What is wrong with the British iron and steel industry?

Bibliographic data

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.

of capitalist interests—would seem to pervade the industry at the present time. For we have no hesitation in assert- ing that no great industry in this country is more. €ertile in resources and none more potential in its possibilities for healthy expansion. Raw materials in abundance are still available; the skill, experience and general capacity of the workpeople are, at the lowest estimate, equal to those of any other nation; the genius of our engineers, research workers and inventors is unquestioned and the industry has certain natural advantages which do not apply to the same extent in the countries of its competitors. The world demand for the products of the industry advances from decade to decade in ever-increasing volume and in variety of uses. The scientific discoveries and inventions of the present century have created entirely new fields of endeavour in economic production and in consumption of iron and steel. Moreover, the opening up of the continents of Africa and Asia now proceeding on the lines of Western civilisation, the rebuilding of our great cities, and the new requirements of vast populations provide scope for our metallurgical industries never contemplated less than half a century ago. Nor can we disregard in this connection the immense advantage to be derived from a bold scheme of national distribution of electrical energy such as is now before the country. There remains to be added one factor vital to success, namely, the right quality of industrial leadership and organisation. In that connection the Balfour Committee on Industry and Trade in its Survey of Metal Industries makes the following interesting comment :— “The ability of the British iron and steel industry to retain its place as one of the leading iron and steel ndustries of the world will be conditioned by many ‘actors ; but, perhaps, above all, by its power to enlist men of inventive genius, as well as men of outstanding capacity as organisers. . . . It is for the industry to make sure that it possesses men of the necessary calibre who will be able to reassert in the future the position of the British industry as a leader among the iron and steel industries of the world.” We are convinced that the problem is not that the mndustry is lacking in resources of leadership and organis- ing ability, but that it is one of means or method whereby that quality can be mobilised and given authority to act. Reviewing the situation over the post-war period and as it stands to-day, we feel justified in arriving at the con- clusion that this great basic industry is in danger of its resources being wasted and its potentialities lost by a com- bination of adverse forces represented by political ex- pediency on the one hand and on the other the incapacity of multifarious interests steeped in a nineteenth-century ‘ndividualism and outlook to evolve a sufficient decree of ( 6

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