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Show NA TrfV v Pearson Washington, D. C. AIR BASES Cabled reaction from Tokyo indicated indi-cated that the Japanese were suspicious suspi-cious that something more than appeared ap-peared on the surface was behind Cordell Hull's warning against the invasion of French Indo-China. In this, they were right. There was. Nobody in the navy department is shouting it from the housetops, but the U. S. fleet or at least most of it will now remain in the Pacific. Previously it was considered necessary nec-essary to bring the fleet from Hawaii Ha-waii and California in order to station sta-tion most of it around Panama and the Caribbean. This would have made it impossible to keep a watchful watch-ful eye on Japanese operations in the direction of the Malays and the Dutch East Indies all-important sources of American tin and rubber. Probably it will still be necessary to bring a few ships to the Atlantic side of .the canal. But the island base deal with Great Britain has now made it possible to police most of the Caribbean and the Atlantic seaboard by air instead of by sea. NAVAL NOTES At first the chief improvement to the new U. S. bases on British islands is-lands will be airports. Not only are they needed immediately, but also are cheapest and quickest to construct. con-struct. Naval bases, which mean oil tanks and repair facilities, take time to build and may never be constructed to any great extent. The U. S. navy will take advantage of British naval facilities for the time being. Significant was the fact that many of the over-age destroyers being sold to England were fitted out with cables to neutralize magnetic mines even before the deal was published by the President. In other words, there had been no real doubt for a week or so before the announcement announce-ment that the deal would be closed. Negotiations for naval bases by no means are terminated. What the navy wants more than anything else is a good base in Brazilian waters, and if possible one in Uruguay. Informal In-formal conversations regarding a Brazilian base have been going on for some time. TJ. S. REARMAMENT DRIVE The bottleneck of American rearmament re-armament is factory expansion. In order to produce more planes, guns and tanks, new factories are necessary. And part of the delay has resulted from a wrangle over how taxes shall be paid on these new plant expansions. In fairness to industry, it should be noted that many of its leaders have gone ahead and financed their own plant expansion without waiting wait-ing to see what the tax picture would be. In fact some industrialists were far-sighted enough to begin more than a year ago. Companies which did this include: New York Shipbuilding, Newport News Shipbuilding, Bethlehem Shipbuilding, Ship-building, Bath Iron Works, Federal Shipbuilding, Midvale Steel, Carnegie-Illinois Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Bausch and Lomb, General Electric,. Elec-tric,. Ford Instrument company, Edo Aircraft, Grumman Aircraft, Brewster Brew-ster Aeronautical, Eclipse Aviation and Walter Kidde. Probably the list takes in many others. And because of their farsightedness, far-sightedness, these firms not only are reaping good profits for themselves but also doing a service for the government gov-ernment For instance, the Elco company of Bayonne, N. J., put up an $800,000 plant extension about a year ago in order to manufacture motor-torpedo ("mosquito") boats. As a result, it is now turning over to the navy one new, and badly needed, mosquito boat each week. However, among many other manufacturers man-ufacturers there has been backing and filling over factory expansion and how the new plants will be taxed and financed. There is no question but this dickering has definitely defi-nitely slowed up the defense program. pro-gram. Powder Shortage Serious. Powder is the bottleneck of national na-tional defense. Without it not a shot can be fired, not even a revolver. And today's powder shortage is most serious. It is to avoid these shortages in the future, not only in regard to powder, but also other essentials of modern warfare that the government govern-ment is anxious to build some of its own plants, or at least obtain a lien on them. This also would solve the tax problem, prob-lem, because industry would have no need to ask for early amortization amortiza-tion on "its emergency expenditures. Government Arms Plants. There are three general plans: One is the arsenal, completely owned and operated by the government, govern-ment, such as the Frankford arsenal in Philadelphia. Two is the factory completely owned and operated by private in-lustry. in-lustry. This was the practice employed em-ployed during the World war. Three is a compromise system whereby the government buys the ground and erects the factory, then lets the private manufacturer step in and operate the plant for a management man-agement fee. |