Evening star., 1945-12-14
Return to Rutioninq
Likely, Writer Warns
Resumption of Housing Controls
Is Significant Symptom, He Adds

Resumption OF Housing Controls
Is Significant Symptom, He Adds
By David Laurence
The warning economic factions may
not have intended it that way, but one
major effect Of the current labor dis
putes may be to bring back rationing
and priorities in the distribution Of
certain materials and goods. Z
The resumption Of controls. over hous-
ing and the channeling Of products for
residential building rather than con-
struction of commercial establishments
is a significant symptom. 1t may mean
that the era Of responsibility and Of
every group doing as 1t pleases is end
ing. For in a period when an infia-
ton, based on a scarcity of goods de-
velops, it becomes necessary to consider
drastic controls, not only on prices, but
on the orderly distribution Of such
goods as are available.
When VI day came, President Tru-
man and his advisers liberated the eco
nomic system from many of the war
time controls. Britain took no such
precipitate action. In fact, the party
in power there asked for an extension
of wartime powers for five years to
clear up the aftermath OF war.
Scramble for Goods.
Mr.. Truman was advised that In
America the free enterprise system
should be permitted to function with
out Government controls. Accordingly.
scramble for goods and economic
power ensued, with the result that the
Nation has suffered billions of dollars
Of loss in economic production through
the stoppage Of work and the tie-up Of
truck transportation facilities.
In the four months since VI day
the American people have been de-
prived of an enormous amount Of pro-
duction because reconversion has been
retarded and the plants that would
ordinarily make civilian goods have not
been able to get good start.
In many essential products needed
for housing, as, for instance, heating
and plumbing supplies, there are bottle
necks in production and soaring prices
for the small amount of goods available.
When the veterans are all back and
find 1t difficult to get homes to live in
or jobs, they will become embittered.
The administration might find it nee
essary to reimpose some of the economic
controls of wartime because the jam in
the distribution of products Is rapidly
Congress will soon be asked to ex-
tend the Second War Powers Act so
as to continue certain price and ma
terial controls. BY next spring the
economic disorder may be such as to
revive demands for economic planning
and a controlled economy.
One Way to Stop Strikes.
II imitation is to be stopped, it may
be necessary to resume wage and salary
control because the administration is
finding it difficult to get even the
simplest kind of legislation through
Congress to help settle strikes. If the
present wage and salary stabilization
law has to be extended, the administra-
ton would have the authority by ex-
ecutive order to recaptre complete
control Of wages. This, in turn, would
mean the revival Of boards to handle
labor disputes and to fix wages. This
is one way to stop strikes.
Nobody in the administration will
predict that such a course is to be
taken. In fact denials will be made
that anything Of the sort is contem-
plated. But, on the other hand, nobody
in the Truman administration knows
what action is going to be compelled
if the economic confusion now prev
alent leads to such stagnation and
such widespread unemployment that
the only way to stop the goods infla-
ton" or the wage imitation" is to re-
vive drastic wartime controls. The ad-
ministration may be compelled against
its own desires to adopt such a policy
once more.
The fact is that inflationary trends
are in operation in many categories
and only the exercise of authority un-
reverse such trends. The drift toward
an economic crisis in the early part Of
1946 will be accentuated If there Is .
steel strike. This in itself may be the
signal for resumption Of more wartime
controls, such as now have been imposed
on building materials. For it seems in
credible that the administration will
permit the Nations steel mills to shut
down and completely disorganize the
manufacturing industries of the coun-
try, so many Of which use steel or its
by-products.
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