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Show Hugo S. Sims Says: EVERY COMMUNITY NEEDS Any community in the United States, including Mil-ford, Mil-ford, can make progress whenever the majority of its inhabitants in-habitants are more interested in the general welfare than in envying their neighbors. The population of any given area, united in common advantages, facing the same disadvantages and seeking methods of growth, can assess its prospects upon the basis of its average inhabitant. It takes more than natural resources to make a prosperous pros-perous people. This applies to nations, states, counties and municipalities. The spirit of the people, within certain cer-tain physical boundary lines, is more important to the welfare of the people than the possession of certain assets which are often deemed advantageous. You can give a locality an excellent climate, wonderful natural resources and an industrial set-up that is efficient but, unless vou can breathe a common purpose into the life of the area,' it will fall far short of becoming highly prosperous. pros-perous. This does not mean that some few citizens may not be able to milk the area for their benefit and become rich. It does mean that the area as a whole and its inhabitants cannot become prosperous. Great wealth, side by side with abject poverty, does not make an ideal community and never will. THREE MINK COATS Miss Sonja Henie, star performer in her own ice-skating ice-skating revue, recently had the misfortune to lose two mink coats, worth $28,000, when burglars ransacked hev apartment. The lady, however, is not suffering from the cold because be-cause of a third mink coat which she was wearing at the time. Apparently the thieves were looking for jewelry, but they did not discover a small box containing jewelry of considerable value. We have no objection to the ice skater's enjoying possession pos-session of three mink coats, but, in our burgeoise way, we wonder how much money a lady must have before she feels justified in investing nearly $40,000 in mink coats. PHILIPPINE FEAT From the Far East comes word that the Philippine budget has been balanced. This seems to be an economic feat for a nation in the clays of deficit spending. At first glance, the accomplishment of the Filipinos, only 3y2 years after the end of a war that inflicted much physical damage to their country, would seem to be phenomenal. phe-nomenal. Upon closer inspection, however, one wonders whether the estimated $750,000,000 that has gone into the Philippine economy from American sources since the end of the war is not the explanation for the excellent record. Compared to the budget of the Philippine Republic, about $135,000,000 a year, the three-quarters of a billion dollars poured into the Islands by the United States seems rather large. Almost any country could balance its budget bud-get if somebody else turned loose a golden stream for its development and rehabilitation. MUST HAVE TEETH If the Government is to check monopoly and the concentrated con-centrated ownership of business, Senator James E. Murray, Mur-ray, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business, believes that the anti-trust laws must be modernized and provisions against unfair trade practices must be enforced. It is easy to recognize that small business is up against a problem when it projects its minor buying power into the raw materials market in competition with the mass buying power of large and concentrated industries. AVheth-er AVheth-er the Government should attempt to protect the buying power of small business, and the methods of accomplishing accomplish-ing this objective are matters of considerable difference j of opinion. The anti-trust laws can be enforced, in our opinion, if Congress will provide jail sentences for officials of corporations that violate the regulatory laws of the nation. na-tion. As long as a large corporation can violate these i statutes and make a handsome profit, without risking any-' thing more than a slap-on-the-wrist fine, the laws will be violated. |