The Press MONDAY, MAY 17, 1948. Nationalised Coal

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25496, 17 May 1948, Page 6

The Press MONDAY, MAY 17, 1948. Nationalised Coal

Almost everyone in Britain now seems to be in a mood to review critically the administration of the nationalised coal industry—except the National Coal Board, which is responsible for the administration. That, briefly, is the reason for the resignation from the board of Sir Charles Reid, its production director, and one of the most noted mining authorities in the country, who has revealed that he has never been satisfied with the form of control of the industry, and that he has repeatedly sought a reorganisation. In November, in a letter to the chairman of the board (Lord Hyndley) he expressed his conviction that “ without radical alteration “ from the Coal Board downward, “ both of control and personnel, the “ nationalisation cf the mines would

“ prove a disastrous failure. . . . The “ present uninspired, cumbersome “ organisation would not produce “ the coal the country needed at a “satisfactory price, and it could.not “ effectively check production costs “or deal with indiscipline ’ This criticism, it must be remembered, does not come from an opponent of nationalisation. Sir Charles Reid was chairman of the Reid Committee, on whose findings, after its complete survey of the British coal industry in 1945, the Labour Government’s nationalisation plans were largely based. Mechanisation and modernisation were the keynotes of the Reid Report, and Sir Charles Reid affirms now that State ownership of the industry was necessary to achieve full technical reconstruction. “ But ”, he insists, "it must “be founded on sound business “ principles ”. His own proposals for reform of the system under the present Coal Board provided for “ complete de- “ centralisation He complains th&t they were never seriously considered. On the other hand, he has no faith in the committee of three which the board announces it has appointed to “ take stock of the “position reached in the develop“ment of the board’s organisation “ and to advise the board whether “ improvements could be made ”. The use of the vvord “ whether ” will jar on all who are looking for an overhaul of the coal organisation. Most of these will take the view that the instruction to the committee should read: “To advise what “ improvements should be made ”. As the committee contains two independent members it may provide the guidance needed. That will depend to some extent on the capacity and the impartiality, of the independent members; but as the third member is a member of the Coal Board the committee seems to be partly disqualified from carrying out the impartial investigation demanded by Sir Charles Reid in March. From all appearances he would have to wait long for initiative of this kind to come from the board itself. Public statements by Lord Hyndley drip with complacency. Occasionally he has gone so far as to admit that the organisation is not perfect; but he does it with the air of one who does not expect to be believed.

Others close enough to the heart of the organisation to know the true position have seen its weaknesses and admitted them. Mr Shinwell’s speech at the beginning of this month was revealing in more ways than one. When he admitted there had been too little detailed preparation for the nationalisation schemes he probably had the coal industry in mind, as that was the one with which he was most closely concerned. He went on to refer to it specifically: “When we nationalised “ the coal-mining industry we “ thought we knew all about it, “ whereas in fact we did not Official statistics, indeed everything that has • been made public about the working of the industry in its 16 months of State ownership, show that there was a lot the Socialist planners did not know and that a lot of what they thought they knew was wrong. The public was told that once capitalism was removed all the miners’ distrust of management would vanish; disputes would be a thing of the past; there would be no opposition to machines and the rationalisation of working methods. Last month Sir Charles Reid showed that none of these predictions has been verified. Even if the big Grimethorpe stoppage is excluded, more coal was lost through disputes last year than in 1946. In spite of the steady progress of mechanisation—74 per cent, of the total coal output to-day is mechanically cut, compared with 58 per cent, in 1938—man-shift output has fallen from 2.9 to 2.85 tons. There are too many instances of three men doing two men’s jobs; old customs inappropriate to mechanised mining techniques are still steadfastly observed by the miners. Criticisms such as these, backed as they are by statistics and by expert opinion, show the hollowness of the Coal Board’s rejoicings over a 1947 production target only narrowly missed and a 1948 production rate target barely maintained—both, it is to be remembered, the bare minimum for the national need, and both achieved by* the deployment of increasing numbers of men and machines. The weaknesses which responsible observers find in the administrative system of the nationalised coal industry spring in part from the loss of a high proportion of the most experienced and capable men who directed the industry before it was nationalised. It has lost more since then through resignations; and, as the “Economist” pointed out, the men lost have not been the conservative and cautious technicians but the progressive and imaginative, who seem to find the greatest difficulty in working under the new order. The reason, it is suggested, is that the structure of the Coal Board divides responsibility’ as it divides functions and avoids placing it fully at any point in one pair of hands. The executive, consequently, does not feel himself fully in charge of his job, and the restraints upon initiative become too strong.

Can this be prevented [asked the “Economist”] without too great a

weakening of central control? Resources of labour, of money, and of equipment are being poured in for what, so far, seems an inadequate return. Management under nationalisation still has to solve the problem of the psychological. relationship between management and labour. It has still to determine in practice whether the industry is run for the public benefit or for the benefit of the persons engaged in the industry, it has still to find for itself an administrative structure that does not disperse responsibility and muffle initiative. It has still to discover the loyalties that are to hold it together and the human motive forces that must keep it alive.