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Show PI ... MS-k.i)fc Jk H Hleasi.'d by Western Newspaper Union. i r: i r ; it a r, o w x i'. its hi p AFTF.K THE WAR' THJ'J FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has invested more than 20 billion dollnrs in var industrial plant? which will be useless for the purpose for which they were erected when the war is over. In many cases these plants are but additions tc smaller plants that were in existence before the war. In but few cases have the plants been directly op-crated op-crated by the government but have been under private management. What will happen to this array of industrial productive capacity is one of the subjects covered by the Bernard Ber-nard Baruch report to the President and being considered by congress. A coterie of bureaucratic heads are urging that the government not only retain ownership, but also that the government operate them on peacetime peace-time products in competition with private industry. These plants are distributed among thousands of communities, and each community in which one is located has a direct interest in the problem of its disposal. There is one illustration illus-tration left over from World War I that can provide a basis for consideration. con-sideration. Hoboken, N. J., is a waterfront wa-terfront town in the New York harbor har-bor area. In it were located the docks of the North German Lloyd steamship company, a German owned corporation. The government seized those docks as alien property. That was more than 25 years ago, and the government still holds them as federal property. During those 25 years the little city of Hoboken has not received one cent of tax revenue from them. Based on the rentals of similar docks in Hoboken those owned by the federal government govern-ment would have earned under private pri-vate ownership $923,993 during 1943. From that sum Hoboken would have collected $478,245 as taxes. As it was, Hoboken got nothing and the loss had to be made up by other forms of taxes, paid by the people of the town. Despite lower rental charges, made possible because of no taxes, the government owned and operated piers have not been used to anywhere any-where near capacity. Ship owners object to the theoretical, regulations and the bureaucratic red tape they rnust wade through to use them. It has resulted in a 75 per cent loss in employment on the government owned piers, and an annual loss of i some six million dollars in retail trade in the town. What has happened in Hoboken through 25 years of government ownership and operation can happen in any community in which the gov- . ernment owns a war plant unless that plant passes into the hands of private owners to be privately operated op-erated when the war is over. Mr. Baruch strongly urges the transfer of these plants to private ownership and operation as a necessity neces-sity in the preservation of our free enterprise system. The problem is actually in the hands of congress and congress will do what the people emphatically demand. FARMERS AND FERTILIZER VIA C.O.D. AGRICULTURAL department representatives! rep-resentatives! in California, and possibly pos-sibly in other states, are advising farmers to buy fertilizer and take a receipt for the cost and amount, with a promise that the government will refund the cost in 1945 from the agricultural department appropriation appropria-tion of next year. In California, where citrus and other fruit and vegetable ranches represent small acreage, the promise is to refund the cost of sulphur fertilizer to the extent ex-tent of one ton per acre up to ten acres. For anything beyond ten acres the refund to be 25 per cent of the cost. It remains to be seen what congress will say about it, and that, of course, depends on who is elected to congress in November. It puts aid to the farmers on a CO D. basis. FREIGHT RATES THE PRESENT FEDERAL TAX on commodity transportation costs is far from equitable for all sections sec-tions of the nation. Transportation on a bushel of wheat from Montana to the sea coast is much greater than from states further east. The transportation tax on that bushel of Montana wheat is more than on the wheat grown farther east, and the farmer pays that difference in the price he gets for his wheat. Justus Craemer of the California State Railroad Rail-road commission proposes a tax on the basis of weight of commodities of different freight classifications. All products of any one classification classifica-tion would pay the same tax regardless re-gardless of the distance transported. transport-ed. That would be equitable for all. TO, AT THIS TIME. BUY a new atlas on the presumption the end ol the war will not see new national boundaries is presuming more than can be reasonably expected. There will be new boundary lines in Europe, in Asia. Africa and the islands is-lands of the seven seas. We are not an imperialistic nation but when it is all over the American flag will replace re-place the banner of the Rising Sun on many a Pacific isle. Some oi the small nations will have disappeared disap-peared from the map of Europe, colonies in Africa will change. |