Evening star., 1942-04-04
|PricesFrozen
On All PLUMBING
Materials
Abandonment of
Sugar Rotionine
Plan Considered
BY the Associated Press.

Adopting a new technique 10
prevent speculative price in
creases, the ONCE of Price Ad-
ministration today froze at Mon
days level prizes of all types of
plumbing fixtures, preliminary
to a War Production Board order
curtailing their production.
Also fixed at Mondays levels in
an earlier order were the prices of
all household electrical appliances.
There are "A items affected and the
ceiling will be applied Tuesday.
Concurrently. the Associated Press
quoted a Washington dispatch to
the New York Herald Tribune which
said the sugar rationing program
might be scrapped If estimates of
current sugar supplies compiled by
the War Production Board prevail
over the insistence of the Once of
Price Administration.
The temporary plumbing price
ceiling also is effective Tuesday.
Manufacturers, wholesale and re-
tail prices were affected. but prices
charged by plumbers who actually
install the fixtures were excluded.
In the past o. p. A. price-fixing
orders have followed rather than
preceded production curtailments,
permitting prices in some cases to
increase sharply before ceilings were
imposed.
Broader in scope than the pend
ing w. P. B. plumbing order. the
o. p. A. action blankets all types.
kinds, sizes, shapes and colors of
plumbing fixtures, whether made of
china, porcelain or metal.
The appliance price order applies
to the following items having a rated
electrical capacity up to 2,500 watts or
powered by an electrical vibrator
or electrical fractional horsepower
motor:
Biscuit and mufIin makers, bottle
warmers. bread toasters, broilers,
casseroles. chafing dishes, cigar and
cigarette lighters, clothes dryers,
coffee makers. corn peppers. curling
irons. deep-fat fryers, double boilers,
dry shavers, egg cookers, fan-type
heaters, fans, fiatirons, food and
plate warmers and food mixers.
1t also includes grfddles, hair clip
pers. hair dryers. hot plates and disc
stoves, immersion heaters, juice ex-
tractors, massage vibrators, neck
wear and trouser pressers, ovens,
pads and blankets. percolators, port
able air heaters, roasters, sandwich
toasters, smoothing irons. table
stoves, teakettles, tea tables. unit
radiator heaters. urns, vaporizers,
waffle irons, water heaters and whip
pers.
The order applies also to parts
and accessories.
The price ceiling covers manufac-
turers' and wholesalers figures as
well as retail prices, and will remain
in force until June 5, unless super
seded by new schedule.
Rationing is not Immediately con-
templated, said Acting Price Admin
istrator John E. Hamm. because
there is a sufficient stock on hand
or in manufacturing stages to meet
demands for most of this year. The
w. P. B. already has ordered pro-
duction to cease May 81 on . long
list of electrical appliances, while
vacuum cleaner manufacturing must
stop April 80.
Mr.. Hamm said the ceilings were
fixed to prevent runaway prices"
in view Of the w. P. B. order.
A Nationwide registration May
At is scheduled to usher in the
sugar rationing system under pres
ent plans, but it now develops that
approximately 100000 tons more
of Cuban sugar will be available for
United States consumption than
originally estimated, according TO
w. P. B. information. because of a
speedup in the production of in
dustrial alcohol from grain and corn
in the Middle West. This produc-
ton replaces and augments the
stocks of alcohol usually produced
on the Atlantic Seaboard from
blackstrap molasses. by-product of
the manufacture Of raw sugar.
The Herald Tribune said the mat
ter of transportation was the big
difficulty in making the newly found
surplus in Cuban sugar available for
United States consumption. A final
decision was predicted after week
end conferences in New York and
here on the shipping situation.
Meanwhile. confirming earlier re-
ports, J. K. Galbreith. stan deputy
administrator of o. P. A., said an
overall price ceiling proposal was
being studied, along with two other
proposals of what he called the
shelf type-the licensing
of all businesses and a system of
general rationing. No decision has
been reached on the matter, he said,
but discussions are continuing.
BY the shelf-drawer" type he
meant that the proposals were In
the drawer for possible future use
if necessary.
The growing concern of o. P. A.
officials over present price trends
and an indication that sterner &C
ton might be in the off1ng was con-
tanned in a recent remark of Assist
ant Price Administrator Dexter M.
Keezer that 1--WE are losing the battle
against imitation"
Price Administrator Henderson
has staunchly supported heretofore
the piece-meal price control method,
arguing that restraint on the prices
of raw materials and certain key
commodities would serve to stabilize
the entire price structure.
Abandonment of that technique
for something closer to the Canadian
system of general retail price
freeze is permitted, however, under
the Emergency Price Control Act.
So he left Won waiting zt the