Private Monopolies

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 14 February 1962.

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Photo of Mr Robert Edwards Mr Robert Edwards , Bilston 12:00, 14 February 1962

I followed with great interest the admirable speech of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Emery). I am sure that my hon. Friends will agree with him in his praise for the work of the Monopolies Commission. He made the most constructive speech we have heard from his side of the House, and most of his contentions will be accepted by hon. Members on this side.

I was amazed to hear the reference by the President of the Board of Trade to the similarity between mergers in private industry and amalgamations of cooperative societies. This analogy was echoed by the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper) and the right hon. Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan), who made references to amalgamations of co-operative wholesale societies. If we give a little thought to the difference between amalgamations of voluntary co-operative societies and mergers between firms in private industry, we come to the kernel of the issue the House is discussing today.

The hon. Member for Ilford, South talked about the take-over bids of the London Co-operative Society, and the President of the Board of Trade talked about the take-over bids of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. The cooperative movement has 13 million members. It does not matter how many shares each member holds; he has just one vote. Before any kind of amalgamation is considered consultations take place over many months. Meetings of the members are called, the trade union concerned is consulted, as are the employees at every shop, and their whole future is considered. There is a vast difference between this kind of voluntary amalgamation, based on consultation at every level with trade unions and shareholders, and the present take-over bid of I.C.I. for Courtaulds.

I suggest that the President of the Board of Trade and hon. Members opposite have an appalling ignorance of the technique, structure and accountability of the co-operative movement. In the co-operative movement it is a case of one member, one vote. On the other hand, one Belgian shareholder in I.C.I., living in Brussels, holds more votes in I.C.I. than all the workers employed by the company in every factory in this country. He indeed casts a block vote.

The workers in I.C.I. hold nearly 1 million shares in the company, but they have never been consulted to see whether they want to work for a vast monopoly that would bring in Courtaulds. Not at any level does their share capital involve any kind of control over the management or administration of any I.C.I. factory. At no time have they been consulted although they are shareholders and employees. I presume that power and money will prevail and that I.C.I. will take over Courtaulds, because the Government are doing nothing about it and it will be very difficult for the shareholders of Courtaulds to resist the expanding offers being made by Imperial Chemical Industries.

Courtaulds took over British Celanese, and at Spondon in Derbyshire there is a great centre of chemical production which used to be part of British Celanese. It is not involved only in the manufacture of rayon or man-made nylon fibre. It is a great centre of chemical production where 7,000 workers are employed. My knowledge of this establishment tells me that many thousands of those workers will face redundancy without any "golden handshakes", without any kind of adequate compensation, because much of their work is duplicated at the Billingham factories of I.C.I. and at Wilton and Widnes.

In a previous merger Courtaulds took over a great paint company. If this merger between I.C.I. and Courtaulds comes off, it means that this one company will produce 40 per cent. of the paint and varnishes manufactured in this country. This will be an addition to the whole list of exclusive monopoly products for which I.C.I. is responsible. Indeed, I.C.I. exclusively produces about thirty-nine vital chemicals in this country. There is no competition at all. I.C.I. produces many of these products because it obtained the exclusive patent rights from I.G. Farben of Germany, even when it was controlled by the Nazi industrialists, and as a result of arrangements with the American Du Pont Company.

I.C.I. has the exclusive monopoly for the production of basic materials and elements going into nylon. No other firm produces nylon products in this country. It is the exclusive monopoly of I.C.I., which controls patents which were handed over by the American Du Pont Company. But I.C.I. had to pay a price for this exclusive right, which was that there are certain markets of the world into which I.C.I. products cannot enter. It signed away our rights in many world markets. Does not that make nonsense of the talk about the necessity to bring I.C.I. and Courtaulds together in order that this country may be able to compete more successfully in world markets?

I.C.I. and Courtaulds were part of a great network of international cartels which achieved world power in chemicals and rayon between the wars. They allocated quotas in all markets of the Western world. The British textile industry, the textile industry in Lancashire, could not buy dyes from abroad because it was informed that the British market belonged to I.C.I. Some Scandinavians thought that I.G. Farben in Germany was charging too much for its dyes and so they applied to buy British dyes. They were informed that this market belonged to I.G. Farben and that Britain could not supply Scandinavian countries with dyes. This is characteristic of what happens when a few business men obtain exclusive control over vast industries. Once they have control of the whole home market they get together with their competitors in other countries to form international cartels which eliminate competition, not merely in their own country but in the Western world.

By so doing they keep prices exorbitantly high, and, because there is no competition, they keep the world poor as a consequence—or poorer than otherwise it would be. It is our contention, and surely it is a fair contention, that the workers, the employees, the scientists and the technicians, whose daily bread depends on stable production in I.C.I. and Courtaulds, should be considered and consulted in this take-over bid.

What protection have such people? Only the protection of this House. To whom do they appeal for protection if not to the Government? If the Government are not prepared to protect the workers whose whole future is uncertain, then the Government are betraying the people of the country, and the industrial workers. Frequent references have been made to the Conservative Industrial Charter during this debate, but that would become a mockery and a piece of hypocrisy. The Conservatives do not mean what they say at election times if they are not prepared to take some action to defend the interests of the industrial workers, the technicians and the research workers.

In this debate we are not merely dealing with the I.C.I. and Courtaulds. We are discussing the whole tendency towards monopoly and industrial concentration in our country. It is an appalling fact that this House has to discuss this vast subject, involving the future of our country, without knowing the facts. Nobody can tell us the facts relating to the industrial tendencies in Britain. We do not, as a Government, collect the facts. I tried to get some information from the Treasury about American capital investment in British industry. The Treasury could not tell me. Nobody knew, they could only guess. I could get the information from American sources, but not from the British Government. The Treasury did not know to what extent American monopolies had penetrated into our country.

Today there are 150 American companies operating in the British economy and they are all an extension in Britain of huge American trusts and are still controlled by American shareholders. We do not have the information, which we ought to have, on which to base our policy regarding the future of our country. We can base our policy only on the census report of 1935. Nothing has been done since then to analyse the extent of monopoly development throughout the British economy, apart from a few reports from the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission.

It is my view that our country is more highly monopolised and more highly cartelised than any other country in the Western world. It is my view that a few business men have more control over the vital resources of our land than is the case in any other country, including the United States.