Lost Identity in Britain

Most Britons thought that the Labor Government would make haste slowly when it nationalized the steel industry last February. They reasoned that the government would string along with the management that had made steel one of the most efficient industries in Great Britain. But Conservative War Horse Winston Churchill shied nervously when he caught sight of 66-year-old Steven Hardie, the hard-boiled Socialist millionaire who took over as chairman of the government-owned Iron and Steel Corp., custodian for 217 nationalized steel companies. Growled Churchill to the House of Commons: "His arrogant behavior as a servant and tool of the government will certainly be the subject of continuous attention."

Last week Government Servant Hardie more than merited Churchill's attention. He had just fired seven directors from the board of one of Britain's finest steelmakers, Sheffield's Thos. Firth & John Brown, Ltd., one of the biggest makers of engineering steels and a pre-nationalization subsidiary of Scotland's famed shipbuilders, John Brown & Co., Ltd. (Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth). Five of the seven men fired were also directors of the shipbuilding firm. Explained Hardie: they had too many outside interests; the government wants full-time directors for its steel companies. It looked as if Hardie was out to cut the apron strings binding nationalized steel to private industry.

But to Firth & Brown's 72-year-old chairman, Lord Aberconway, it looked as if Hardie had cut the very spinal cord of the company when he fired the directors, including three of his ablest technicians. The government asked Lord Aberconway to stay, in spite of the fact that he also serves as chairman of the shipbuilding company. But he resigned, saying: "I feel that without their technical and business knowledge, I should not be of any. help to you." At week's end Firth & Brown had only three directors left, two of them recent government appointees. ". . . The company as a continuous living organism," said the London Times, "has . . . lost its identity." Britons worried that such firings would rob the industry of its best men, disrupt the production of Britain's badly needed 16 million tons of steel a year. Unruffled, State Steel Boss Hardie planned further shakeups.

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