Harold Wilson's Labor government last week published its long-awaited blueprint for nationalizing Britain's steel industry, the fifth largest in the world. Though steel nationalization is the most controversial plank in the Socialists' platform, Wilson's White Paper was tough, uncompromising and expensive.
The 6,000-word prospectus proposed the melding of Britain's 14 largest iron and steel companies into a state-owned National Steel Corporation, which would employ 220,000 (70% of the industry's total) and control 90% of the nation's output of pig iron, crude carbon steel, heavy steel products, sheet and tin plate....