ABSTRACT
This memorandum represents the views of the Economic Section on several issues relating to nationalisation as expressed officially in November and December 1945 during the initial deliberations of the first post-war Labour Government on their nationalisation programme. Several members of the Section, most notably D. N. Chester and J. M. Fleming, worked on it; Meade wrote the first draft of the introductory paragraphs and, after ‘innumerable discussions’ and debate within the Section, the final version of a large part of it. (The questions of the Lord President of the Council, Herbert Morrison, to which the memorandum is a reply, had been suggested to him by Meade, and drafted in the Economic Section, in September 1945.) (Public Record Office T230/18, 19 and 106; Meade Papers 312; Meade Diary, 16 September, 3 and 18 November, and 2 December 1945; for the Labour Government’s decisions on the issues involved see Sir Norman Chester, The Nationalisation of British Industry 1945–51 (London: HMSO, 1975).
