Evening star., 1951-01-06
Prices
Continued From First Page)

Continued From First Page)
needed to check the. rise in living
costs.
Mr.. Valentine is equally con-
cerned over the imitation problem,
but he was represented as feeling
that any freeze of prizes will not
work until the Government has
set up the machinery necessary to
enforce such an order.
Because the ESA, of which Mr.
Di Sales Office is a part, still has
a very small staff with virtually no
enforcement officers, Mr.. Valen-
tine still was said to advocate a
largely voluntary price control
policy with mandatory measures
taken only in cases of extreme
price rises by an individual agency.
Such a step was taken recently in
the freeze and rollback of auto
mobile prices.
Wage Curbs to Be Studied.
Mr.. Valentine also was said to
believe that no freeze of prices
should be invoked until the Gov
ernment is ready to impose curbs
on all wages and salaries.
Officials of the Wage StabiliZa-
ton Board say that it is impos-
sible to work out an effective or
fair wage control policy until eff
fective action has been taken to
bring prices IN line. The board,
which also is under Mr.. Valen-
tines ESA, will confer next week
with leaders of industry and labor,
on the problem of wage con-
troll formula.
Mr.. Wilson, former General
Electric Co. president. who three
weeks ago was named by President
Truman as defense mobilization
director, must decide who is right
in this approach to the problem of
imitation control. He was given
top say over economic stabiliza-
ton policy. as we'll as other mat
ters coming under the heading of
mobilization.
| Valentine Still Holds Power.
Early this week, at Mr.. Wilson's
direction, it was understood, Mr..
Valentine assigned to Mr.. Di Sale
most of the authority over prices
which originally had been given
to the ESA director. This was
done to settle earlier differences.
But the new order increasing
Mr.. Di Sales powers say the
price director is still subject to
supervision of Mr.. Valentine as
he deems expedient.
| Officials were fearful that dis
closure of intention to freeze
prices would mean that some
further drastic action would be
needed to halt the activities of
price "chiselers." This might in
clude a rollback of all prices to
December l levels.
Advisory Board Organized.
Meanwhile, Mr.. Wilson has a
new and unofficial advisory board
of top industrial and labor leaders
which he may call in any time
he sees fit.
This group grew out of a secret
meeting held by the leaders in
New York last Wednesday night
which was called by Eric Johnston,
president of the Motion Picture
Producers Association.
Mr.. Wilson took part in the
meeting. The labor representatives
present were AFL President Will
liam Green. CIO President Philip
Murray. John L. Lewis, head of
the United Mine Workers and A.
j. Hayes, president of the machin-
lists union.
The idea behind the meeting
was to obtain full labor manage
ment collaboration in the working
out of defense mobilization prob
lens. The meeting was described
as completely harmonious, with
Mr.. Lewis being especially COOP
erative.
Steel Price Cooperation Urged.
Mr.. Wilson will call the labor
and industry leaders together
again soon.
In other developments:
The ESA asked the steel indus
try to keep prices at the present
levels voluntarily.
The 81 industry men, repre-
senting 19 companies, took the
matter under advisement. No def
mite decisions were made.
Actually the ESA announcement, l
approved by the steel spokesmen,
put it this way: The industry rep
resentatives agreed that stabiliz-
ing existing steel prices on VOL
untary basis, company-by COM
pany rather than industry wide, |
would be a sound and satisfactory
approach to the problem.
The Petroleum Administration
for Defense advised against try
ing to roll back the prices of
crude oil on the Pacific Coast.
AS result, the Economic Sta
bilization Agency is expected soon
to approve the 25-cents-a-barrel
price increase which IL had de-