WAR WILL INTRODUCE NEW INDUSTRIAL AGE

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23717, 15 August 1942, Page 4

WAR WILL INTRODUCE NEW INDUSTRIAL AGE

PATENTS AND PRODUCTION /

When America’s unleashed productive energies are turned into the postwar world, a number of things are going to happen. For one thing, technical skills acquired now are apt to bring about an industrial revolution. For another thing, barriers which in the past may have held back output are going to be down, for a while at least. , . . „ Take the matter of aluminium. Before the war there was only one producer of the metal. After the war there will be at least four. Then consider magnesium, which is one-third lighter than aluminium. Before the war there was only one producer. After the war there will be as many as 10 of them. Before the war, output of magnesium was restricted, according to the Department of Justice, by a cartel agreement with Germany to 4000 tons a year. William L. Batt, of the War Production Board, is now forecasting 360,000 tons production of magnesium annually. In the past, the Justice Department contends, the price of magnesium was artificially maintained. In the future it will be as low as modern technical skills, the output of rival companies, and the fact that it is one of the most widely distributed of metals, can make it. The basic supplies of copper, lead, zinc, and nickel combined are only onetwentieth as abundant as magnesium. Aluminium is the most abundant metal; it is twice as abundant as iron. The war has caused unheard-of production with vast new facilities. And recent consent decrees have made vital patents available to everybody. Arnold Expresses Views Facts like these have led Thurman Arnold, head of the Justice Department Antitrust Division, to do sortie speculating on the post-war world. He gave his views the other day before a Senatorial committee. Second to beryllium, he said, magnesium is the lightest metal known. This lightness does not interfere with its strength. Magnesium alloy has been developed with an. ultimate strength of more than 600,000 pounds a square inch. Because of these qualities and enormous new production, he foresaw magnesium and aluminium competing after the war with older metals in the building and transportation industries. This, said Mr Arnold, will be in conjunction with new techniques. For example, spot welding is just coming into its own. Ford engineers in building bombers have eliminated 375,000 rivets in each aeroplane, Mr Arnold said, cutting weight 10 to 15 per cent., and increasing production 30 per cent. Cargo capacity, said Mr Arnold, has been raised by this and will be increased by other developments.

[By RICHARD L. STROUT in the "Christian Science Monitor.”]

Present aeroplanes, for examnu I 100-octane gasoline-"20 per powerful than the 90-octane easS ,t used by the Germans.” But - duction of a new fuel with a m f# ’ I lane rating ho said, that is. 50 Der „M I more powerful than the present tS* ■ octane gasoline, “will be a tetri. 1 within the year.” After the war artilS i Mr Arnold, if monopoly doesn’t f vcnc. the new fuel will mean cent, for miles to the gallon Court 1 this more powerful fuel with tho . 1 tcnfially lighter vehicles. ma de P °* ■ “cardboard metals" like aluminium ? ' magnesium, and the family flivver i be scooting round the countryside i an amazing fashion. 111 I Transportation costs, Mr ArnnU • pointed out, go into the costs of all S? ; necessaries of life. 6111 “To-morrow, if we can maintain . climate of free enterprise and frd technology, transportation costs will hi far less, transportation facilities win be more abundant," he said. „ Aeroplane Windshields These are only some of the chaneL Henry Ford. Mr Arnold recaUtf s*s’ ready experimenting with a dImK body for automobiles. At present S aeroplanes use a form of plastic callM flexiglass or Incite for windshields in stead of glass. Will flexible plaitkl replace glass altogether after the —say, m wmdowpanes? Chief difficult* at present is that the stuff scratches ton easily. Mr Arnold said that research workers are now trying to harden ths surface of these plastic products Summing it all up. Mr Arnold said we may be on the verge of a new in dustrial age: the “light metal and plastic age.” It has a respectable an, cestry in antiquity, coming down from the stone, bronze, iron, and steel ages None of those other “common" mefek however, is so common as aluminium he pointed out, which is found about everywhere in' clay, while magnesium is abundant, too. Thus. Mr Arnold thinks that thi enormously accelerating production of the war, continuing when peace it made, will alter all sorts of thing# j. our daily lives. That is, Of CQUrst. always provided that maximum production is stimulated by healthy com. petition and not held back by monopolies. The monopoly against which Mr Arnold is driving right now it ths patent monopoly. He believe*, that patents have been distorted from their original meaning of rewarding thr inventor, and that they are now an Instrument of economic control with the inventor just an employee of the cot. poration. “To a small country, unable to put up a million or so in court costs, threat of a patent infringement suit from a big company is a threat of being wined out,” Mr Arnold argues. This doesn’t mean that he objects to patent monopolies on individual products. What he objects to is “umbrella patents” that tie up entire arts, crafts, and industries without recouraa.