INCREASED COAL PRICE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25274, 28 August 1947, Page 7

INCREASED COAL PRICE

EFFECT ON BRITISH MANUFACTURERS “SERIOUS RISE IN COST” (Rec. 7 p.m.) LOUDON, August 26. The increase in the price of coal is expected to have an immediate effect upon the cost of steel and of many British export products. Representatives of steel firms said that this was causing concern, as British manufacturers were already being undersold by the Americans and Czechoslovaks in Europe. One representative said that the gap between British and American prices was already as much as 20 per cent., and it must inevitably increase. Mr G. H. Latham, president-elect of the British Iron and Steel Federation, said: “The increase will mean a serious rise in the cost of producing steel, but what we in the industry are most concerned about is whether, even at the advanced price, we will receive the amount of coal promised us.” An official of the Central Electricity Board said that the higher coal prices would not necessarily mean an increase in the cost of electricity, but it is expected that there will be an increase in the price of gas. An industrial spokesman said that the increased coal price would handicap every section of trade and industry. Its effects would be cumulative and would touch* everybody. The increase should not have been necessary. Sir Leonard Browett, director of the National Union of Manufacturers, said that the increase, by adding to the cost of British goods, would make them less competitive in overseas markets. It was a regrettable increase in manufacturing costs, especially as the Government move making sterling inconvertible would reduce the demand for United States goods and increase the demand for British.