The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-12-18
By sAND0R s. KLEIN

Weenlnktous OeC. 10 - AOEl N huge backlog of surplus govern lnent property is piling up. The greatest portion of it is still being held by the owning agencies, such as the Army, Navy and Mari time Commission. Only about q third of the estimated surplus has been released by these agencies for sale or other methods of disposal. And only about Q tenth Of this has been sold.
 Why7 This writer asked that question of top officials in the sur- plus property picture. A former ofn- cial, who threw Up his hands and quit because he thought the job was Impossible" was asked his views. All agreed that the government had Q mess" on its hands but each saw a different reason. The Army and Navy were at fault, said one. Bad administration in the field by dis posal agencies, said another. Re- strictive, confusing policies set by the Surplus Property Administra- tion, said still another.
 Describes Disposal Briefly, this is the way surplus property is handled: the overall policies concerning disposal are set by the Surplus Property Administra- kion under authority from Congress. The SPA does not sell. The owning agencies decide what goods they don't need and declare them sur- plus. Then it is up to the disposal agencies to get rid of them. The Reconstruction Finance Corpora tion is charged with selling plants, plant equipment, planes and con-
 sumner goods. The Maritime Com mission, the National Housing Agency and Agriculture Depart ment also dispose of goods that comes within their sphere of opera tion. The Office of the Foreign Liquidation mmissioner is charged. with disposing of surpluses held abroad.
 To get an understanding of the scope of the problem, it is necessary to cite certain statistics.
 What is the total in goods and
 plants that eventually will be de- clared surplus? No one knows that answer yet but 2,258, ,000, 900 is expected to be declared surplus in the year ended next June 30.
 How much has been declared sur- plus and made available for dis posal so far? The cumulative figure Through November is $10,879, ,058, 900. How much has been disposed? The
 sotal of sales covered property which originally cost the Government $1,- E8O,612,OO0.
 What was the Governments act- Ual return on its sales? $501 !090 900. Small Portion for Consumers Only comparatively small por- tion of the property declared sur- plus is consumer goods, such as au- tomobiles, trucks, clothing, textiles, shoes and other items which are still
 scarce on the civilian markets. Through November, total of $992,- 522,000 worth had been released by the owning agencies and of this amount only $421 ,116,000 worth was sold.
 Oficia1s were careful to point out that large chunk of the property which has been declared surplus so far constitutes airplanes, of which only small percentage was con- sidered salable. The REC, which is charged with aircraft disposal, has sold $170, ,288, GOO worth of planes out of an available inventory of $662,- 852,OO0. In addition, 1t has acquired S4, ,424, 4,170,000 worth of aircraft list- ed as probably not salable." It has disposed of $613 ,274, 900 worth of the latter, mostly for salvage purposes,
 at 8 price of $1,214,O00. The rest of these planes will be destroyed. Another slow-moving item is former war plants. The REC, through November, acquired $1,- 98O, ,126,O worth of surplus plants and disposed of $45 ,860,000 worth at S3s, ,292 900.
 Seeks to Get Rid of Plants Public interest generally is cen- tered in consumer goods. But the Surplus Property Administration says the Governments chief interest is getting the former war plants sold so they can be placed in civilian production and put men to work as quickly as possible.
 The SPA points out that consumer goods represents only small por-