an Iron and Steel Industrial Research Council, acting in 
conjunction with the Government Department of Scientific 
and Industrial Research, designed to effect economy in 
the use of fuel and secure by research the fullest technical 
improvement in iron and steel production. 
The question that arisés, however—and this is without 
doubt the crux of the whole position that now presents 
‘tself—is whether these developments and the isolated 
sfforts of individual firms to keep their plant up-to-date 
are sufficient to enable the industry to re-establish its 
position when compared with the progress made by its 
:ompetitors in other countries. We submit that all past 
experience goes to show that nothing short of a national 
planning and conscious control of the industry will meet 
the situation. 
Such a policy, no doubt, requires a higher standard of 
industrial leadership than one of uneconomic, cut-throat 
competition with its accompaniment of reducing wages 
and degrading of labour conditions, but in the long run 
it will produce more healthy, stable and efficient industry. 
Some form of national control could be justified if only 
to protect the more progressive units against the selfish 
individualism and short-sighted policy of others, but it has 
much wider implications, national and international in 
character and importance. . 
While the analogy may not be complete in every respect, 
the example of the German iron and steel industry is a 
striking demonstration of the value of organisation and 
the co-ordination of interests, even under private enterprise, 
in enabling a basic industry, despite extraordinary financial, 
political and economic difficulties, to rehabilitate itself as 
the second greatest producer in the world. 
It is customary when comparing Great Britain with 
Germany and other Continental countries, to emphasise 
the difference in wages and hours of labour. We do not 
seek to disguise the~ competitive effect of unorganised 
abour in such countries as Belgium, France and Poland. 
Even so, the test of lajour conditions upon price is not 
she rates of wages, but the labour cost per unit of pro- 
iuction, under comparable conditions of efficiency, and, 
ap to the present, no comparative figures under that head 
have been produced. 
In any case, so far as Germany is concerned, we venture 
to assert that when the British iron and steel industry 
has been placed in an equal degree of efficient organisation 
and control, it need have no fear of Germany as a com- 
petitor in a fair field and po favour. At the same time, 
the British producer will be in a more satisfactory posi- 
tion to bargain for international trade with his foreign 
competitors than is now the case. 
As a fact, organisation has been impressed upon the 
industry from one authority or another for over a quarter 
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