and others say the sooner we get into the EEC the better. If entry into Europe will mean the British steel industry will have to be organized on sensible lines to make it competitive and not have to be artificially bolstered up as at present, the average citizen will, I image, echo the views of Lord Stokes.
L. T, S. Hawkins Estate Office, Eartham, Chichester.
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