Rotten fruit
Mr Wedgwood Bennis busy plucking of the rotten fruit of industry with expensively borrowed money shows that "the ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with !Ws." It has never been more sharply meMonstrated than by the 0.8 million Inbvention to those 'working in' at the risher Bendix plant in Liverpool. By every ,rneasure of the market, this subcontracting presswork concern should have been allowed to make its natural progression into liquidation with its factories and plant and production re-emerging in new shape !r1 Liverpool or more likely, through Increased work, at Joseph Sankey in !Yellington, or at John Thompson's in wnlverharnpton.
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cilv millions more are to be thrown away by d Benn's discharging the commercial eb%ft_ t of Alfred Herbert at a time when the aPacity of the machine-tool industry is ,7elY to be the least of its worries. The sick 'an of a sick industry—sick with a few 1,?t;able exceptions such as Jones and '11Pman, and Bronx, ancloof course, those ,c_erns that have turned themselves so _ntisily to bringing into this country !nntinental machines to the detriment of vinPloyment and our balance of payments th Alfred Herbert no doubt needs help, but 2t help should have been urged years bY the Machine Tool Trades Associa_°9 • This body has shown itself unable to .70 lculate the needs of the industry since it di,?k it upon itself to speak for the ,,yergent requirements of importers and s'unZdnUfacturers at the same time. They wtild have said that there is nothing that °IQ so quickly assist the makers — as 04p,0sed to the profitable business of dung Europe's wares — than the reintro lie of a system of machine tool import by ences for a limited period, as permitted re "0th the EEC and GATT, while a Ild'iner degree of specialisation developed Juin the trade.
Dung this with the continuation of dividend restraint, and the present system of free depreciation, should mean an increase in investment without the usual corollary of a jump in import costs. Since the Labour Government appears to have turned its face from this course, if Mr Harold Wilson's first post-election speech is a guide, nationalisation of the major makers of machine tools seems to be becoming increasingly likely.
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