LONDON, Oct. 27, 1951 (UP) - Prime Minister Winston Churchill is pledged to denationalize Britain's iron and steel industry but his new Conservative government is expected to leave the welfare state relatively undisturbed. The private trucking industry will be freed from Socialist restrictions which prevent inter-city hauls. Other state-owned industries will be merely decentralized, informed sources said.
Although the new regime is Conservative, British financiers have little to gain. Churchill himself wrote the Tory platform promise to impose a stiff excess profits tax during the period of rearmament.
The new prime minister's plans were outlined in his election manifesto and campaign speeches.
The administration of the mining industry and road and rail transportation is to be reorganized into regional groups of more workable size than the present mammoth national corporations. Wage negotiations in the industries, however, will remain on a national basis.
Conservative leaders still are debating whether to return the iron and steel industry to the original owners or reorganize it into several great regional concerns, but proponents of the "as you were" policy seem to have the upper hand.
Ninety-two iron companies, with shares worth $652.4 million, were taken over by the state's iron and steel corporation eight months ago in the Socialist government's last and greatest act of nationalization. The corporation, however, has tampered little with the operation of the industry and it will not be difficult to return it to private ownership.
Churchill promised to furnish "better social services for less money."
