What is wrong with the British iron and steel industry?

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1868556093

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-249484

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: What is wrong with the British iron and steel industry?

Place of publication:: [London

Publisher:: The London Caledonian Press]

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: 23 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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it 1s inevitable that reductions in hours will prove one of the principal means of absorbing displaced labour if a grave and chronic unemployment problem is to be avoided. These considerations, however, have no real place in the spasmodic and unrelated methods of private enterprise, but assume national planning, organisation and control for their practical application. This may be seen, for example, in the Tinplate Trade—a trade which in certain important directions, such as inter- national arrangements and the regulation of its production, has shown some appreciation of the value of organised effort and co-ordination of policy. Yet in the absence of any authoritative control we have the spectacle of additional mills being erected while the trade was operating twenty per cent. below its productive capacity and in other respects a minority of producers threatening the whole stability of the trade by a refusal to co-operate with their fellow-producers for the common interest. But there is another aspect of the “‘rationalising”* methods private! enterprise promotes, namely, the dis- regard of social obligations in respect of the effect upon local communities by the closing of works without any pre-considered arrangements as to the disposal of the labour displaced. In the tinplate trade the workpeople have themselves by voluntary effort sought to mitigate the results of that lack of foresight by the adoption of a six-hour shift. - The fundamental changes in world conditions make changes in direction and control of important industries and services imperative, but there appears to be little evidence: that these will evolve within the iron and steel industry to a sufficient extent to meet the needs of the 1uture. In the circumstances it is clear that the time has come when possible alternatives have to be considered. The failure of the efforts made through existing machinery places a responsibility upon the Government, for, as the Confederation submitted to the Baldwin Government in 1928, “no Government, whatever its political complexion, can justifiably ignore conditions which bear upon the wel fare and stability of a great basic industry.” When considering the situation of the iron and steel industry and its future position in our industria] system, the question of the bearing of the Free Trade policy of this country upon the problem inevitably arises. It has proved a highly controversial question, but nevertheless it is one that must be faced. Our view in this matter accords with that expressed by Edgard Milhaud in his Annals of Collective Economy, (14)

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