The Coming Storm Over Steel
The longer the controversy over steel goes on the ITIOIC irrational it gets. Each new achievement by the industry under private owner-
ship serves only to increase the Left-wing itch to nationalise it. The first criticism that the industry was incapable of expanding pro- duction has been completely disarmed by a steadily rising output,
which broke yet another record in June and reached an annual rate of r5,44o,000 tons. In the face of this advance, the critics some weeks ago began the complaint that the higher production was being achieved at the expense of stocks of materials. It was never clear how the industry could be held responsible for the failure of the Coal Board to supply it with coke or of the Government to speed up the import of German scrap, but that particular piece of unreason may perhaps be forgotten, since it now appears that somehow or other the industry has managed to reach its present remarkable output while holding scrap and pig-iron stocks steady. This has driven the more fanatical nationalisers back to a still less rational line of defence, which is the statement repeatedly made in the Economic Survey for 1948 that steel today is the main production bottleneck. It is not clear how nationalisation would help ; but once again it does not really matter, since there are clear signs that the demand for finished steel, apart from a few special types, is beginning to flag, and stocks of some products are growing. If plain fact meant anything to the would-be nationalisers, criticism of the industry might become silent at this point. But there is no hope of that. There is likely to be an attack on the healthy profits being made by some steel under- takings, presumably on the ground that enterprise must in no case be rewarded. The constant rumours as to the content of the Government's proposals give no reason to believe that those proposals will be moderate. And no doubt the better the industry's perform- ance becomes the more immoderate will be the demand for its punishment.
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