| Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS by edward C wayne establishment of price control plan emphasizes need for all out effort war wa r office spokesmen propose plan to eliminate class ta 3 draft group f EDITORS NOTE when opinions are expressed in these columns the art those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this released by western newspaper union 4 77 1 tant ak r am planning their battle strategy members of the allied war council sit in a conference at canberra the capital of australia left to right alai gen richard sutherland gen douglas Ala macarthur cArthur J A curtin prime minister of australia and A IV fadden former prime minister and present member of the war council CEILINGS cover nation the setting of price ceilings on practically every conceivable commodity in the country had been expected by the business world hence it was received with little shock ape the impact on the public had been terrific however and it is certain that business men were surprised at the drastic rules to be adopted by leon henderson to pu put t teeth into the price control plan henderson had made it life or death for business by a very simple procedure he proposed licensing all retailers and wholesalers and if found violating a single one of the price ceilings they would face an instant loss of their license to do business this was a form of control which was not familiar to anyone living in this country in fact without parallel in history and it fell on the business ear with a sickening thud and the merchant could now say 1 I know what it is to be at war german and italian commentators picked this up gleefully and called it a terrific blow to the american americ an way of life as indeed it was an and the president promptly and frankly had admitted it the american answer was however that the american way of life was but being placed in abeyance f for or the time being pending the winning of the war when it would be back again in full flower once more the sugar commercial users had turned out in force to register and the nation was on the threshold of the rationing of this commodity restaurants were planning to meet the shortage by changing their cookery and bills of fare ice cream makers were going to have to shorten their output the candy makers were in for a tough time but in general the spirit was excellent cel lent and while there was some talk of a growing black market in tires and the nation was going to have to cope with that sort of thing hendersons penalties were expected to be sufficient to meet the need and the future was being faced with a good heart by the rank and file of the country whether consumer or producer whether buyer or seller WAGES hold still with the president giving the green light to the program to set ceilings on prices and incomes setting a year net as the latter the question of ceilings on wages came in for much comment but no action the president had taken a strong public stand for the 40 hour houi week continuance revealed that labor in in war industry was constantly working at least 48 hours and pointing out that as price ceilings were not retroactive but were fixed at marahs highest levels he did not favor a program which would reduce the weekly paycheck while there had been much talk about the work week and some proposed legislation nobody had so far had the temerity to come forward with a program to cut everybody Is wages in war industry labor itself had voluntarily foregone the double time for sundays and holidays while holding out for the time and a half for the sixth day of work and the same for a seventh if necessary necessary it was the attitude of the wh white ite house that with rents held to a ceiling and with the cost of living stabilized through commodity price ceilings there could be no excuse for increases in wages the average weekly wage in industrial du plants now stood at 35 a week a revolutionary increase and it was seen that if the white giouse house and the administration stood strongly for no wage increases increase sp then labor trouble in industries should automatically mati cally vanish wages wa 9 es would automatically cally hold s still till it was held by authorities ARMY dependency an effort to get into uniform larger numbers of men with dependents on the ground that men with somebody at home to fight for ought to make as good if not better fighters than any was being made by the army with the suggestion that allowances low ances ought to be made for men with dependents who are with the armed forces this was a revolutionary idea but its proponents declared it was just as sound as the reverse procedure which gave a man exemptions on his income income tax for dependents selective service leaders pointed out that class 3 was the largest class in the entire draft and this was the class they should eliminate allowances for dependents they said would accomplish this the spokesmen for the war department part ment had been maj william S richards and maj francis V keesling of the selective service system keesling had said sixty five per cent of all registrants are in class 3 in our planning for the future we have contemplated tem plated the advisability of further distinguishing between men in this class if congress should pass allowance and allotment provisions for these dependents then class 3 could be abolished altogether under such circumstances single and married men could be inducted in accordance with their numbers only TROOPS down under heavy reinforcements of american troops in australia had been acknowledged by prime minister curtin and there had been a redoubling of the