Bread & Steel

Britain's Socialists, committed to a "mixed" economy of private and state industry, were finding the line between the two areas increasingly difficult to draw. Last week the Labor Government announced the first major retreat in its nationalization program: the steel industry.

The powerful Iron and Steel Federation had refused to supply men to sit on the Government's "control board" supervising nationalization. Dryly, the Economist explained the reason why: "It may clear a man's mind wonderfully to know that he is to be hanged in the morning, but it shows some want of tact to expect him to tie the noose." After months of scrapping and haggling with the steel industry, Minister of Supply Wilmot announced sharp curtailment of the authority of the "control board": henceforth it will supervise renovation of the steel industry but will not plan for nationalization.

Minister of Food Evelyn John St. Loe Strachey was also squirming unhappily over the bitter bread-rationing controversy. Proudly he had announced that the first three weeks of rationing achieved a 33% saving of flour. Cried the Tory press and the National Association of Master Bakers: misrepresentation. They pointed out that holidays always made August a low flour consumption month and that housewives had simply used up back stocks. While the people concluded that the truth lay midway between Strachey's optimistic figure and the bakers' gloomy 10% estimate, they remained unconvinced that bread rationing had ever been necessary, firmly convinced that it had been sloppily directed.

Even in the comparatively unruffled coal nationalization program, Fuel Minister Emanuel Shinwell complained of hard going. He had spent a lifetime studying the coal industry from books, now found that it might take almost another lifetime to discover its practical workings.

Throughout the country there was a notable increase in strikes unauthorized by union leadership. One wildcat strike completely tied up milk deliveries in London. Looming on the Socialist horizon was the inescapable problem: when the unions' employer is their "own" Government, do union leaders owe first loyalty to the Government or to their membership?

And implicit in all these issues was the crucial question: could the delicate balance of a "mixed" economy be maintained, or would "mixture" mean only confusion?

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.