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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

when indicating the lines of progress for dealing with economic problems he states :— “It will be no longer a question of free trade pure and simple, which frequently conveys the impression of the launching of a war by a country which is best armed, most ready, and has therefore a decisive ad- vantage over certain other countries. Nor will it be a matter of strait-laced mean ego-centric nationalist protection, which in its turn means a fighting policy, the struggle of the weak against the strong. Both the old free trade policy and the old protec- tionist policy should be superseded by a policy which represents a collective and rational safeguarding of all legitimate interests.’’ “But bodies representing an industrial undertaking, be it in a national or in an international framework, cannot be considered by themselves as adequate elements of organisations All these organised interests should be co-ordinated. In combination they should be made to serve a higher end, first the organisation of the national economic life, and next the organisation of the international economic life.” In this matter we agree in one respect with what we understand to be implied in the Prime Minister’s speech at Northampton, namely, that if the attitude of those who control the industry is one calling .upon the Government to apply tariffs, while leaving the industry entirely to its own devices, that is not a policy which’ a Government could adopt. Moreover, those who require the protection of the State. must be subject to its jurisdiction. On the other hand, if the industry is to be charged with the responsibility for its financial and organic reconstrue- tion, and to make itself a stable and progressive part of the national economic life, it may with justification require that the State shall afford it reasonable security against the disability of aggressive forms of competition and which are not consistent with healthy commercial relations or fair industrial conditions. In a publicly owned under- taking, such a claim would be indisputable. If, however, the State is to afford protection to private enterprise in the conduct of its business, then the State must be satisfied in the first instance that those who seek that protection are without question carrying out their own obligations in the policy they adopt and pay due regard to the effect of that policy upon the national in- terete. To demand the protection of Parliament on the one hand and to protest against State interference on the other, is to ask for a blank cheque. It is often those who claim (15)

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