WAR AND WORKERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 178, 10 November 1941, Page 6

WAR AND WORKERS

AMERICAN EFFORT

COST OF DEFENCE

"Strikes continue to represent an impediment to the progress of rearmament," reported the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, the third largest bank in the United States and British Empire combined America's defence effort is not without hindrances from within. These are many and some of them formidable. The bank above quoted referred specifically to the strike in New Jersey shipyards, when some 500,000,000 dollars worth of naval and mercantile shipping Avas under construction. It also reported a slight reduction in aircraft production for July as compared with that of June, At the time these comments were made the bank Avas able to report that "steel output continues close to full capacity, despite the appearance in recent weeks of some iregularity attributed to shortage of scrap metal." Railway earnings of companies in the first class were 4.07 per cent on property investment for the first half of 1941, compared with •1.32 per cent a j'car ago; but ten of these companies failed to earn • sxpenses and taxes in the first six months of this year. Difficulties were experienced by the railroad companies with their 1,200,000 orgr mised emploj-ees; and a represen- ! tative of the companies stated that tf the demands made by the employees were granted, the "modest net income of the railway system would have been converted into a net deficit of 600,000,000 the demands made exceeding the earnings of the railroads in any rear of their history, and twenty times the average annual net income for the last ten years." War Economy and 1 Wages Lieutenant-Colonel Leonard P. Ay res, vice-president of the Cleveland Trust Company, Cleveland, Ohio, is generally credited with comments made by that institution on economic and financial conditions in the. States. The trust's survey of the situation in Amcraca (as in September) observed that "protective purchasing is the ailment from which American industry is suffering. It is chronic and pervades our whole /society." Reference is made to the extensive stocking-up in goods and materials which, it is feared, might not be procurable later, and because their cost might be higher if purchase were deferred. The trust adds: We have been stocking up too heavily, and producing defence goods too slowly ... If we should continue the process long enough the outflow of finished goods would be ample, but we do not have that much time to spare." Dealing with hours and earnings in defence' industries the Cleveland Bank shows that in ten defence industries hours worked increased by 8.9 per cent from the first six months of 1940 to* the same period in 1941. Hours worked for the first half of last year averaged 40.5 per week; for the first half of 1941 they were 44.1. Weekly earnings averaged 31.22 dollars for the first half of 1940, and 36760 dollars for that of 1941. Base rates of wages are rising and amounts of overtime increasing. , The Cleveland Trut finally remarks that the fact that nearly half of the pay increase of armament workers is accounted for by the increase in hourly earnings is typical of a wartime economy. Although non-durable factory workers are receiving more pay than they were • * j r ear ago, they get most of their increase by working longer hours. Unemployment of white-collar workers, who are paid in terms of a monthly salary, is rapidly disappearing, but the incomes of these workers increase very slowly in war periods. Lindbergh Followers Lindbergh represents a portion ot the American public that is very strong numerically, said Dr C«. Job, erns in an address to the Canterbury University College Graduate--Association. "He represents those who believe in complete isolationism and in having nothing to do with the troubles of Europe. We don't hear much about him, because he gels no press and no radio, but he nevertheless speaks for a big pnrt of the Donulation."