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Show j', aJ" j m General HUGH S. JOHNSON Ja'tr: Uoiud Feature WWU Smtm Washington, D. C. TRANS-ATLANTIC MAIL There is considerable discussion in Washington as to whether the government gov-ernment should subsidize another air transport line between New York and Lisbon to compete with the Pan-American Pan-American Clippers over exactly the same route. In this argument there is little criticism of the marvelous pioneering pioneer-ing work of Pan-American of planning plan-ning and putting into execution this trans-Atlantic service which, due to the war, has become a main reliance for our traffic with Europe, both for mail and important government officials of-ficials and civilians. It is the best similar service in the world and plans for three more sailings a week, six in all, have been made and financed by the company and approved ap-proved by the government No, the argument is neither bad service, high rates nor lack of full co-operation with the government It is the word of evil omen in all American legislative deliberation. There is only one. air service operating op-erating between New York and Lisbon. Lis-bon. The argument is that government, govern-ment, at much greater cost to itself for mail service, should subsidize a much less frequent and initially certainly less efficient service in order or-der that there should be competition on this route. It is the story of the railroads over again. Any kind of public service, such as transportation, has some elements of public helplessness some aspect of monopoly. In dealing deal-ing with early high-handed railroad operators, our government used two checks. One was regulation. The 1 other was to encourage and subsidize subsi-dize competition by parallel railroad rail-road lines at first, later by artificial waterways, airplanes and roads and other special advantages for trucks and busses. The final result of checking by subsidized competition was the mare's nest snarl and tangle of our inefficient and frequently bankrupt railroad web. The report of the Coolidge National Transportation committee, recommending consolidation consoli-dation in three or four single monopolistic monop-olistic systems, showing that the subsidized "competition" idea has proved disastrous and insisting that "the latter (regulation) has been practiced long enough and sufficiently sufficient-ly extended to prove that it dominates domi-nates competition or any other influence in-fluence as the governing law of railroad rail-road practice . . ." The air route business is an exactly ex-actly similar case in which repetition repeti-tion of errors of 70 years ago in ' fumbling toward a solution of the ! railroad problems was urged. The present air route has or will apparently ap-parently soon repay the government through postage what it expends for mail freight which is the "subsidy" in question. If that mail load is divided up. neither company can continue without with-out great loss. DEFENSE LABOR PROBLEM Both Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Hill-man, Hill-man, the Janus-headed duality which is managing industrial mobilization, mobili-zation, have testified that all is sweetness sweet-ness and light on the labor front. They may think so, but hardly anyone any-one else in even remote touch with the situation does. Unquestionably, important sabotage is being used in organizational efforts and attempts to increase wages. This is notably true in some key steel plants in dispute where the percentage per-centage of spoiled work is rising rapidly rap-idly and unusually. This is going on. It is very costly and destructive. destruc-tive. It creates delays throughout the whole production process. It is inconceivable in-conceivable that the government and public can stand for that The whole coal industry and much of the steel industry is threatened with strikes. Management in some cases is far from co-operative. The only method meth-od to deal with this yet made legally legal-ly available to the President, or his two-headed boy in OPM, is to commandeer com-mandeer the plant That means that government takes it over and runs it as an arsenal is run, which in turn means that labor in that plant is working for government directly. All this is being shushed. It has been badly managed from the beginning. be-ginning. It was generally understood under-stood between President Wilson, A. F. of L. President Samuel Gompers and industry, that the "status quo ante" as between labor and management man-agement should remain in defense industries. in-dustries. Thus, except as rising costs of living justified higher wages and the government's two labor boards decided, neither management manage-ment nor labor was to use the defense de-fense crisis to take advantage of the others. At the first defiance of this policy, which happened to occur at the same time on the part of one labor union at one place and one group of manufacturers at another, the government moved decisively and promptly. It decreed the discharge of the recalcitrant workers. It commandeered com-mandeered the recalcitrant plant All the Bubsurface boiling and rumbling Is being shushed by those whose responsibility It is. That seems wrong from every angle. To a casual observer on the sidelines, it seems time to get not only frank but also vigorous and tough. |