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Show ECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS HiipiM-ninH That Affevt the Oiniwr 1'ails, Dividend Checks arwl Tax Bills of Every Individual. National and International Problems Inwpiirnble from Local Welfare. Wel-fare. The Darrow report on NRA codes has been received with wide divergence of opinion. Opponents of the Administration have been saying that it is the final straw, that it will blow the roof off the recovery program and show it up completely. That isn't true. Defenders o the Administration have been trying to laugh the report re-port off, saying that it doesn't mean a thing, is of no importance whatsoever. That isn't true either. One thing the Darrow report has done is to concentrate interest on a problem that has been looming loom-ing larger and larger of late, the influence of the codes on small units un-its within an industry; little stores, little manufacturing plants, little distributors of all kinds of commodities. The report says, briefly, that the codes threaten the small business with extinction, give big business all the breaks, and that monopolies are growing in strength by leaps and bounds. All but one member of the consumers' commission which Mr. Darrow headed, agreed with that. Then Mr. Darrow says that we have a choice between be-tween fascism and socialism that the suspension such public safeguards as the anti-trust laws are inimical to the interest of. the consumer and the average businessman. busi-nessman. Mr. Darrow's personal opinion is that there should be government ownership of basic resources; he has always tended strongly to the socialist viewpoint. General Johnson made the expected ex-pected answer said that the Darrow board should be disbanded disband-ed (it was due to automatically expire within two weeks) ; that the Darrow criticism was carping carp-ing and unjust. Much more convincing con-vincing was the answer of the NRA Chief Counsel Richberg, who pointed out that Mr. Darrow had kept to generalizations, had cited few specific items of abuses, and had offered nothing that cojuld be called constructive criticism. The effect of the report will doubtless be to hasten revision of the NRA set-up, particularly in the matter of code price-fixing. It Is known that Mr. Roosevelt has been studying changes for some time. Some observers ,likewle believe that General Johnson is due for oblivion he is energetic, capable, courageous, but he has Offended too many people, including includ-ing big-shot newspapermen whose friendliness the Administration needs. Main problem of industry hasn't has-n't changed the last few weeks and that problem is strikes. Activities Ac-tivities in Toledo, where the national na-tional guard was called out, several sev-eral men killed and many badly injured, have stunned the public. At this writing, Pacific Coast commerce is tied up solid with the longshoremen's and seamen's strikes. Outside of this, little that is especially noteworthy has happened to industry. A brief review re-view follows: STEEL Production has increased, in-creased, recently touching 69 per cent of capacity. Industry believes be-lieves that summer seasonal trends will force a slackening soon. MOTORS Beginning in late April, a decline in production began be-gan and it has continued. Late weekly report shows a drop of 11,000 units from preceeding week. Three companies out of 13 showed slight gains. CARLOADING O n May 4, loadings were almost 2,000,000 cars over same period last year. A slight decline is appearing, but the position of the rails remains comparatively good. COMMODITY PRICES Recently Recen-tly the wholesale commodity level touched the highest mark of the year. A steady, slow advance is noticeable. COAL Production, though tending downward, is much hea vier than In previous two years. SECURITIES The stock market mar-ket has been generally quiet, with few changes from the level reached reach-ed last March. Recently average-prices average-prices hav efallen, with utilities alone holding their ground. Average Av-erage bond prices have likewise been lower. RETAIL . TRADE A rather sharp drop has occured in this field. Latest official data indicates indi-cates that the decline is greater than lseasonal experience would, have indicated. GENERAL BUSINESS INDEX. ;During most of this year, the rise has been greater-than-season-al. Part of that improvement has been lost through late declines,, but the index is still far ahead of last year. Political Note: The politicans are keeping eagle eyes on the Literary Lit-erary Digest's latest poll, which is to determine whether the public still has faith in the Roosevelt policies in general. In preceding polls, the Digest has been so astonishingly as-tonishingly accurate that some wits have suggested calling off elections el-ections as an economy measure,, and abiding by Digest returns. So-far So-far the present poll shows strong Roosevelt support he is even, carrying Pennsylvania, haven of Republicans, and the only large-state large-state carried by Hoover in 1932. However, his majority, which was 2-to-l in early returns, is droping, and is now closer to 3-to-2. |