New Britain herald., 1917-06-18
COAL AND OIL COST
 ! TO BE SET BY GOVT.
Daniels Orders Producers to Pro-
 vide Supplies for War Purposes MAY DELAY ARMY CAMPS
Canton1nents May NotSBc Ready for Soldiers by September 1-Goctl,als Awards Contracts for New Ships Food Bin Debated in Both Houses,

Washington. June 18.-Secretary Daniels has ordered coal and oil pro-
 ducers to supply the enormous uuan-
 titles needed by the navy at prices to be fixed later by the president when the federal trade commission has de-
 termined a fair rate. The navy will
 use 1,775.00O tons of coal and 50.-
 00O,000 barrels of oil purchased under tnls application of the authority Similarly. steel for the entire navy building program is being bought at 8 rate fixed when Secretary Daniels rejected the proposals of the steel makers as too high.
 Secretary Daniels said today oper- ators had proposed to furnish navy coal at a rate of $2.95 ton at the mine. The navy has been paying $2.SS a ton delivered. The secretary directed the companies to ship inn mediately the orders being pro rated to the trade commission. granted by congress. Unless there are unforeseen develop- ments to hurry, construction of the sixteen cantonments for training the new national army, the first incre-
 ment of 65O,O0O troops will not be in
 training by September l as generally
 has been supposed, and may in fact. not get into training for six weeks thereafter.
 War department officials said to- day that no specific date ever had been set for the opening of training camps. Secretary Baker. however. in
 . letter to- Senator Jones several weeks ago made a suggestion that
 some of the troops be used for har- vesting. spoke of September as the
 probable date of opening the camps and pointed out that most of the har- vesting wouldAbe over by that time. The food bills were pushed to the front in both Houses of Congress and with the personal influence of the president, pressing for their immedf- ate passage, 1t was more than likely that nothin9s would be done until they were disposed of.
 While the bill was being explained to the House by Representative Le- yer as. a measure which would harm no honest business man but would drag crooks and speculators into the sunlight" :" a letter from President wll- son to Representative Borland was made. public, in which the president warned opponents of the bills that should they defeat them they must be prepared to take the responsibili- ty for food conditions and prices which were predicted to follow. The great majority of the House greeted the opening of debate with bursts of applause and approval, but opposition was silently making ready for its attack
 MT. Lever said in his speech: ITO bring food crooks out into the sunlight, but not to injure honest bus
 mess, is the aim of the bill. It is not intended that any honest business man shall be hurt. It is the crook
 that shall suffer in the sunlight and 1t is the crook, unpatriotic, selfish and greedy, that we are after.
 .'The contest between German au- tocracy and American democracy will be determined in the end by the
 character and strength of organiza- ton which one can put against the other.'' Contracts for ton more steel mer- chant ships complete and. for 24 ad- ditional wooden hulls were annonced today by Major General Goethals, general manager of the emergency delivered in 1918. The steel contracts went to the Se- attle Construction and Dry Dock company of Seattle. Ten of the wooden hull contracts to the Foun- dation company of Newark, N. J., twelve to the Groton Iron Works of Noank, Conn.,, and two to the Ship Construction and Trading company of Stonington, Conn.
 The fleet corporation now has con tracted for a total of 13s ships and hulls. Complete steel ships contract ed number 2S. complete composite ships B and complete wooden ships 30. Contracts have been let for 4S wooden hulls