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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS New Aids Asked for Farm Support; Coal Industry Seeks Strike Peace; Unemployment Surges to flew Peaks (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these colnmm, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Communist? f. 4 t rZu . V 1 I f 5 1 s . ... , V LiSSv..:i-J. ......... U.N. COST: One Dime Each Each citizen of the United States pays less than a dime for his share of the basic United Nations annual ikudget. At least three members of congress con-gress disagree on whether this is too much, too little, or about right, according to the first issue of a weekly wall newspaper in color, the UN GRAM. APPEARING for the first time this week, the new publication reports re-ports that Sen. Herbert R. O'Conor of Maryland, chairman of the senate sen-ate committee on expenditures in the executive departments which recently issued a report asking that the U.N. reduce its expenditures expendi-tures for the United Nations and its affiliates, thinks that a dime per capita is too much. Congress-woman Congress-woman Helen Gahagan Douglas, on the other hand, says it is too little; while Sen. Estes Kefauver is quoted as saying it is about right. The U.N. Gram, which tells subscribers sub-scribers about the United Nations, in this" issue objectively presents each of these three viewpoints. Buttressing Senator O'Conor's "too much" point, it states: "Internationalism, "In-ternationalism, plus national defense, de-fense, is a luxury. U.N.'s budget is just the start: each specialized agency asks more. How can the little nations pay?" Supporting the "too little" approach ap-proach of Congresswoman Douglas, it says: "New York City, U.N.'s permanent home, pays more for garbage disposal than U.N.'s annual an-nual cost; its subway deficit would run the U.N. for six months." AND BACKING up Sentor Ke-fauver's Ke-fauver's "just right" viewpoint, it argues: "Upping the U.N. budget, by forcing out poorer members, would make it a "rich man's club." If the U.S. paid the increase, still others might resign, charging that the U.N. was the "creature" of the United States. "Our aim," states publisher Wallace Wal-lace Thorsen, "is to get people thinking and talking about the United Nations and the job it is doing in building the world community." com-munity." "We try, In this and all subsequent subse-quent issues, to present a simple, objective analysis of the problems faced by the world's only machinery machin-ery for peace, to anyone with the time and inclination to pause before be-fore a bulletin board long enough to read the U.N. Gram a matter of minutes." FARM UNION: Asks Red 'Bargain' From a surprising source came a plea for the United States to "strike a bargain" with Russia and to spend 150 billion dollars in the next 15 years on the undeveloped areas of the world. THE SOURCE was James Pat-ton, Pat-ton, president of the National Farmers Farm-ers Union. Patton said, "Somehow, I believe we will be able to find a way to live in this world with peoples who differ in viewpoint as to type of economy and social systems." sys-tems." "Let us try to strike a bargain with those whom we are fighting in the cold war along with peaceful lines," he went on, "so that all of us can lay down our arms. "Let us lead out in America by placing at the disposal of the people peo-ple of the world an annual credit of 10 billion dollars for the next 15 years for the purpose of building build-ing TVA's on the Danube and the Yangtze, and for building man's productivity in all of the undeveloped unde-veloped areas of the world." PRESIDENT PATTON'S proposal propo-sal was magnanimous, generous, all-inclusive, but withal mostly visionary. It would delight those who operate on the theory that America can buy peace and good will with its dollars. They might even add that America Amer-ica must be the most hated nation in the world, inasmuch as it appears ap-pears it has no friends except those who are won and kept with money. FARM SUPPORTS: New Aids Asked Charles Brannan, U.S. secretary of agriculture, was still plumping for adoption of his (Brannan plan) system for farm price supports arguing that new price aids must be provided now. Pointing out that there is trouble getting rid of 1948 farm surpluses even as 1949 surpluses are pouring in, Brannan said the disposal problem prob-lem "points to the need of supplementary supple-mentary action on price supports, particularly with respect to more efficient methods than procedures for handling price supports of perishable per-ishable commodities." THE agriculture secretary may have had a point there, but the main question was: Would his plan of letting farm products find their own levels on the price market, with subsidies making up the differenceprovide dif-ferenceprovide an adequate solution? so-lution? Up to this point, he had been unable un-able to convince congress that it would. What luck he would have in the future was wholly problematical. problemati-cal. But there was no arguing the point that something needed to be done to clear up the muddled farm price support program. As it was being operated, federal farm policy seemed to be getting worse the farther it went. Brannan was eminently correct when he admitted that the present price support system programs "encourage over-production on one hand, and under-consumption on the other . . . and to find sufficiently sufficient-ly new uses for the surpluses, or to divert them into non-commercial channels at anything comparable to the support price usually is impossible." im-possible." SUMMING UP, Brannan said: "Briefly, the outlook includes the likelihood of some further contraction contrac-tion In the total demands for U.S. farm products and points to the need for adjustment in production . - If a favorable price level is to be maintained." The problem indeed was a grave one and made even more grave by the fact that the administration may be caught in a trap that has been long in the making a trap created by the fact that having so long experienced the subsidy aid as is, farmers won't like any tampering tam-pering with the program and might visit their ill will on anyone who may do so. LEWIS: A Fine Largess John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America a labor union which does not pay its members strike benefits and which subjects them to untold misery mis-ery and hardship during strike