BRITISH STEEL BILL MAY BE HELD; IN ABEYANCE

Grey River Argus, 14 November 1949, Page 5

BRITISH STEEL BILL MAY BE HELD; IN ABEYANCE

LONDON Nov 13. The Prime Minister, Mr C. R. Attlee summoned aCabinet meeting for Mon. to decide whether the operation of steel nationalisation can be postponed until after the General Election. ■ The House of Lords has set down amendments for tins' week to the Steel Bdl proposing that, it should not come into force before next October. It is believed that the Conseivative peers would drop all further opposition to steel nationalisation if the Government agreed to defer the operating date. The significance of such a move would be that; if the Conservatives won the election, they could carry out their vow to scrap the bill and leave the industry in private hands. Some members of the Government favour making such a deal with the Lords the mound that with the Steel Bill dispute settled Labour would be fully prepared for tl)e General Election by February at the latest. The general secretary of the TradeUnion Congress (Mr Vincent Tewson) has denied that the Labour movement is split over the post-devalu-ation policy. Writing in Labour the • monthly organ of the congress, Mr Tewson said: “Efforts have been made to manufacture political capital out of the admitted dilYtciflties that; -the, trade unions have to cope with in deciding a policy on the effects of devaluation. These difficulties cto not arise from any divergence of view between the Government and the unions mi the necessity .of devaluation." Mr Tewson said that the general council of the congress and the special economic committee were studying the economic situation “with the purpose of devaluation. It is not so knowledge that the crisis is greater and more complicated that in 1931. He added: “The present emergency calls for the exercise of still greater restraint in any action by the unions that will have the effect of increasing, the pressure of inflationary tendencies, and thereby frustrating the mam much a quesion of what must be done but how h :q H.-v-c