A plan for the maintenance and development of industries essential to national safety, called "Key Industries," is proposed, as follows:
Synthetic dyes, spelter, tungsten, magnetos, optical and chemical glass, hosiery needles, thorium nitrate, limit and screw gauges, and certain drugs.
SPECIAL INDUSTRIES BOARD
The committee recommends the creation of a permanent special industries board, charged with the duty of watching the course of industrial development and recommending plans for the promotion and assistance of the industries enumerated above. With reference to industries generally the committee thinks that the individualist methods hitherto adopted should be supplemented by co-operation and co-ordination of effort in respect of
1. The securing of supplies of materials.
2. Production, in which we include standardization and scientific and industrial research; and
3. Marketing.
The report recommends the formation of combinations of manufacturers, strong, well organized associations and combinations, to secure supplies of materials, especially the control of mineral deposits in foreign countries. In order to facilitate increased production it recommends:
That an authority should be set up which should have the right, after inquiry, to grant compulsory powers for the acquisition of land for industrial purposes and the diversion or abolition of roads or footpaths.
That there should be a judicial body with compulsory powers to deal with the question of wayleaves required for the development of mineral royalties and the economical working of collieries and mines.
The committee believes in the formation of organizations for marketing the manufactured products of the country and deems it inexpedient for the Government to enter into any policy aiming at positive control of combinations (trusts) in the United Kingdom. It recommends that combinations be legalized, so as to be enforceable between members. It welcomes the establishment of the British Trade Corporation to co-ordinate and supplement existing financial facilities for trading purposes. As a general rule the members think it would be undesirable that the State should attempt to provide capital for industrial purposes, but as the re-establishment of industry on a peace basis will be profoundly affected by taxation, currency, and foreign exchanges, they recommend that these matters be taken up by the Treasury, in consultation with the banking and commercial interests.
TARIFF REGULATIONS
With reference to tariff the committee recommends a protective tariff only on industries "which can show that, in spite of the adoption of the most efficient technical methods and business organization, they cannot maintain themselves against foreign competition, or that they are hindered from adopting these methods by such competition."