What England is doing in the Iranian oil crisis shows a similarity between socialism and gypsy religion. Gypsies believe it is a sin for him to steal from any other gypsy but that he has a right to steal from anyone who is not a gypsy. As soon as socialists are in power they seize private industry–sometimes all at once, sometimes one industry at a time as they’re doing in England. The last seizure there was the steel industry, although they called it “nationalization.”

Now the Iranians want to do the same thing with that country’s oil industry which is, for the most part, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. and is 53 per cent owned by the British Government.

A proper settlement of the dispute, if socialist morals are to be used as a guide, would be to give Iran that part of the stock of Anglo Iranian that is privately owned. There would be nothing wrong about that.