Anti-Trust Action On Steel Firms

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29800, 17 April 1962, Page 15

Anti-Trust Action On Steel Firms

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, April 16. A bill to strengthen the United States Government’s power to break up monopolistic corporations was on its way to the Senate today while Senate subpoenas were being sent to the country’s 12 largest steel companies..

The massive assault mounted by President Kennedy against the six dollar-a-ton increase in the price of steel was continuing although the price increase was rescinded on Friday. The battle’s aftermath found the stock market at a 1962 low, President Kennedy’s prestige at a new high, and the prospects for his whole legislative programme considered suddenly brighter, the Associated Press said.

Pressing ahead with its announced anti-monopoly investigation, the Senate AntiTrust Sub-committee wrote subpoenas for the 12 leading companies to bring in figures on production by the middle of next month. Senator Albert Gore (Democrat) prepared to introduce today three bills to sharpen the teeth of the antitrust laws, A.P. said. Senator Gore said the need for better protection of the public was proved by “this whole episode in which the steel companies made almost uniform price increases and then rescinded them.” His bills would not have been given an outside chance of passage a week ago. Now

they must be regarded seriously, especially since Democratic legislators could be expected to capitalise on the so-called monopoly issue in this campaign year. Senator Gore’s measure would:

Give the President power under the Taft-Hartley law to obtain an 80-day injunction against a general price increase in a basic commodity. The procedure would be parallel to the cooling-off period provided for “national emergency" strikes. Create a national consumers’ advisory board. It would not have binding power but, in a fact-finder’s role, could muster public opinion against increases it deemed unjustified. Broaden the anti-merger laws, so that the same legal yardstick could be used to break up "existing large concentrations” as was now used to prevent certain proposed industrial mergers.

Fewer Jobless

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CANBERRA, April 16 Unemployment in Australia fell by 11,157 in March, but official figures released in Canberra today put the number of jobless Australians last month at 101,093. Of these, 30,781 were youths and girls under 21 years of age. The 70,312 unemployed adults comprised 52,075 men and 18.237 women.