periods per-iods was offering a victory-flushed one-million-dollar loan to the C.I.O. United Autmobile Workers union. THE PURPOSE of the loan would be to help the UAW win new contracts from Chrysler and General Gen-eral Motors. Lewis wrote Walter Reuther, head of the giant auto workers union, that wage-welfare improvements in the coal industry were fought by money interests linked with "the financial group" which dominates car-making. He added that this aid is needed so "your union may be assured beyond be-yond preadventure, of success in its present struggle." Reuther was In the midst of a long strike for pensions at Chrysler corporation. At the time of Lewis' offer, it was estimated UAW workers had lost 35 million dollars in pay and the A sensation was caused in British political circles when Lord Beaverbrook's conservative conserva-tive London Evening Standard named War Minister John Strachey (above) "an avowed Communist." COAL: A Look Ahead The most crippling coal strike in the nation's history had come to an end. Miners were pouring back into the pits and allied industries, faced with a threat of total shutdown, shut-down, were reviving and calling men back to work. John L. Lewis, United Mine Worker chieftian, apparently had won again. He had obtained a raise in pay for the miners along with additional health and welfare benefits. ben-efits. But as the nation relaxed with a sigh of relief that the production-stop production-stop threat had been removed, leaders in the coal industry began to look farther ahead to examine methods by which a permanent coal peace might be won. Leading mine operators stated they hoped to complete arrangements arrange-ments to have Harry W. Moses, head of the "captive" mine subsidiaries sub-sidiaries of the United States Steel corporation, to leave big steel and devote all his time to handling the coal industry's dealings with Lewis. APPOINTMENT of Moses as a full-time representative of the soft coal industry in its relations with the UMW is designed as a move to end the chaotic conditions that have existed in the mine fields for years. The move has the support oi virtually all the principal operators opera-tors in the north and west and was expected to win strong favor among southern operators as well. - A lasting industry peace has long been the goal of operators and the public, which is beginning to tire of the almost annual war of nerves between the mine union boss and operators while the nation stands almost helpless without fuel. JOBLESS: Hit New Peak Again jobless numbers In the United States had catapulted to a new high, and again the federal commerce department appeared unperturbed about it. Unemployment rose to 4,684.000 In February the highest figure since 1941 when the total was 5,620,000. DESPITE THE FACT that many industrial and economic leaders professed to see danger in the situation, sit-uation, the commerce department came up with the usual bland, unconcerned un-concerned explanation as to the cause of the big jump in unemployment. unemploy-ment. As was stated in January when jobless figures appeared alarming, Another Shirley company 250 million dollars. Help for Reuther was authorized at a jubilant meeting of Lewis with his top union aides, where Lewis was said to have boasted that he had "licked" the strike-emergency injunction provision of the Taft-Hartley Taft-Hartley law, inasmuch as a federal court injunction issued under the law failed to halt the coal strike. MOST of the big U.S. industrial concerns feared that Lewis' victory over the coal operators in the matter mat-ter of wage increases and additional addition-al health and welfare benefits would touch off a series of strikes as other unions sought to do as well for themselves. Coal was being mined again and industry's wheels were turning, but the immediate future appeared grim and uncertain. The question seemed to be: When and where will the next strike erupt? It seemed inevitable to even a casual observer that another round of wage-hike fights was in the making. FRENCH-SAAR: U.S. Worried United States high level diplomats diplo-mats had a new and aggravating problem on their hands: The suddenly sud-denly critical French-German split over the Saar region. The situation was complicated when France and the semi-independent government of the coal-rich Saar signed a pact under which France would take the Saar's coal for the next 50 years, which the German chancellor resented. commerce department boss said: "The slight rise in unemployment unemploy-ment between January and February Feb-ruary (204,000) appears to be due mainly to seasonal increase in the labor force and not to any cutbacks In employment." But was that the case? Wasn't it logical to assume that an "increase "in-crease in the labor force" meaning mean-ing unemployed but available labor meant a corresponding lack of employment for that same force. IT WAS SIGNIFICANT, many observers felt, that the figure as reported did not include striking workmen, a fact that meant the unemployment picture was not distorted dis-torted in that sense. Why was unemployment apparently appar-ently steadily increasing? How would the "seasonal turnover" explanation ex-planation hold water? If there were serious threat of widespread unemployment in the nation, it seemed the government should ascertain the fact. ARCTIC ARMY Large masses of men never could be pitted against each other in Alaska, or other Arctic wastes, as they were in the last war, according ac-cording to military experts who led the recent mock warfare in the Alaska sub-Arctic; but they couldn't agree on why that is the case. One reason given was difficulty diffi-culty of transporting supplies, another an-other was that there simply isn't enough room. In Germany they are comparing com-paring s i x-year-old Dagmar Glombig to America's Shirley Temple when the latter was rising to stardom as a child in Hollywood. Dagmar is the daughter of composer and conductor Eberhard Glombig and has played In several German Ger-man films. RUSSIA: Parley Proposed That there was at least a possibility pos-sibility of a Big Four meeting including Russia taking place was indicated by a report from Paris that the three western foreign ministers, min-isters, meeting in London, would discuss the matter. French Foreign For-eign Minister Robert Schuman was the authority for the statement. From another authoritative source came word that the Big Three would "study the problems." |