The Accountability of the British Nationalized Industries

Abstract

Great Britain's giant nationalized industries pose unprecedented problems for a free nation. Are the old governmental forms appropriate? Can the new forms be held accountable to the public? Can public accountability and business efficiency be reconciled? The five key industries, formed out of thousands of former enterprises, employ almost two million workers—almost three times the number of civil servants. Even the strictly “business” problems are unprecedented. In personnel, the transport industry is double the size of American Telephone and Telegraph. Coal is three times the size of General Motors. Admitting that the final answers on accountability had not been found, Herbert Morrison, then Lord President of the Council, well stated the prevailing British attitude: “We are in the early years of novel constitutional and social experiments of great long-term significance, and we can be certain that as experience grows the methods which are in use at present will need to be modified and additional methods will be evolved.”