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Show Behind The Scenes In American Business BY John Craddock NEW YORK, March 11 Reports Re-ports of the large industrial companies com-panies for 1945 show that income in-come declined from the level of the preceding year. A compilation compila-tion of returns from 745 leading manufacturing corporations indicates in-dicates a decline of two per cent in net income, according to the National City Bank of New York. However, the figures for the full year do not reveal the size of the decrease in income for the final months of the year. Reconversion from war to peace was an expensive expens-ive operation for many companies, compan-ies, botli because machinery had to be changed or replaced and because be-cause production declined sharply sharp-ly or ceased in some instances. The City Bank summary reveals that the meat packing industry had the sharpest decline in net income, a decrease of nearly 2G J per cent Some industries showed I grains. Beverage makers whose reconversion problem was minor reported an increase of 27.3 per cent and textile producers as much as 20 8 per cent. Manufacturers Manufact-urers of agricultural implements, electrical equipment, machinery, metal products and rubber all showed declines in the aggregate, according to the bank summary. REVOLUTION IN RUBBER This country probably will use 900,000 tons of rubber this year, a new all-time high, and 70 per cent of it will be of the manmadc variety. That's the estimate made in the B. F. Goodrich Company's annual report, which explains that the continuing high rale of dependence on synthetic, even now that the Far East rubber lands have long since been liberated, liber-ated, will be necessary because natural rubber will not be available avail-able in large volume as rapidly as had been expected. The report, signed by Chairman David M. Goodrich and President John L. Collyer, emphasized the "truly revolutionary nature" of the changeover that the war brought, by pointing out that in 1940, cut of then-record American consumption con-sumption of 650,000 tons only 2.000 tons three-tenths of one per cent was synthetic; whereas in 1945 a new record consumption consump-tion of 800,000 tons was attained and of this the percentage of synthetic syn-thetic was 87. provisions of the plan cover 7,941 employees with a total of $36,-458,380 $36,-458,380 worth of life insurance in force. |