Independence or Union by T. M. Devine

Author:T. M. Devine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

II

By the early 1960s it had become evident that the post-war economic boom was dependent on the temporary conditions of replacement demand after 1945 and the virtual absence of international competition while the ravaged economies of Europe and the Far East recovered from the devastation of world conflict. There had still been precious little industrial diversification in Scotland. In the west, heartland of the traditional industries, the rate of entry of new companies in the 1950s was about half that of the 1940s. The most serious concerns were voiced about the condition of the industrial staples. Coal in particular faced a bleak future. The once rich Lanarkshire field was virtually worked out, while many consumers were moving to electricity, oil and gas. The conversion of locomotives from coal-burning to diesel engines and steel furnaces to oil-burning cut deeply into much of the traditional market for coal. Steel was better placed. In 1957 Scotland’s first integrated iron and steel works, built at a cost of £22.5 million, was brought into production at Ravenscraig near Motherwell. But by the later 1950s Europe had recovered from the war, much more steel was being produced, and, with a world surplus building up, price-cutting became a common strategy. Despite the Ravenscraig works investment in Lanarkshire, the Scottish steel industry remained vulnerable because of its inland location and consequent high costs for ore and delivery of finished products.

Also, before 1960 shipbuilding was losing much of its world ascendancy. Although global demand for ships was still very buoyant, the Clyde’s share of output was already in steady decline. In 1947, Clyde yards had launched 18 per cent of world tonnage, but its share slumped to 4.5 per cent in 1958. Scottish shipbuilding, once a world-class industry, was in a sorry state and it seemed that the many structural problems had simply been temporarily concealed by the post-war replacement boom. Certainly German, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese yards had the benefit of more lavish state support, but it was still the case that many of the wounds of Scottish shipbuilders were self-inflicted. While their rivals adopted streamlined assembly-line techniques, invested extensively in mechanization and designed well-planned yards, the Scots stood still, apart from the replacement of riveting by welding and improvements in prefabrication. They were now losing their competitive edge. In the later 1950s German yards could frequently deliver ships in half the time quoted by Clyde builders. Indecisive management and workers caught up in numerous demarcation disputes bore a collective responsibility for this state of affairs, which was by no means inevitable but before too long would bring a once mighty global industry to the brink of total collapse.

In truth, Scotland was no longer the economic superpower that it had been in the past. The old commercial empire was in its death throes. The nation’s impact on the world economy receded with the continued malaise of the heavy industries, several of which were now only kept afloat by the nationalization of steel and coal in the 1940s, lavish

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