Out of the Hole

Two years ago when he was tapped by Prime Minister Macmillan to boss Britain's nationalized coal industry, Labor M.P. Alfred Robens, 52, hardly seemed a promising choice. A dedicated socialist and onetime Minister of Labor under Clement Attlee, Robens had had no experience at all in running a big business. And the task before him was staggering. Burdened with uneconomic mines and archaic mining methods, Britain's coal industry had piled up a deficit of $227 million since its nationalization in 1947.

But strapping (6 ft., 200 lbs.) Alf Robens turned out to be the cleverest capitalist the British Labor Party ever produced. Recognizing that the Coal Board's marketing tactics were woefully weak, he opened a string of showrooms up and down the country to woo homeowners into using more coal for heating, and sent a staff of 200 technicians out to talk British industrialists into burning coal in their plants.

More important, Robens doggedly set out to tighten up the operations of the sprawling Coal Board, which employs more than 580,000 people. Shuttling from mine to mine, he patiently explained to the miners the need to close unprofitable mines and automate the remaining ones. His down-to-earth, ex-union leader's approach won the miners' support. With a minimum of furor, Robens has closed 50 marginal mines in northern England and Scotland, moved many of the displaced workers to expanding mines in the Midlands. A 4% raise in miners' wages last year was more than offset by an 8% increase in productivity; today the output per man in British mines is the highest in Europe.

Robens' efforts won such respect that he was made a baron. But many Britons continued to receive with frank disbelief his predictions that the coal industry was about to turn the corner. Last week, however, when the Coal Board released its 1962 report, the skeptics were confounded: with profits of $3,000,000, the board was in the black for the first time in six years.

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