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Show President Elsenhower's top aides told congress they see little chance of drastic cutbacks In defense de-fense and foreign-aid spending now and that It is questionable whether the budget can be balanced in the coming fiscal year. This bears out previous predictions of spokesmen in the administration. The nation's production of goods and services last year was the highest in history. It rose to $346 billion, a 3 per cent gain over dollar volume In 1951. Price increases, in-creases, however, accounted for about half of this rise, so that the actual expansion In physical volume vol-ume was around 2.5 per cent. Defense De-fense purchases in 1952 took about 14 per cent of total output. Secretary of State Dulles and his department, which Is having its troubles with Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, has announced that the department does need a shake-up shake-up and that he Is just the man to do it. At the same time he denied that department policies are being "dictated" by Senator McCarthy or other congressional investigators. investiga-tors. Farmers welcomed the Eisenhower Eisen-hower administration's announcement announce-ment that It would continue to support sup-port butter and other dairy prices at 90 per cent of parity for another an-other year. The announcement was made in the middle of a roaring debate over declining farm prices . on the senate floor. Even as the debate de-bate raged, the Agriculture Department De-partment reported that the general level of farm prices dropped 1.48; per cent between mid-January and j mid-February. It was the sixth: consecutive monthly decline and I It sent prices about 17 per cent below be-low the record high of February, 1931. Some fairly sharp price rises occurred when the government jerked price ceilings from another 12 billion dollars' worth of goods, Including cigarettes, nearly all groceries and two baste defense metals copper and aluminum. Copper increased in price by 3 cents per pound and some cigarette makers raised their prices. The Office of Price Stabilization predicts pre-dicts that prices may continue to Increase on some items for a short time. President Eisenhower said In his recent news conference he would be willing to meet Premier Stalin face to face and attempt to thresh out differences between the East and West. There was a condition con-dition to the offer, however, that makes such a meeting highly unlikely. un-likely. That condition: any agreement agree-ment made would have to be self-enforcing self-enforcing that is. if there were safeguards against violation. The Russians have consistently rejected reject-ed such agreements. Hawaii is having a spectacular spectacu-lar boom. With the question of statehood under discussion in Washington, visitors are flocking to the islands. Some 60,000 visitors lolled on Hawaiian sands last year. That record rush compared with a tourist trade of 51,500 in 1931. Overflow reservation requests for the current season suggest a still bigger influx during 193. Tourist money is the fastest growing source of income for Hawaii even though it Is still running well behind sugar, pineapple and armed services spending in size. |