ABSTRACT
The coal industry alone, among the industries which have come under public ownership since 1945, affords as yet any considerable experience of attempts to solve the new problems of labour relations and staff organization. The effects of nationalization on labour and staff relations were bound to be very different according to differences in the previous structure of the industries which have been brought under unified national control. Staff salaries offer a number of peculiar problems, because in this field some sort of adjustment has to be worked out between several quite incompatible traditions. Finally, politicians—and all Labour politicians—must learn that nationalization is not enough, and that it carries with it grave dangers of excessive centralization and of destroying the spirit of emulation—which should not be identified with that of competition as it has been practised under the profit system.
