N-www.101IN KERR'S COLUMN .
1st February 1957 from the Tribune Magazine Archive
Topics
Business / FinanceOrganisations
Labour Party, Tory Party, Rank OrganisationPeople
Richard Thomas, Cube, J. Arthur Rank, ParamountLocations
Don't believe that sugar daddy
it5R. CUBE has been at it again. Last 1V.1 week thousands of pounds were spent buying space in all the popular newspapers for the advertisement reproduced here.
Why was it ne 'ary? Could it be that the board felt they must reply to those critics of Tate and Lyle who complained about the rise in sugar prices when profits were so high? Whatever the reason, there can be no excuse for the distortions in the advertisement.
Advertisement
It is not true, for example, to say that trading profits were £4,451,617. In fact they totalled £6,100,000— or a farthing for every pound of sugar sold.
What do shareholders get? Mr. Cube is , strictly correct in saying that £872,913 was distributed in dividends. But that is not all the
answer.
Are we to believe that the £934,000 which went to " returned profits " (to quote just one example of where the rest of the net profits went to) does not increase the shareholders' wealth ? Of course it does.
Mr. Cube also points out that there are over 21,000 shareholders. He does not mention the fact that the Lyle family holds between one-eighth and' one tenth of the total — and certainly the biggest single block of shares.
Nor does he tell readers that the Tate and Lyle families provide seven of the fourteen directors and that the company controls over 80 per cent. of all sugar refining in Britain, a monopoly in any man's language.
difficult task. Both are firstrate firms, but their size and value precludes a straightforward sale.
ever, that after three and a half years some 28 firms have still to be sold. Clearly it is as difficult to de-nationalise as to nationalise—and takes just its- king - • Rank's news * CO Paramount News, ► ," one of the most famous newsreels in the history of the cinema, is to go out of business. That is a tragedy in more ways than one.
It means, for example, that only four newsreels will be shown in British cinemas.
And the trend towards monopoly increases—for the Paramount equipment, etc., has been taken over by the Rank Organisation.
J. Arthur Rank already controls the Universal and Gaumont newsreels and has a. big stake in Movietone.
With Paramount in his grasp there is now only one Pathe, independent of his influence.
As those who studied cinema newsreels since the Suez crisis will know, they are no more than publicity strips for the Tory Party— except, of course, when they are showing beauty parades.
Selling steel
*yr is now nearly four 1 years since the Act to de-nationalise the steel in dustry came into operation.
In its third annual report the Agency set up to dispose of the assets describes the progress made.
So far 37 companies have been sold. In terms of employment, of production and sale of products they represent nearly three-quarters of the Agency's inheritance.
But the rate has slowed down. In the first > financial year some £78 million of assets were sold. This dropped to £74 million in the second year and •to only £35,900,000 in the third.
Two giants remain nationalised, the Steel Company of Wales and Richard Thomas and Baldwins. To sell them by public offer will be a The fact remains, howShip tycoons
* EiAMOUS for their fabulous spending, millionaires Stavros Niarchos and Aristotle Onassis also own the greatest shipping fleets in the world.
Mr. Niarchos claims that he now has 2,440,000 tons of oil tankers and others ships afloat and building. His brother-in-law, Mr. Onassis, has more than 2,000,000 tons.
To get a proper perspective it should be pointed out that these two men control more shipping than the giant £200 million Pacific and Orient Line.
The Royal Mail Line can only muster a fleet totalling 450,000 tons. The UnionCastle Line controls a mere 660,000 tons. Even the Cunard Line, with its famous Queens, can claim only 680,000.
The expanding need for oil tankers puts the G r eek brothers-in-law into " themost-powerful - men - in - the world " class.
Water crisis * IA/HAT is the greatest V handicap in the economic progress to mankind? Few laymen would follow the two distinguished scientists who recently put the supply of water at the top of the list.
Yet it is a fact that even in rainy Britain a shortage is likely to be the limiting factor unless there is a tremendous expansion in the next few years.
In ten years' time our consumption of water will have reached double the 1938 level. It takes some 125,000 gallons, to turn a ton of coal into electricity and nearly twice as much to make, a motor-car. A ton. of steal needs 200 times its waleht M water..
To offset this fabulous rate of consumption, only 2 per cent. of the one million gallons per head of the population, the annual rainfall in Britain, is effectively utilised.
To meet this growing crisis the industry is in bad condi tion. In spite of a drop of about 150 in the number of separate undertakings, there are still nearly 1,250, at least six times as many as are needed.
The four largest undertakings between them supply nearly a quarter of England and Wales, the 150 largest nearly three-quarters. At the other extreme, over a thousand small units supply only 25 per cent. of the demand.
The Economist points out that the Government might use its power to cut the number by half in the next few years.
But something more drastic is needed. As the Labour Party realised many years ago, there is simply no case against public ownership.
Car workers * c: VEN if the slump in
the motor car industry gets no worse, the cost in terms of output, unem ployment and short - time working has been tragic.
During 1956 only four cars were made for every five the previous year. In December the drop was 41 per cent.
compared with the same month of 1955. The fall in output of commercial vehicles was only slightly less severe:- About 57,000 of the industry's workers are now on short-time and the labour force has fallen since the end of 1955 by at least 40,000.
Some companies, however, seem to have turned the Cur uer- Jaguar has gone back to a five-day week. Valk hail's Luton factory i5 al$1 3 -.
back on full-time and snipe 1,800 Of,the;meit•laid off in recent months have been taken on I have a'leeling that the motor car companies 'are grateful, in a way, for rthe Suez crisis. M gave them 'a fine reason for ,- sacking workers who would in,lat:Iti case have been made redundant because of Automation.