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Show Weekly News Analysis " Has Britain Ceased Appeasing? Paris Has Reason to Doubt It Ily Joseph W. La Iline Public Works Two of President Roosevelt's pet projects have been the harnessing of tides in Maine's Passamaquoddy bay, and the digging of a ship canal across northern Florida. "Quoddy" was started several years ago, much of the $7,000,000 original appropriation being spent on preliminaries to the actual job. When congressional opponents argued ar-gued that Quoddy's power would have no outlet because it could not be transmitted profitably to New England industries, a new appropriation appropri-ation was refused in 1936. Since then the buildings have been used by NYA. , Likewise a start was made on the Florida canal, but last year congress con-gress balked on more funds. The arguments against it: That Florida's fruit industry might be damaged by seepage of salt water; that it was EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions ttt expressed in theso columns, they art those ol the news tnalyst, nd not necessarily of the newspaper. Europe At Rome, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had received no reassurances but merely Benito Mussolini's threat lo end the Spanish Span-ish war immediately by helping Rebels against Loyalists. That done, II Duce would have his hands free to press Mediterranean territorial demands against France. England and France could choose between helping the Loyalists or keeping hands oil and letting Mussolini win the war. Since Chamberlain had reportedly made no concessions in Rome, it was first thought a new policy of non-appeasement was dawning, inferring a Franco-British plump for the Loyalists. But within a few days some negative nega-tive results of the Rome conversations conversa-tions were apparent. Back in London, Lon-don, Mr. Chamberlain paid no attention at-tention to a letter from Clement R. Attlee, Parliament's labor leader: "It is obvious that the policy of nonintervention non-intervention (in Spain) has now be- rent parity payments of $212,000,-000, $212,000,-000, congress is in no mood to take the initiative. It may well be that this indecision is responsible for revival re-vival of last year's McAdoo-Eicher farm bil Just reintroduced in house and senate respectively by North Dakota's Rep. William Lemke and Sen. Lynn J. Frazier. Its crux: Minimum cost-of-production price levels would be established for domestically do-mestically consumed farm products, prod-ucts, while all surplus products would be dumped on world markets for whatever they would bring. Proceeds, Pro-ceeds, less marketing costs, would be returned to the farmer. Cost-of-production critics argue that removal of crop restrictions would glut the market, drive prices down and force grain dealers to pay a large margin between the actual market price and the cost-of-production price. This margin, it is maintained, main-tained, would eventually be assessed against the consumer. Taxation Two former U. S. treasury secretaries, secre-taries, Andrew W. Mellon and Og-den Og-den L. Mills, condemned the inequity in-equity of tax exempt federal, state and local bonds. Since his "soak-the-rich" revenue proposal of 1935, President Roosevelt has fought tax exempt securities and one other unpopular un-popular exemption, that on federal, state and local employees' salaries. If these exemptions could be abolished abol-ished the U. S. government figures it would net eventually $300,000,000 annually from government securities, securi-ties, plus $16,000,000 from employees' employ-ees' income taxes. One day before the President offered of-fered this program to congress in a special message, he sent Treasury Treas-ury Undersecretary John W. Hanes to pave the way before a special senate committee. Said Mr. Hanes: "The time for action has come." The Constitution's Sixteenth amendment gives congress power to "lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived," therefore the administration thinks statutory enactment rather than constitutional amendment will suffice. suf-fice. Later, after congress has spo-kpn, spo-kpn, the courts can decide whether its action is constitutional. Argued Mr. Hanes: Tax exempt securities now permit per-mit many large-income persons to escape income taxes entirely, therefore there-fore they are unfair. The $65,000,-000,000 $65,000,-000,000 in tax exempt securities now outstanding (of which some $50,000,-000,000 $50,000,-000,000 would be taxable) is so formidable for-midable that it discourages investment invest-ment in private enterprises involving involv-ing risk. Thus industry cannot compete. com-pete. As for income tax exemptions, exemp-tions, the U. S. Supreme court has already set a precedent by ruling that salaries of such quazi-public agencies as the Port of New York authority are subject to federal taxation. tax-ation. As might be expected, state and local groups jumped into the fight overnight. Argued the Conference , ' v-f?v -V iWiMlmiMiifiimiini''rmfi irWJW 'Utr'ifr1" i SENATOR GLASS "It won't happen again." unnecessary; that southern Florida would sufler irreparable economic damages. This winter President Roosevelt has asked an economy-minded congress con-gress to revive both projects and appropriate $100,000,000 to complete them. On Quoddy: "... The time will come when there will be a joint agreement between Canada and the United States for the joint development develop-ment of the larger sized project which would utilize all tidal power in that bay on both sides of the international date line ... It is my thought that an appropriation for . . . test borings and ... a small experimental plant . . . would be justified." On the canal: "A Florida ship canal will be built one of these days ... It is justified today by commercial and military needs." While the house rivers and harbors har-bors committee under Texas' Rep. Joseph J. Manfield prepared to argue ar-gue the proposal, Virginia's outspoken out-spoken Sen. Carter Glass spared no words: "In 1936 the late Senator Fletcher of Florida came to me with tears in his eyes, saying his political po-litical future would be ruined if Florida didn't get the canal. He asked me to vote for it, and like a old fool I did. Cut it won't happen again." International Last summer oppressed China begged the League of Nations to approve ap-prove sanctions