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Show Washington, D. C. CHINESE BLACK MARKET If you think the U. S. Black Market Mar-ket is profitable, take a look at operations op-erations In China. A fountain pen costs $10,000 Chinese currency in Chungking. Even with the Chinese Chi-nese dollar worth only five cents this is $500 in U. S. dollars and a lot of dough to pay for a fountain pen. You can also understand why U. S. fliers load up with lipstick before going go-ing to China. A lipstick brings $5,000 in Chinese dollars in Chungking. Chung-king. This is about $250 in U. S. currency. This is also why lend-lease has sent a certain amount of silk stockings, stock-ings, champagne, perfume and tjth-er tjth-er luxuries to Chinese war lords. They are sent to counteract similar imports by the Japanese which have a very undermining influence on a war lord worried over maintenance of his love-nest. RUBBER DELUGE Officials in the office of the rubber administrator are beginning to wonder won-der what they can do with the hundreds hun-dreds of thousands of tons of synthetic syn-thetic rubber which will come from the new plants next year. It seems a little late, but they are now facing the elementary question of whether or not the tire companies can handle han-dle the vast quantities of synthetic rubber. The greatest amount of rubber ever processed by the nation's rubber rub-ber companies in one year was 540,000 tons. But next year we shall have nearly one million tons to deal with. Obviously, the present facilities facili-ties will be inadequate. But the problem is aggravated by the fact that tire manufacturing ( machinery has been knocked down and stored away so that rubber companies com-panies could convert to production for the war. Instead of tires, they have been making rubber boats, balloons, bal-loons, tank treads and life rafts. Thus we have the problem of finding find-ing new plant space in which to bring that machinery back into production, pro-duction, and the further problem of creating entirely new productive facilities fa-cilities to take care of the increased quantities of rubber which will be available for manufacture. SOLOMONS ISLAND Few maps of the world show the location of Solomons Island, Maryland, Mary-land, a pinprick in Chesapeake bay. Locally it is famous only for its fishing fish-ing and the fact that the steamships Leviathan, Mount Vernon and Mon-ticello Mon-ticello were laid up there to rust in deference to private shipowners. Since the war, however, Solomons Island has become an important naval installation, and the navy department de-partment recently arranged for the shipment of some airplanes to Solomons Solo-mons Island on an aircraft carrier built for the British in a West coast yard. While the carrier was going through the Panama canal locks, London radioed asking its whereabouts. where-abouts. "We're on our way to Solomons Island," replied the carrier's commanding com-manding officer. "Why are you going to Solomons Island and where is it?" London queried in amazement. "Get in touch with the embassy in Washington," radioed back the ship's commanding officer. After some anxious moments, London Lon-don learned in code that the carrier's car-rier's commanding officer had not mutinied, nor was he going to the Solomon Islands, but to the U. S. naval base at Solomons Island, Maryland. SMALL BUSINESS BLOW-UP The government's program for the relief of small business is headed for trouble when congress reconvenes recon-venes next month. At secret sessions of the senate small business committee, headed by Senator James Murray of Montana, Mon-tana, small business men complained com-plained about their inability to get government loans for war contracts and sub-contracts, while billions of dollars of government money is being be-ing shelled out to big corporations. The senate committee heard complaints com-plaints about the tight-fisted loan policies of the Smaller War Plants corporation. One example given the senate committee was that of the Riverside River-side Boatyard company of Miami, which tried to get a loan of only $10,000 from the Smaller War Plants corporation to complete a war contract. con-tract. After being turned down, the company got the $10,000 loan from a private bank within 24 hours. As a result, Senator James Murray Mur-ray of Montana, chairman of the senate small business committee, is planning some close scrutiny of the Smaller War Plants corporation. MERRY-GO-ROUND C. Just before Frank Tinsley, former press aide of the British Supply Council, left to join the Royal Canadian Cana-dian Air force, he wrote the Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania railroad: "As a British subject who has lived in the United States for 14 years, mostly as a newspaper man with Reuters, will you grant me one favor on leaving this grand country? Will you let me rido in a locomotive cab ot one of your trains to Now York, on my way to Canada?" . . . Tinsley left Washington in the cab. |