air altac attacks s by american and aussie planes on jap bases most observers believed that the japanese had abandoned any hope of ever setting foot on australian soil but the from melbourne and canberra still stressed japanese concentrations ol of air power to the north and a studied effort was being made apparently to dispel any idea that the men ace had been removed whether this was just a program of playing safe or to give more point to the strides the american australian forces were making with their offensive was hard to say the british seemed to feel that the japs were making their biggest play on the burmese front but admittedly mitt edly if the burmese campaign were to be won then the danger of australia being next would be greater but the dispatches seemed to show that whatever advantage of numbers or equipment there might be on the australian front probably rested with the allies not with the japanese the constant raids on lae sala maua and new britain seemed to be wreaking breaking wre aking increased damage and the supply lines from the united states to australia still failed to report any sin kings of american vessels hence had to be presumed to be open and successfully moving supplies and men the australian front on the whole had so far been a comforting and successful sf ul section of the battle for our side tojo had warned his people that in spite of successes so far they must be prepared for a long war that the victory had not yet been won and that many sacrifices must yet be made this was addressed to a people which had for years been watching with disquiet the failure of their armies to quell or overcome the chinese and now with the whole civilized world on their trail to see still more shiploads ship loads of wounded coming home and to get constant additional dit ional reports of heavy air and land losses FACTORY america winning battle of production men of industry told the nation that as far as they were concerned regardless of what might be the news from the fighting or training fronts the battle of production was being won the top industries in the united states with representatives meeting in chicago had reported airplanes on schedule ships ahead of schedule coal adequate even on petroleum the reports were that production was more than adequate and that the distribution problems were being solved power and construction projects were reported working on schedule the machine tools were said to be adequate in supply As to our steel output it was called 50 per cent greater than the capacity of germany japan italy and all the nations controlled by the axis put together AXIS unrest evident turning to the three axis governments each of them was showing serious signs of unrest the japanese had been jittery since the bombings of their cities by american planes and the certainty that it would happen again and aga again in I 1 in n the future the germans had found hitler suddenly calling the reichstag in session not for democratic purposes but simply to vote him in typical rubber stamp fashion practical life and death power over e everyone and really placing the gestapo in such a position in the reich as even it had never enjoyed before mussolini publicly was admitting serious disorders in italy he cited lack of discipline being reported from many prefectures and that widespread fraud and chiseling chi was rearing its ugly head london was advising caution in in accepting reports that there had been an open break between mussolini and king victor emmanuel but mussolini according to neutral press centers and to italian broadcasts picked up had spoken bitterly of the italian food shortage and had called it italis most serious problem it was from switzerland that the report had come that king victor emmanuel had decided to ask both KING VICTOR EMMANUEL break with mussolini HIm mussolini and ciano to resign and to take over the reins of government himself other neutral circles however had viewed the mussolini talk as a simple prelude to a purge of high fascist officials the hitler talk had been seen in the same way and neutral reports had been that one of the first acts under hillers Hit lers new powers had been the cashiering cas hiering of the general charged with the leningrad area of the russian front where things had been going very badly with the spring offensive of germany in fact russia had claimed that on this front german finnish losses had averaged deaths a day RUSSIA and RAF the royal air force and russia had begun to work like a team on Per germany many and the evidence was piling up that hitler was faced with a spring offensive that might at any moment kick back in his face moscow told of her troops making an important advance of 45 miles in four days 0 on n the leningrad front with terrific nazi resistance overcome in crossing a vital river at the same time the berlin and vichy radios were ad admitting that big battles were in progress in the kurk and orel sectors and that a large scale russian attack well supplied with tanks an and d armored cars had succeeded in breaking through the german lines northeast of orel this was another sector than the one the russians spoke of S so 0 it seemed that the russian successes probably had not been purely local the attack of the royal air force on baltic ports had wreaked wrecked terrific damage and these points s so 0 far removed from england that germany had regarded them as rather safe probably were not well defended but the halifax and sterli sterling ng bombers plus our own owl tour lour motored planes had been able to eat up this distance and to drop pounds of bombs on rostock alone |