against Japan. This was done, but only by resolution suggesting sug-gesting that league members take whatever action they saw fit. Nothing Noth-ing happened until a non-member, the U. S., began applying pressure against export of arms to Japan. Ja-pan. Great Britain followed suit in small measure, but thus far the international in-ternational boycott has failed. Showing typical Oriental resignation resigna-tion to fate, China's Dr. Wellington Koo, ambassador to France, has again broached the boycott issue in Geneva. His proposal: That an international in-ternational "co-ordination committee" commit-tee" be named to unify world action against Tokyo. Membership would include both league and non-league nations. Only result of Dr. Koo's plea has been to focus attention on the league's weakness, also to point out that only Britain, France and Russia now hold that badly battered organization organi-zation together. The Chinese diplomat diplo-mat knew he could get no Anglo-Franco-Russian support without first winning U. S. support. Hence he pointed out that President Roosevelt's Roose-velt's January 4 message to congress con-gress had "proffered the co-operation of the American people in support sup-port of the cause of democracy and peace." France, Britain and Russia agreed. Not daring to speak, all three turned eyes westward across the Atlantic awaiting Washington's leadership. Religion In prosperous years church membership mem-bership and attendance remains even or shows a very slight increase. in-crease. During depressions membership mem-bership ana ailenaance will rise through a return to religion. Foremost Fore-most among U. S. religious statisticians statisti-cians is Rev. Dr. Herman C. Weber, whose report for 1937 has just been released. Salient facts and figures: Total membership early in 1938 was 64,-156,895, 64,-156,895, church members having increased in-creased 960,000 in 1937 (twice as fast as the population). Churches increased by 1,743. A trend to church unity was evident, since 97.3 of the total U. S. cnurch population belongs to the 50 larger bodies About 160 smaller bodies accour for the remaining 2.7 per cent. LABOR'S CLEMENT ATTLEE Mr. Chamberlain ignored his letter. come the means of insuring that the Spanish (Loyalist) government shall be unable to provide for its defense against aggression by a foreign power." In Paris, where first news of Chambei Iain's alleged non-appeasement was greeted by demands for French assistance to Loyalist Spain as a self-defense measure, later news from London brought a cooling cool-ing off. The whispers: That Chamberlain Cham-berlain had secretly agreed with Mussolini to let Rebel Spain win, constituting an additional appeasement appease-ment at the expense of France. Whatever the cause, the Paris chamber of deputies felt obliged to approve Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet's declaration decreeing "hands oft"" in Spain. Meanwhile, despite disastrous losses in northeastern Catalonia, Spain's Loyalists felt their cause was not defeated. Authoritatively reported from Paris was the fact that Loyalists had reached an understanding un-derstanding with the Vatican, aided by a growing Catholic opinion that Rebel Generalissimo Francisco Franco may be using the religious issue merely as a cloak for his fundamental fun-damental Fascist aims. Nevertheless, Neverthe-less, Loyalist Spain still has much weaker friends than General Franco, Fran-co, who continues to get aid from both Italy and Germany. Pressing their current advantage, Berlin and Rome are hastening diplomatic dip-lomatic victories in the east before Britain gets around to calling a new four-power conference for European peace. While Italy's County Gal-leazo Gal-leazo Ciano visits in Jugoslavia and Warsaw, Germany is making hay in at least three eastern countries: (1) A $60,000,000 credit agreement has been signed with Turkey for delivery de-livery of German manufactured goods; 2) Germany has accredited a minister to Saudi Arabia; (3) Hungary Hun-gary and Germany have tightened their bonds. j Agriculture When commodity prices drop, U. S. farmers co-operating in the AAA crop control program receive parity payments, designed to maintain fiirm purchasing power. Under the first AAA parity payments came from processing taxes, later outlawed out-lawed by the Supreme court. Under Un-der the second AAA parity payments pay-ments merely increase the federal deficit since last winter's congress made no provision for them. This shortcoming was brought to congress' con-gress' attention in President Roose-velfs Roose-velfs recent budget message. But even the President has failed to suggest means of financing the payments, having merely stipulated that no new taxes shall be levied which increase the consumers' bur- I TREASURY'S HANES "The lime for union has come." of State Defense: Tax yield would not approach the immediate treasury treas-ury estimate of $70,000,000 a your. Moreover it would work hardship on states and municipalities by increasing increas-ing financing costs. The statutory procedure would be unconstitutional. unconstitution-al. Most important, once congress' power to tax income of state and local lo-cal securities has been established, a situation could arise in which congress con-gress would attempt to tax state revenues. Argued the U. S. Conference Confer-ence of Mayors, in a similar vein: Federal and state governments may recoup from income taxes the higher high-er costs to municipalities in interest on their bonds. Observers thought income tax exemption ex-emption could be repealed easily, but were less confident about tax exempt securities. den. Processing taxes would do this but Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace favors pulling this trick from the bag once more, hoping hop-ing a liberalized Supreme court will approve the idea. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, whose department must handle the deal, opposes processing taxes. Since the administration cannot agree on a method of financing cur- People Left, for the U. S , Brazilian Foreign For-eign Minister Oswa!do Aranha, to confer with President Roosevelt. The purpose, as explained in a Rio de Janeiro newspaper: "To discuss practical instruments for continental defense as well as national protection protec-tion of each of the two countries against foreign infiltration." |