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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne British Aerial War Against Germany Relieves Pressure on Russian Front; President Moves to Halt Inflation; Gas Rationing Marked by Conflicts i . (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.; i ' (Released by Western Newspaper Unlon.t, L - - If " - . -a : Sir Claude Auchinleck, British commander in chief in the Middle East, (left) is shown with Maj. Gen. Napier Clavering, head of the British military mission to the Egyptian army, and Nahas Pasha, (right) prime minister of Egypt. The gathering, in Cairo, was in celebration of King Farouk's birthday. BRITISH: Increase Tempo The tempo of bombings by the Royal Air force planes on objectives in Europe had been vastly stepped up, and there had been indications that more and more deliberately the British were attempting in these raids to aid Russia. Ever eastward had moved the objectives, ob-jectives, first Luebeck, then Stettin, and then Rostock. On this latter town, in two raids, the Royal Air force fliers had dumped a total of 900,000 pounds of bombs. The destruction was said to be most complete. Particular emphasis em-phasis had been placed on the Hein-kel Hein-kel aircraft factory. But these were not the only objectives. ob-jectives. On one day six giant raids had been carried out, with more than 600 planes zooming over the channel, bound on their lethal task. British losses were not increasing, showing that with more constant practice, the British fliers were stepping up their technique and managing to get home in increasing numbers all the time. Daylight hours had lengthened, weather had been favorable, and all of this was working to the liking of the British who were giving Germany, they (believed, a worse and more continuous strafing than anything the Nazis had meted out to them earlier in the war. Germany had begun to increase their retaliatory raids, and the British, ducking again into their shelters, hoped that these planes had been withdrawn from the Russian Rus-sian and Libyan fronts, thus giving giv-ing the Red and the British troops more respite from attack. Of the six raids in one day, three were on Baltic ports and the other three on channel coast points, the air ministry had said. Heaviest hit town of England had been Exeter, home of a famous boys' school, where hundreds were said to have been made homeless and 12 deaths had resulted. But only 25 planes had taken part in this attack at-tack and this small number the British Brit-ish counted as a moral victory. GASOLINE: Rationing The order that all gasoline in the eastern seaboard states would go under un-der severe rationing on May 15 had remained much in the air with Ickes' office and that of Henderson sending out daily- statements which now and then were reconciled, but for the most part were marked by strong conflict. One moment it would be announced an-nounced that rationing would be .2 to 5 gallons weekly for nonessential cars, and the next moment it would be, from the. opposite source, announced an-nounced that the ration would be 30 to 50 gallons a month. At the same time it had been announced an-nounced in Washington that new car rationing would be relaxed in order to put them in owners' hands and thus gain valuable storage space. Henderson's office issued regulations regula-tions which included that men having hav-ing essential need of automobiles could get them if the present cars were declared inadequate. This seemed to boil down to a car being a 1939 or earlier model, or having been driven more than 40,000 miles. Under some circumstances owners own-ers could apply for the purchase of an additional car to the one already owned, Henderson said. Fourteen classes of persons had been previously authorized to purchase pur-chase cars, but hardly anybody was buying them, and the auto dealers had been loudly complaining that they were being strangled by government gov-ernment restrictions. DRAFT: Reclassifications Shortly after the older men, those 45 to 64 had gone out and registered, regis-tered, the selective service headquarters head-quarters had announced that it was going to begin to call to the colors younger men who had dependents, provided they were not in war-essential war-essential occupations. It had not been made plain how wide this classification would be, but it was stated that those in class 3-A would be called, and the continued deferment would continue to apply only to those in 3-B. A reclassification of these two classes was to be made, and the selective service heads said when this was finished, a. start would be made in calling up those in 3-A. As to "war marriages," the board said: "In cases where the dependency was acquired after December 8, 1941, or acquired when induction was imminent, or for the primary purpose of providing a basis for dependency deferment, pregnancy, birth or acquiring a child shall not be cause for classification in class 3-A." It also was planned to move back into 1-A those whose dependent wives had voluntarily quit their jobs which had been adequate for their self-support. ANTI-INFLATION: Presidential 'Musts' A seven-point program "to keep the cost of living from spiraling upward" up-ward" was presented to congress by President Roosevelt. Living costs have increased approximately 15 per cent since the outbreak of war in 1939. The presidential program pro-gram proposes the following steps: 1. "We must tax heavily, and in that process keep personal and corporate cor-porate profits at a reasonable rate. (The President called for a $25,000 net limit on individual income.) 2. "We must fix ceilings on the prices which consumers, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers pay for the things they buy; and ceilings on rents for dwellings in all areas affected by war industries. 3. "We must stabilize the remuneration remu-neration received by individuals for their work. 4. "We must stabilize the prices received by growers for the products prod-ucts of their lands. 5. "We must encourage all citizens citi-zens to contribute to the cost of winning win-ning this war by purchasing war bonds with their earnings instead of using those earnings to buy articles arti-cles which are not essential. . 6. "We must ration all essential commodities of which there is a scarcity, so that they may be distributed dis-tributed fairly among consumers and not merely in accordance with financial ability to pay higher prices for them. 7. "We must discourage credit and installment buying and encourage encour-age the paying off of debts, mortgages mort-gages and other obligations." |