CAB129-53 — Page 183

Page 183

Part IV. "Action this Day!!

15.

16.

(a)

(b)

I would suggest that we take the following decisions.

Draw up, in simple language and in brief terms, a draft plan

of what it is we want the Commonwealth countries to agree to both in the realm of money, currency management, etc., and in the realm of trading agreements, tariffs, G.A.T.T., and all that depends thereon and in the realm of development plans.

Ministers having agreed this as their broad plan to put before the

November Conference should despatch some of their number (with a small but skilled, staff drawn partly from the Civil Service, partly from merchant banking and partly from industry) on this imperial mission. It should be their duty to make the preliminary soundings and to direct the official researches into the right channels. The November Conference will only succeed if, before it starts, we have "sold" them the conclusions at which we hope it will arrive.

The November Conference is our only way out. It is certainly our only Conservative way out. Everything should be staked upon it. Nothing, at any rate, should be done which might jeopardise its success. The broad basis of agreement must be planned now; and this should be the duty of British Ministers, both at home and by personal contact, I cannot believe that any radical monetary plan now would help towards a success in November. For it must prejudge the main issue. For any plan must involve a unilateral freeing of current sterling based on a unilateral freezing of other people's legitimately saved balances. Strange prelude to the new Imperial policy.

17.

Meanwhile, our Imperial policy should not be hidden under a bushel; it should be widely proclaimed in England and overseas. The knowledge that Britain is setting about this constructive and ambitious plan will, I think, give more security to sterling than a policy confined to cuts and restrictions of productivity to artificially planned limits. At the same time it may well be that during this period some necessary cuts in imports must be made to gain the necessary time. But such a policy cannot hope to succeed if it appears to our people as yet another in a long series of sacrifices imposed by events. It must be, and be seen to be, a plan of conserving our strength of action; of crouching, before the bold leap forward to our destiny.

Ministry of Housing and Local

Government, S. W.1.,

4TH JULY, 1952.

H. M.

-3-

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201

(THIS DO Pager & 25PROPERTY OF HER BRITANI8453y's

GOVERNMENT)

SECRET

C. (52) 227

5th JULY, 1952.

CABINET

68

COPY NO.

REVISED WHITE PAPER

ON THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

Memorandum by the Minister of Supply

202

I attach for the consideration of the Cabinet a further draft of the White Paper on the iron and steel industry, revised by the Steel Committee in the light of the discussions and conclusions of the Cabinet at their meeting on Thursday, 3rd July (C.C.(52) 65th Conclusions, Minute 3).

2.

Alterations have been made to paragraphs 3, 11, 14 and the Appendix. Paragraph 25 of the previous draft has been omitted and the subsequent paragraphs re-numbered.

Ministry of Supply, S.W.1.

5tPage 18419f253

D.S.