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Show Economic Highlights . Industrial News Review Happenings that Affect the Dinner Pails, Dividend Checks and Tax Bills of Every Individual. National Nation-al and International Problems In-separate In-separate from Local Welfare. oOo The Darrow report on NRA codes has been received with wide divergence diver-gence 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 of the administration have been trying to laugh the report j off, saying that it doesn't mean a, thing, is of no importance whatso-' ever. That isn't true either. One thing the Darrow report has done is to concentrate con-centrate interest on a problem that has been looming larger and larger of late the influence of the codes on small units within an industry; little lit-tle stores, little manufacturing plants, little distributors of all kinds of commodities. com-modities. The report says, briefly, that the codes threaten the small business' busi-ness' with extinction, give big business busi-ness all the breaks, and that monopolies mono-polies are growing in strength by leaps and bounds. All but one member mem-ber of the consumers' commission which Mr. Darrow headed, agreed with that. Thrn Mr. Darrow and one other member filed a separate report, even more sensational than the main report. In it Mr. Darrow says that we have a choice between fascism and socialism that the suspension of such public safeguards as the antitrust anti-trust laws are inimical to the interest of the consumer and the average business busi-ness man. Mr. Darrow's personal opinion is that there should be government gov-ernment ownership of basic resources; he has always tended strongly to the socialistic viewpoint. General Johnson made the expected 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 and unjust. Much more Convincing 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 of-fered nothing that could be called constructive criticism. The effect of the report will doubtless be to hasten revision of the NRA set-up, particularly particu-larly in the matter of code price-fixing. It is known that Mr. Roosevelt has been studying changes for some time. Some observers likewise believe that General Johnson is due for oblivion he is energetic, capable, courageous, but he has offended too many people, including big-shot newspapermen news-papermen whose friendliness the administration ad-ministration needs. (Continued cn las, page) Economic. Highlights (Continued from page 1) i (Continued from page 1) ! Main problem of industry hasn't changed the last few weeks and that problem is strikes. Activities in To-ledo, To-ledo, where the national guard was called out, several 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 especial-ly noteworthy has happened to industry. in-dustry. A brief review follows: Steel Production has increased, re-I re-I cently touching 59 per cent of ca-I ca-I pacity. Industry believes that sum-1 sum-1 mer seasonal trends will force a slackening soon. Motors Beginning in late April, a ( ' decline in production began and it 1 has continued. Late weekly report shows a drop of 11,000 units from preceding week. Three companies out of 13 showed slight gains. Carloadings On May 4, loadings were almost 2,000,000 cars over same period last year. A slight decline de-cline is appearing, but the position of the rails remains comparatively good. Commodity Prices Recently the wholesale commodity level touched the highest mark of the year. A steady, slow advance is noticeable! Coal Production, though tending-, tending-, downward, is much heavier than in previous two years. Retail Trade A rather sharp drop has occurred in this field. Latest official data indicates that the de-' cline is greater than seasonal experience ex-perience would have indicated. General Business Index During most of this year, the rise has been greater-than-seasonal. Part of that improvement has been lost through late declines, but the index is still fnr ahead of last year. |