Show ECONOMIC highlights industrial news review As the united states news recently pointed out this country seems seem s to be copying great britain in getting ready for possible w war ar the united states is getting tough with japan in one ocean says the news it is promising to use force to keep hitler from taking title to territory that may be his through light fight of conquest in another ocean it is denying hitler access to invest ments inside the united states that are arc owned by people he has con peered it is talking about ways to let britain have warships as well as airplanes and guns that belong to the american army and navy any one of these ge gestures overnight can lead to trouble yet the national government is proceeding in slow motion to get set for the time when somebody somewhere may call the bluff there can be no doubt that the american people by an overwhelming wh elming majority approve this governments aggressive pro brit beit ish anto axis policy the government thus simply reflects the thoughts and emotions of its citizens which is what it is supposed to do on the other hand it is probably true that the american people at large have no conception of the lethargy with which the rearmament program is proceeding they have read in their newspapers that congress has approved or is about to approve defense measures involving appropriations of close to to this money is to be turned into clouds of fighting airplanes swarms of tanks and a two ocean fleet which will dwarf the naval might of any other power all that makes an encouraging picture what is not encouraging is the hard fact that government officials and the distinguished industrialists in charge of defense preparations are experiencing a very difficult time in turning the dollars into arms according to the war department an army of is necessary to defend this nations interests in the western hemisphere the department is CL certain ertain that such an army can be raised in an orderly manner least disruptive to the social and economic life of the nation only by compulsory selective lve constriction yet due largely to political reasons the conscription bill has floundered about in congress for weeks and the army has been growing only at the rate of to new recruits a month the two ocean navy under the best of conditions cannot be completed for five years and the best of conditions are not in sight now some ship contracts have been sign ed but nothing seems to have been done to provide needed new facilities for making the necessary armor plate all authorities agree that a gigantic air fleet what ever the exact number of planes is abao absolutely ute necessary but military plane production has been in teased comparatively ively little the germans are su supposed to be able to produce up to planes a month august plane production in this country will total about ships of which a considerable proportion are nonmilitary or are built for export tanks are considered by many to be as vital as pla was german tanks which won the battles of belgium flanders and france franca after aircraft had done the preliminary work of destroying factories 1 and towns and military depots and dis organizing and terrorizing the civilian populations we have not yet put in orders for big tanks of the kind the germans employed so effectively and we have less than light tanks on order we are even moving slowly in producing that basic arm the rifle garrand rifle production runs run around a day which is considered far under the desirable rate and experts have found serious faults in the farrands Gar rands design and operation operations opera tiona a problem which is still being acrimoniously deb debated cited during june and july military contracts signed totaled 00 a big the bulk of it was for naval purposes under a program gr am which has been underway tor for a considers con considerable sidera ble time only about represents orders for the army anny so unless we unexpected happens it will be sk long time before our defense amounts to much except on paper A all 11 this does not mean that we are unable to prepare against warno nation on earth possesses our potential prod production diction Lic tion it simply illustrates I 1 lu the tr tremendous emen dous obstacles that arise when it is necessary to change from a peace economy to 10 11 war economy the tax factor has been a major difficulty present laws make it difficult and in some cases impossible tor for a company to eap exp expand and sufficiently to meet inlet arms program needs T the he legal factor is another as william knudsen of the defense Corn commission mission has pointed out red tape slows matters awn down and officials are in fear of doing things that might after be construed a violation of the precise letter of he law no one can be blamed tor for thi the way government generally works the problem is to readjust the functioning of our government to emergency preparedness needs in such a manner that when the crisis is over we will not find ourselves saddled with dicta tor ship and the liberty we sought to preserve destroyed I 1 |