The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-04-03

Berge, in charge of the Antitrust division, has already started to train a staff to process these pro- posalS.
 First principle will obviously be that no sale will be approved if it will tend to give anyone monopoly in anything.
 A corollary may well be that sales of surplus war plants will be frown- ed on if the buyers intend to shut them down just to remove their productive capacity from competi- tion. This represents an interesting tie-up with the administration s free enterprise, small business, full employment policies. The contribu- tion any sale will make toward post war employment will thus become a test of merit for any prospective purchaser
 ALUMINIUM PLANTS
 AS TEST CASES
 As an example of how these anti trust restrictions may be applied, disposal of surplus aluminium pro- ducing and fabricating facilities may offer early test cases. The gov- ernment now owns nearly 100 alum- mum plants, valued at over 300 million dollars. The governments nine aluminium ingot producing plants now represent 42 per cent of the total industry capacity. Alum mum Company of America owns 38 per cent, Reynolds 16 per cent and n1iN ENrnnPofiA,n fh4
 Only two of the government ingot plants have thus far been declared surplus. Both have high operating costs and nobody wants them. Navy is now using the Queens, New York, plant for storage, while Army has taken over the Burlington, N. J., plant as depot.
 When 1t comes to disposal of the aluminium ingot plants which might be used by private industry, a cou- pie of complicating factors enter the picture.
 First, the Small Business Con- mittee of the Senate has launched an investigation of the light metals industry. That lends another de- cidedly anti-monopolistic cast to the proceedings.
 Second, the U. s. Circuit Court of New York, acting for the Supreme Court, has ruled that the Aluminium Company of America did formerly have a monopoly on ingot produc- tion. The point generally overlooked was that the Circuit Court with held judgment on whether the Aluminium Company should be dis solved, saying in effect that this should wait on disposal of govern ment facilities to see what the pat tern of postwar ownership might turn out to be.
 The implied threat here is that if the Aluminium Company acquires much additional ingot producing capacity it will have to be dissolved as a monopoly.
 ASKS GOVERNMENT
 GUARANTEES
 A recent government witness be- fore the Small Business committee, Samuel Moment of the Bonneville Power Administration, even went so far as to say that the government 0AASAAA A10AC oANAA 4dVOI dUlC UCIIIlo of sale or lease to new producers that their market would be guaran- teed for five years, through pur- chases for a government stockpile.
 Department of Justice gets its authority to advise on surplus prop erty disposal from two sources. Con- gross reserved to itself the right to approve sales of property costing more than five million dollars. But in the Surplus Property Act the Department of Justice was given authority to pass on the disposal of all properties costing more than one million dollars, and in the War Mobilization and Reconversion Act Justice Is required to report to Con- gress on the growth of monopolies.
 Attorney General Francis Riddle has already submitted two such re- ports to Congress and he has an- nounced plans to make other re- ports on monthly basis. The Anti Trust Division considers 1t has mandate from Congress to serve as watchdog on the whole surplus DrODertv disnoSal nr00ram